Almost nine years ago beloved dad, or Pop’s, was diagnosed with lung cancer, actually he was diagnosed with two types of lung cancer, which we think is due to him being an awkward sod, a sentiment which he fully agreed with, and always having to be different, both of which seem to be a Gaffney family trait. He defied the medical odds in spectacular fashion but his luck finally ran out on May 14 2013.

We were lucky enough to know that he loved us as much as we loved him and to also know that one of the things we know he was most proud of was the daft races that his kids do, such as Tough Guy, Total Warrior and Tough Mudder. There's probably not a doctor, nurse or random passer-by that's wasn’t regaled with our idiotic escapades involving mud, ice, electrocution and fire. This year we've signed up for a few events such as The Wall, Scotand Coast to Coast and the Rat Race Dirty Weekend.

We completed the dirty weekend, all 20 miles, 200 obstacles on the 11th May, billed as being tougher than Tough Guy and Tough Mudder back to back and featuring record breaking obstacles, like a 110 metre monkey bar crawl.

As usual we were under trained, Sean still only has one leg and was suffering from torn knee cartilage on the remaining fully formed one; Fiona had completed her first marathon less than a week before and was in the process of losing both her little toenails, which is far more painful than it sounds, which left Kerry in the unusual position of being the fittest in the team, which was not very, and all of us were weighted down by the heaviest of hearts.

To say it was a challenge is an award worthy understatement, as the rest of this year will be as attempt to complete a 69 mile walk across Hadrian’s Wall, 105 miles of the Scotland Coast to Coast, plus various other challenges like Survival of the fittest Cardiff and London. Fiona’s also ran a marathon, plus lots of half marathons, with Kerry and Sean joining in for the off 13.1 mile jog on occasion too.

In short, we’re putting our bodies through a lot this year.

Over the last few months of his life Pops, or the Laird of John O'Groats if you want to be particularly formal, received excellent care from our stepmum, Chris, aided by MacMillan nurses, and we want to raise as much money for the latter as possible so that others that need it can receive that care too.

So if you ever met our Dad and shared a pint with him and hoped to do so again in future, put that cash to this cause. 

You can keep up-to-date with what we're up to on our blog, 

Thanks,

Kerry, Sean and Fiona