It's that time of year when we dust off our 20 year old Volvo and hope she's up to the challenge of travelling across Europe, starting in St Austell, Cornwall, and ending in Porto, Portugal. As always, we'll be visiting some incredible sights and partaking in many more ridiculous challenges, follow our journey on our Facebook Page.

Whilst charity has always been at the heart of the Banger Rally Challenge (the event has raised over 1.2 million pounds over 11 years for many charities chosen by the teams that join in), this year our fundraising has taken on a more personal element. Edie, my gorgeous niece, was born on the 1st November 2021 and has dealt with more in her first year than many have to deal with in their lifetime. She was born with Beckwith-Wiedmann syndrome, which, among other things, means she has a high risk of childhood cancer. Unfortunately, just before Christmas 2021 we were told that she had liver cancer and would need to undergo chemotherapy and have an operation to remove the tumour. Edie has had an incredibly tough year of treatment, surgery and a long and difficult recovery, but we were completely over the moon to receive the news that she was cancer free in July.

We're eternally grateful to all of the many charities that have helped Edie and my brother, Tommy, and sister-in-law, Morgan, through an exceptionally difficult time, and this year we'd like to raise some money for a couple of them, starting with Great Ormond Street and Young Lives Vs Cancer.

Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital needs no introduction. They are at the forefront of children's medicine and provide ground breaking treatment which changes lives.

Young Lives Vs Cancer, along with many other functions, provide rooms in houses close to hospitals up and down the UK. For Tommy and Morgan living in Leicester, the choice between having to commute hours backwards and forwards to London hospitals or spending thousands on hotel rooms nearby was untenable. Young Lives Vs Cancer offered them a room in Pauls house, just a 10 minute walk from GOSH which meant they could be close to Edie throughout her treatment.

I've linked both of these incredible charities to this page and we'd be incredibly grateful for any donations. JustGiving won't allow me to fundraise for both equally so please pick whichever charity you'd most like to donate to. We'll be sure to keep everyone up to date with our journey across Europe on our Facebook Page, and let you know all the ridiculous challenges our team leaders have in store for us along the way. If anyone has any challenges of their own we're always up for more, for a fee of course...