Hi everyone,

It appears I have now joined that annoying 'club' of banging on about half marathons... don't worry though, you'll never see me doing a full marathon (unless I seriously get going with that midlife crisis)!

In all seriousness though, I've been running solidly for nearly 2 years now as it helps quieten the constant noise in my brain and also trying to keep my heart in check as I slowly crawl my way to the big 4-0, so I though this would be a good challenge to set myself.

I'm not even sure where to start with Footprints and what this charity means to us as a family. This charity saved us at a time when we were completely and utterly lost and terrified - the days we realised we were part of a community that we never wanted to join, but actually turned out to be something quite beautiful and helped us to see things form a different perspective.

Footprints is a Nottingham based charity which transforms the lives of children living with mobility and communication difficulties across the East Midlands. Their work is inspired by the principles and practices of Conductive Education, a holistic education approach developed to help children with disabilities consciously learn the life skills that come more naturally to others. Their work encourages the development of physical, communication, social, sensory, self-help and thinking skills, such as sitting, standing, touching, listening, looking, eating and playing.

They work closely with the child and their family in a safe, positive and supportive environment to encourage and motivate each child's desire to achieve tasks. At the same time, they give families the knowledge, confidence and strength to cope with the disabilities their child lives with and understand how they can help.

Footprints combined every type of therapy into it's weekly sessions that, privately, would have cost us an absolute fortune. We can hand on heart say that Max's developmental progress would not have been the same had it not been for Footprints and we couldn't be more grateful and thankful to live in an area where (at a time where so many cuts are being made to essential services for disabled people and their carers) this service was available to us on our doorstep.

Please, from the bottom of our hearts, if you can spare any amount of money for this amazing charity, it would mean a lot to us if you could donate.