Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

I didn’t realise what a devastating affect Alzheimer’s had on, not only the person affected, but also on all family and friends, until my mother was diagnosed with having this dreadful disease. Despite the great care my mother was given, it was heart breaking to see someone who was once so active and so full of a life, eventually having everything done for her. In the latter stages, my mother was unable to recognise anyone in the family and spent her days gazing into space.

The prevalence of this disease is becoming more common with the ever increasing age of our population and it is important that some form of cure or treatment is developed to at least stop the rapid decline into dementia.

Since my mother has passed away our family has tried to do something every year to support Alzheimer’s and this year it was suggested that we do an open water swim!

Myself, and three of my children, Kim, Scott and Sophie will take part in The Great North Swim which takes place at on the 13^th September 2009. We have all been training since March for this and although we are all fairly comfortable with the distance we are all dreading getting into the freezing water!!

So please dig deep and help make this a worthwhile swim for an extremely worthwhile charity.