Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Towards the end of last year I decided to buy a cross trainer.  I’d gone from covering about 100km a week commuting by bike to just walking down the stairs and sitting down.  In the middle of winter, with snow on the ground and temperatures stuck below zero it would be great, I thought, to have a means of exercising right here in the house.

Unfortunately, by this time the global shipping industry was moving even less than I was, so the cross trainer sat in a shipping container in the Port of Antwerp for a couple of months. Then Brexit got involved at the end of January, leading to a further delay.

Eventually though, it arrived.  As we stared at the hatchback sized parcel taking up most of the kitchen i reassured my wife: “Most of that will just be packaging – polystyrene and cardboard – no way it’s that big”.  It was that big.  It is that big.  “It folds up…” i offered, meekly.

So now it sits in the playroom / office / “gym”, looming over me like an Aluminium and plastic menhir while I work and being ignored in favour of being outdoors now that the weather has improved.

So why am I telling you all this ?  Well, the cross trainer is about to get busy.  After hearing something on the radio about “5k a day in May” my wife teasingly suggested that I could do that on “the machine”.  "Easy" I replied.  

Things escalated quickly.  So now I’ve talked myself into covering not just 5km a day, but 10km a day (average) throughout the month of May, with a target of losing 5kg in weight (I've checked the NHS website and whilst it's at the top end, it still falls within the limits of what's safe).  Oh, and i'm giving up booze for the month too.

So there you have it, my fundraising triple header for a really great cause.  Please check out www.euansguide.com for more info and, if you can, drop them a few quid to support their work.