The end of 2025 marks seven and a half years without our incomparable mum. It's painful, it's nonsensical, and it never gets any easier. I started running at the beginning of October for the first time in, essentially, a decade. It's painful, slightly nonsensical, but it DOES get a little easier 😉 I wasn't going to say anything about it until I'd finished my Couch-To-5k programme, but then this '12 Runs of Hope' email popped into my inbox and I just *had* to bite.

Mum loved Christmas and, like for so many others, the festive period can be incredibly difficult when dealing with grief and loss. So I hope this challenge can temporarily soothe both my pain and the pain of others while trying to raise money for such an horrendous illness.

For those of you who didn't know her, Mum was an absolute light. Her smile had the power to transform every room she walked into, and I still miss making her laugh until she cried. She didn't smoke, yet found herself mindbogglingly diagnosed with one of the most common lung cancer types for smokers back in 2017. We lost her less than a year later – a year and a half after we had lost our dad.

I know money is tight. Oooooof, it's beyond that, let's be honest. The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation is the ONLY UK charity to focus solely on lung cancer and therefore every single penny makes an unbelievable difference. Mum was, heartbreakingly, beyond the point of curative treatment at diagnosis, but the RCLCF know that, if lung cancer is caught early, curative treatment IS possible.

Big love, one and all.

Here's to a time when ALL cancers are treatable.