Well, the past 12 months took an unexpected turn.

We should be getting ready to walk from Moorfields Eye Hospital to the London Eye for our 4th year on the trot. I think the 2020 walk was the last actual thing we did. But instead, for reasons well-known, the Eye to Eye walk is coming to our neighbourhood this March and so we are walking 5 miles with Milo and MAISIE WITHOUT THE BUGGY! (Every year I predict she will not fall asleep. Could THIS year be her year?) 

Despite being in lockdown for the majority of the past 12 months, Maisie has not held back and has visited Moorfields 5 times. Two trips to eye A&E (I scratched her cornea with my finger nail when she climbed on top of me in the middle of the night 😖, she started seeing pink out of one eye 🤷🏼‍♀️) and then for 3 routine check ups. Even in the midst of a pandemic, where the guidance is unclear and ever changing, the staff has been calm, fun, understanding, patient, kind and professional. As ever, their priority is that Maisie feels comfortable and relaxed before they attempt to examine her (sorry to the person waiting after us when Maisie and the orthoptist got into a lengthy discussion about which puppy or kitten they would choose and why on Google images when she was crying because she was scared of their masks and visors). They have put thought and effort into making the children's waiting area as Covid-friendly as they can, by providing individual play and pen packs and funny leaflets about PPE making the doctors like superheroes, whilst putting themselves on the front line to make sure we can always get the urgent care Maisie requires. 

Maisie continues to amaze us in how she embraces all her eye stuff. She has started school now and is patching there like a champ. Her vision has seen a slightly improvement 👏 and because of that and her impressive compliance, plus the fact that she only has a couple of years left to establish her lifelong vision, her consultant has asked her to patch for six hours a day. That is HARD for her to spend six hours with very limited vision and my gut reaction was slight anxiety/dread about it. However, to give you a typical example of Moorfields care, the consultant spun it to Maisie that not just ANYONE gets to patch for 6 hours, only very strong and special people are asked to do this. She then sent Maisie an email the following week telling her how pleased she is about Maisie's good patching and that she is very clever and grown up to understand how important it is. Maisie has totally got on board with this and proudly and randomly tells people she does 6 hours now and that actually she prefers 6 hours to 4 hours 🤭🤥 ! It felt very strange to hear out loud that there is such a relatively short window left to establish her vision. Crazy to think she has done almost five years of patching. I remember so clearly sitting in the room at the first appointment when Maisie was 10 days old and the consultant talking about the years of aggressive occlusion therapy that would be needed. My goodness, the patching days have been excruciatingly LONG at times, but as the cliché goes the years really have flown by.

ANYWAY! Here comes the begging. We know what a rough, rough year this past one has been for everyone. In so many different ways. You have helped us to support Moorfields so amazingly over the past 4 years. It make me emotional to think of your kindness and you really have made a huge difference with your donations. Moorfields Eye Charity knows Maisie well now and they phoned me to ask my opinion on whether a remote Eye to Eye event could work. We are key players in their fundraising because of YOU! And they really, really need us this year. It has been such a difficult year for fundraising. 

We are walking 5 miles this year. A mile longer than usual.

Could you donate £5, PLEASE? 

Have you saved £5 by not being able to go to the pub or out for dinner or on holiday this year? Send it our way! It would make such a difference to the charity and to so many people's future eye health. Possibly even to you and definitely to someone you love. They are doing some very exciting things. Have a look. You'll spot Maisie on their website, too!

Thank you as always xxx