Almost two million people in the UK are living with sight loss that has a significant impact on their daily lives. Of those, around 180,000 rarely leave their homes alone and lead lonely, isolated lives.

Guide Dogs works for a world where people with sight loss are never left out of life, for a world where being blind or partially sighted is not what defines you. A world with enough support to make the challenges of sight loss no barrier to fulfilling hopes and dreams.

Thank you for taking the time to find and to read my fundraising Just Giving page(s). I am very grateful for your interest in my challenge - to walk Coast to Coast across England, from West to East, using Hadrians Wall as the marker guide for the majority of the walk. We start our challenge on Monday 03rd August.

The distance, when all is completed and allowing for diversions and any map reading errors will be just about 100 miles in total. Along with my walking companions, John and Tim, we aim to complete the walk in around 6 days.

I intend to keep a running blog on this page so those who have pledged donations or are simply interested in following our progress will be able to share the highlights and (hopefully not too many) lows, on a day by day basis. I will update the page nearer the time to show how the preparations have gone.

Guide Dogs have been a peripheral aspect of my life for many years - either through organisations I worked for collecting donations from staff to sponsor a dog through its training - or through friends and colleagues who through their own circumstances, have required the assistance of a Guide Dog themself.

To witness the relationship between a Guide Dog and its owner is truly special. The dog allows the person to regain to some extent a degree of independence that they may or not have had prior to receiving their dog. Both benefit from the companionship and trust that bonds them together.

Please, if you are able, support me in my challenge to raise monies for this worthy charity and, in doing so, help to change the life of one of our friends, neighbours, countrymen by going some way to helping Guide Dogs to continue their invaluable work in sourcing, training, and matching dogs to their owners but also in providing the necessary aftercare that these magnificent animals require and deserve.

You will notice that I am supporting three distinct and separate charities on this, my 2nd long-distance walk since recovering from Covid.

There is no compunction to pledge to each of them - (unless you are feeling particularly generous!) - even if you can only pledge a small donation, if many people do likewise it soon adds up to a lot of money.

Thank you for reading this far, keep checking in for updates.

Best wishes,

Perry