As a family we're doing various events to help raise awareness for ME. Earlier in the year , all the girls completed various 5k runs and Elodie mastered the art of crawling.

Now it's my turn, so on the September 10th i'll be attempting to swim 10k in the River Dart. I'm rubbish at swimming so it's been a long summer of early morning training and lots of staring at the bottom of the swimming pool wondering why i'm being overtaken by overweight octogenarians.  

Why am I doing it? Well ME or CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) has unfortunately touched both my close family and friends. Anyone who knows someone with ME, can testify to how tragic it is to see a fit, healthy and active person one day be literally reduced to nothing the next, where even the simplest physical task is beyond them. It's a horrible long lasting illness, which can affect sufferers for many years, even decades. It's known as the 'living death' for good reason. 

Despite much wider recognition of the illness in recent years the causes are still unknown and there's no sign of any cure or effective treatment. There's now an estimated 1/4 million sufferers in the UK alone, and still there's very little support for these people or their families. It also affects 25,000 children and is the greatest cause of long term school absence. 

The ME association provides much needed support and funds biomedical research, which ultimately gives sufferers hope that one day they will be able to lead a normal life again.

Any donation will be much appreciated.

Thank you

Chris