Michelle worked at Chirozone since 2004 as receptionist and general organiser and brilliant person. Michelle also looked after both my children until they went to school. She did such a good job of this they both called her Mummy Michelle. Despite being diagnosed with a terminal illness in 2017 Michelle continued to work effortlessly at the clinic until August 2018 when things became overwhelming. Keech Hospice took on her care in November of last year until she died in January this year. Michelle was the best and always got on with life without any fuss, and always with a sense of humour!

So in memory of Michelle, it's time to stop talking about it and finally get on with my dream of walking the Pennine Way. I would like you all to donate generously to Keech who did an amazing job of caring for Michelle and her whole family.

If you want to know more about this challenge read on…

Since I was a child I have been fascinated with the moors and countryside of Derbyshire from being taken to explore Beeley Moor by my Grandad and later enjoying the wonderful village of Edale and walking up onto Kinder Scout. The Nags Head pub in Edale is the official start of the Pennine Way and I was in awe of the people with superhuman powers who were able to walk the whole length of the Pennines, finishing 268 miles later at Kirk Yetholm just over the border into Scotland.

The Pennine Way is the Daddy of all of the national trails in England being the first and also the most challenging. I am very excited to have the chance to take the time to complete it, hopefully in one piece without permanent damage. This is not possible without huge support from my husband Anton who is looking after our two children, and my friends at work looking after all our patients so brilliantly so I can walk off into the moors without a second thought!

Our previous fund-raising events at Chirozone have been long distance walks. None of them have been a walk in the park though, as the unpredictable British weather has always intervened!

The first one was ages ago when I was much younger and my ligaments and cartilages were a bit more springy! I walked Hadrian’s wall with my sister. We started off with the whole of the East Coast Train line being underwater! When we finally reached Newcastle to start our journey the Metro system to take us to Wallsend was flooded! We managed though floods and blisters to get the the other end but it wasn’t pretty.

A few years later three of us from the clinic (Tracey, Sharon and I) decided to walk halfway round the Isle of Wight. That was a very long way in a day - almost 30 miles! We were to face gale force winds, driving rain and cold, but finally finished with a bit of sunshine. 

The next Chirozone challenge was in June 2017, the Ridgeway National Trail which we decided to make more challenging by walking it in four days. The weather for this challenge was to be dry and hot, in fact the four hottest days on record! 

So for the Pennine Way I’m going to take it steady - only about 15 miles a day on average - but will be walking the whole length of it in one go. I’ll be walking by myself this time, I can imagine there will be a few testing moments, knee deep in peat bogs and mud, lost on the misty moors, but mountain rescue is at the end of the mobile phone - oh - but there’s no signal for most of the tricky bits!?!  I don’t want it to be easy, but I do want to enjoy it, Michelle would be in agreement with this, she liked to do things properly.

Anyway, I’m sure the weather will make it interesting nonetheless. I do hope you can all dig deep and donate to our worthy cause this year and thank you for reading this!

Best wishes,

Kathryn

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