Dear Reader - thanks for visiting my JustGiving page!

I've set this up in memory of my late Aunt - Vicky. For those of you who didn’t get the chance to meet her, she was a wise cracking, fun-loving cricket addict with no small rebellious streak, and she could teach all of us a thing or two about how to enjoy life.

She had a genetic condition called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) - commonly known as Brittle Bone Disease. This meant a few things. One was that she was given only months to live at birth - not much was known about her condition back then - due to her bones constantly fracturing. Another was that she spent much of her life in a wheelchair, and in pain. However, she was often more cheerful than the rest of us manage to be - and fulfilled many of her life's ambitions - watching cricket in the west indies was one of her favourites. She was a true inspiration to us all.

OI / Brittle Bone Disease is rare - affecting approximately 1 in 20,000 births - and affects people in a range of different ways. The Brittle Bone Society (BBS) work in the UK to help people get the right wheelchairs and other equipment to live life to the full. Vicky supported the BBS throughout her life, and it means a lot to me to be able to support them now.

Here is a short youtube video describing what the charity do.

This summer, I will be going on my first bike-packing tour. This means camping. We (there’s four of us) have booked a ferry to St Malo in Northern France, and we have 6 days to ride as far as we can before we loop back for the ferry home again. About all I know so far of this is that I will be riding up hills with a tent, sleeping bag, food, lock, lights, spare clothes, tools, spares… the list goes on. And I’m of course I have a trendy town bike, which could yet turn out to be wholly inappropriate for the exercise. Those of you who know me will be aware that I’m something of a ‘fair weather’ cyclist – excepting a week of Colorado mountain bike madness last year I am more used to a sunny summer Sunday pootle followed by a cappuccino – so this could be a bit grittier than I have become accustomed to.
We haven’t quite finalised our route yet, being very blokeish about this, but we’ll see if we can cover 600KMs - I’ve set a fundraising target of £1 / KM….. I will let you know how we get on!

Thanks for reading and thanks in advance for your donations!