Just before Christmas the father of my two younger sons(12&15) finally lost his battle with addiction and fluctuating mental health. This has made me passionate about raising awareness of mental health issues and raising money to support MHF initiatives in the local community.

Swimming from Holy Isle to Lamlash (1.3 miles) has been a dream of mine since October and I have been in training daily for about three months to build up my stamina. I decided yesterday that as I now have a  kayak as my support team I would set the date for the 4th September and use my challenge as a way of raising money for mental health initiatives.