Neil Courtier, Gills wonderful husband and our good friend, sadly died earlier this year very suddenly of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF).

To that end with the help of Dr Muhunthan Thillai BA MRCP phD, Consultant Chest Physician and Lead Clinician of the Cambridge Intestinal Lung Unit at the Royal Papworth Hospital Gill is establishing an educational scholarship in Neil's name, The Neil Courtier ATS Fellowship. The American Thoracic Society is the largest meeting for chest doctors in the world and is held every May in a different city in the USA each time. It is the most important international conference for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF)where new research and clinical education happens e.g. in 2014 the announcement of our 2 antifibrotic drugs (Esbriet/pirfenidone and Ofev/Nintedanib) were made at the conference. There are 40 registrars training through Cambridge in chest medicine and only a select number will go through Papworth to learn about IPF, some of whom will later become consultants in this area. A grant of £1000 will allow one registrar to travel to the conference to both present their own work as well as learn more about IPF. Applications for the ‘Neil Courtier ATS Fellowship’ will be made To Dr Thilllai through a short 2 page CV and a 500 word outline of what the registrar will achieve by travelling to the ATS.

Hadrian's Wall? Why is frankly beyond our ken, but it feels like the right thing to do! So, having practiced together and built up to walking up to 19 miles a day (admittedly only once), Gill and I are ready for the challenge of finding Hadrian's Wall - a very good place to start. Whether we will stay on the Wall or meander widely is open to speculation (short odds on that one!) but armed with nothing but a compass, a bottle of water and determination we are off on 2 June 2018. Blisters and Tears - here we come!!!