I'd be delighted if you could help me raise (at least) £2222 for the fantastic charity: Shine21. Someone has very kindly offered to match whatever I raise up to £5000, so every pound you donate will raise £2!

Four years ago, on 2/2/22, our youngest daughter Ailsa underwent open heart surgery. She was 4 months old.

Ailsa was diagnosed at birth with Trisomy-21 or Down's Syndrome (DS). DS is a genetic condition whereby Ailsa has an extra copy of chromosome 21. Around 50% of babies (1 in 2!) with DS will be born with a heart condition.

Children with DS will also have some level of learning disability and are more likely to have a range of other health conditions. As with any child, it's impossible to know what their life will be like from the outset!

Shine21 are an amazing charity who support children with DS and their families. This includes speech and language therapy, support developing fine motor skills, physiotherapy and Makaton (baby sign language) lessons to help children reach their full potential. These are resources that are either not available or not available with sufficient frequency via the NHS.

This is the third year raising funds for Shine21 and I'm so thankful for everyone's donations. This year I'm hoping to repeat that success and to further encourage people to donate I plan to attempt the Lyke Wake Walk.

The Lyke Wake Walk is a 64km slog across the highest and widest part of the North York Moors National Park in North Yorkshire.

I'll aim to complete this within the traditional 24 hours. I might not be physically able to do this, but hopefully it'll provide plenty of opportunity for updates, complaining and shameless reminders to donate to a very good cause.

Thanks for reading and also, hopefully, for donating.