Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

As with many of us, I’m fed up with lockdown and am feeling a bit cabin feverish. I therefore decided that, in order to spur myself into action, I needed a mission .. since many of the smaller charities are struggling during the pandemic without being able to carry out the fundraising activities that they normally do, I decided that raising money for a charity was a good way to show them that we still care, as well as giving me a reason to get out and get active again.

I have therefore decided to raise money on behalf of Grinshill Animal Rescue Centre.

Grinshill Animal Rescue is a small family run rescue centre that has been running for approximately 35 years. They aim to rehabilitate and rehome all animals to suitable homes, but they also offer a permanent sanctuary to those dogs and cats that are unsuitable for rehoming. Lockdown has been extremely hard for them because, although there is no money coming in from their regular fundraising activities, they still have to cover the costs of looking after all the dogs and cats in their care: food, vet bills, heating, overheads, etc.

I have chosen to support Grinshill Animal Rescue because, first and foremost, it’s where I adopted my gorgeous dog, Luka, from back in 2005. I have many, many happy memories associated with him and will always be grateful for that. 

Secondly, they helped give me a step up when I first started my dog walking business by taking me on as a volunteer dog walker - allowing me to get some good experience of walking a wide variety of dogs and meaning I had a diverse selection of photos and posts on my Mere Mutts Facebook page for potential new clients to browse through. By happy coincidence, one of my friends later adopted one of the dogs I had walked at Grinshill, so I have also been able to watch her blossom into a happy, contented little dog at her new home.

Sadly, as we all know, there are huge concerns that many dogs will be put up for rehoming once life returns to normal after this pandemic and people discover that the cute puppy they bought during lockdown has turned into a teenage tearaway that they simply haven’t got the time or skills to handle. It is therefore really important that animal rescue centres are able to keep operating through these tough times in order to be there to pick up the pieces afterwards….

When I was trying to think of a challenge to undertake for my fundraising idea, I came across several charities promoting a target of walking or running 100 miles during a month. In my job, walking 100 miles during a month, is nothing .. I can easily clock up 15+ miles a day, so 100 miles would not be a challenge for me. And I REALLY don’t/can’t/won’t run!! So I tried to think of an activity that I could do. As many of you will know, I am partial to the odd bit of kayaking, so hence the idea of kayaking came about.

But why 125 miles not 100? Well, on a few occasions I have attempted (and even managed to complete twice so far ...) the Devizes to Westminster International canoe marathon. The course is 125 miles long and is the longest non-stop canoe race in the world. I had planned to compete in it again this Easter, but, for obvious reasons, the race has been cancelled. So I thought, if I can’t do the race, maybe I could do the distance instead … albeit over the course of a whole month, not all in one go!

This equates to paddling 4.17 miles every day in March and should take approximately 25 - 27 hours of paddling in total.

So there you are .. my challenge to myself is to kayak a total of 125 miles during the month of March and, by doing so, try to raise lots of money for Grinshill Animal Rescue centre. It would really help me to achieve this challenge if you could donate via my JustGiving page. Your support would help ensure that Grinshill Animal Rescue can continue to help rescued animals for as long as is needed.

Thank you in advance for any donation you can make, big or small, it will be very much appreciated. 😊