Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page and for reading Poppy’s story.

My Dad has recently been diagnosed with early onset or ‘young’ Alzheimers Dementia at the age of 59. One of the most obvious symptoms of the Alzheimers disease is the Dementia that accompanies it, and this is something that is starting a huge impact on his and my mum’s day to day life.

Dementia UK provide Admiral Nurses through the charity and these nurses have provided invaluable support to my parents since my Dad received his diagnosis. Admiral Nurses help people living with dementia stay independent for longer – and support the people caring for them so that they will have the strength to cope with the bad days, and the energy to enjoy the good days.

After sitting down with her and talking to her about the disease and what impact that will have on my Dad (or her Grandad - Grumphs as she calls him) my 5 year old daughter Poppy has decided that, to help raise money for Dementia UK, specifically the Admiral Nurses, she would like to undertake a big challenge.

She is a very keen and capable walker (having already tackled a number of difficult hikes over the last year, including the Old Man of Coniston in the Lakes) so we agreed that a challenging but realistic target for her to tackle over the course of 2025 was 400 miles!

When I asked her if she thought she could do 400, her response was ‘yeah, of course - I’ll smash it and walk way more than that!’

If she reaches her target of 400 miles earlier than expected, we’ll increase the target to 500 and keep fundraising.

This is entirely Poppy’s challenge, and something that she wanted to do for Grumphsy after seeing a number of other children raising money for charities in similar ways.

Thank you for your support 🫶🏻