Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

I'm raising funds for Men Matter Scotland.

A lot of this is in the memory of my great friend Alasdair McKee who died last November.

I'm running the Men's 10k in Glasgow on Sunday June 18. I haven't run a race for some time. A combination of injury, lack of time, lack of motivation. The usual stuff. But, I know how good running is for mental health. There's not much better. When we were youngsters, myself and Alasdair had some great skirmishes running. Sometimes I'd beat him. Sometimes he'd beat me. It mattered. But it didn't really. It was great fun and there's priceless memories.

I'm also having a birthday party on Friday August 4. Back in January when thoughts came round to the big 6 oh I wasn't going to bother with a party. I was a bit down after Alasdair's passing. It was January. In Scotland. Cold. Dark. I was just fed up. But gradually it dawned on me that I have fantastic pals. Pals who share my love of music, sport and life in general. A lot of these pals don't know each other. I've often thought, "wouldn't it be great for X to meet Y, they'd get on really well". So that was the clincher. I've lost Alasdair and almost three years ago, lost another great pal, Jeff Maguire. Life's too short. Alasdair and Jeff will be in my thoughts. They always are.

And I thought I could also raise a bit of money for a very, very good cause. It's not of course that Women don't Matter. But we're realising that we men are our own worst enemy. We don't talk enough. Aye, we'll talk about the fitba', rant about the Tories or whatever but we rarely open up to our friends or family about the stuff which eats away at us. I've been very impressed with Men Matter Scotland. They do a great job. Please have a look at their website and see the great work they do.

Any contributions are gratefully received. Thanks! John