After 14 years nonstop in the BB&R Private Client team I’m taking a little break - well a 6-month sabbatical to be precise, starting on the 1st April.

I’ve had some health complications lately and have recently been diagnosed with Dilated Cardiomyopathy - “heart failure” in old fashioned terms. A total reset is required to focus on my health and ensure I’m in the best shape for the next 14 year shift.

A long-term goal of mine has been to walk the entire 630 mile South West Coast Path and I’m going to be doing exactly that over the course of my sabbatical. In total it will be 8 weeks of walking and close to 35000m of vertical ascents as I traipse from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset, via the entire coastline of Devon and Cornwall.

Inspired by my friend and colleague Davy Zyw and his extraordinarily positive attitude of not allowing his MND to determine his enjoyment of life, I’ll be raising some funds along the way for a charity that is vital for all those suffering HF and very close to my (not quite working properly) heart - namely the brilliant Pumping Marvellous Foundation.

With your generosity and kindness, (and BB&R kindly matching the first £2000 of anything I raise), I have a set myself a relatively ambitious target of £6300 - £10 a mile. I'd love to smash this.

The Pumping Marvellous Foundation are driven by the needs of heart failure patients, carers and family communities we serve. We get to the real crux of the problems, the problems that patients tell us they have. Our communities are large and we have superb interactions with them, we run the largest Facebook page dedicated to Heart Failure globally so we fully understand the needs and challenges they face. We develop and distribute patient information to the vast majority of NHS Heart Failure Teams in the UK.