What's this about?

UPDATE (18 Jan 2012)

The initial fundraising target was £150. This has been well and truly busted now (574% of target as I write), because of the quite astonishing generosity of loads of good people. I'm intending now to leave the page open until the weekend, and am quietly (if publicly) hoping to hit £1000. It's ambitious. Cheeky. If you're thinking of pitching in, please do so in the next day or so, while the page remains open. Many, many thanks.

See below for more background.

Just a couple of weeks ago I decided that I'd try and swim a mile to mark the past poxy year.

The weeked of 15th January marks one year on from us getting the very shocking news that I'd got secondaries again after an apparently healthy 7-year gap. It's been a tricky year: a colossal operation gave rise to (ahem) 'critical complications', weeks in hospital and difficult months of very slow convalescence. Oh, and then diabetes. I'm still quite crocked - can't walk far and can't carry anything, quite a lot of 'discomfort' - but things are slowly, slowly getting better.

And I can, however, swim. The mile is quite ambitious, though. I've been swimming half a mile, but the hike in just a couple of weeks upto a mile is quite a leap.

Anyway, people have been very encouraging, and several people suggested asking for sponsorship, so here's the page. I'd be very grateful for anything you can donate.