In a effort to cause MAXIMUM stress over this Christmas period I'm pleased to announce the Airfix Starter Kit Challenge, or as I like to say the Nightmare Before Christmas.

The challenge is ......................

Buy an Airfix Spitfire (1/72) kit and build it.....Simple? Well, heres the catch, you can only use what is in the box, you can only use the glue, paints and brush that it comes with. That means NO, Extra paints, NO thinners, No Filler, No sanding sticks, NO Knives, Nothing. BUT because were not that EVIL you can use TAP water and one pair of snips to get the kit off the sprues.

So get yourself to Aldi and get cracking.

This is just a bit of fun but if youve made it this far I'll assume you are interested in making a donation to CHUF? So why have I chosen CHUF?

CHUF is a charity very close to my families heart, both metaphorically and literally. Here's why.......

“You have a very ill baby, you’ll not be going home any time soon” those are words that every parent dreads to hear and will stay with us forever.

On the 23rd August 2016 my wife and I welcomed our beautiful daughter Olivia Grace Errington into the world. The first two weeks were the same as any other, sleepless nights, crying, feeding, changing nappies but most of all overwhelming happiness. However, on Tuesday 6th September what started out as a routine check-up quickly escalated into the worst day of our lives.

We started the day as any other, the only thing different was a quick trip to the RVI then it was home for Olivia’s bath and bedtime story. Olivia had a small heart murmur “nothing to worry about, a lot of babies have them” but we were advised by a quick thinking Dr Fenton that we should go straight across to the Freeman hospital to get a second opinion. Blissfully unaware we arrived at Clinic E to be greeted at the door by staff. This is when alarm bells started to ring in our heads and panic started creeping in. We were ushered past waiting patients and into a room for a scan and that’s when our happy little world came crashing down around us.

Olivia had developed a coarctation of aorta. A severe narrowing of the artery supplying blood and more importantly oxygen to her major internal organs. Quickly different doctors, surgeons and nurses flooded into the room and we were whisked away while they debated what to do. After what seemed like a life time we were advised that Olivia required immediate surgery and within a matter of hours she was taken into surgery to repair the narrowing. At 1am the lead Surgeon Mr Asif Hasan advised us that the operation was a success. Relieved we then spent the following week on the PICU unit helping to nurse Olivia back to health.

It transpired that Olivia had almost zero blood flow to her stomach, liver, kidneys etc and that we were incredibly lucky to have caught it when we did, any later and I may be here telling a different story.

During one of many follow up scans doctors noticed that she was developing another narrowing this time inside the heart causing a dangerously high pressure and creating a whole new set of problems. On December 29th Olivia was admitted for bypass surgery to remove the narrowing. Again Mr Hasan and his team worked their magic and again Olivia made a remarkable recovery.

Chuf's mission is to make life better for children and young people who are born with or who develop heart conditions by providing lifelong support to them and their families. Chuf supports children and families who receive treatment at the Children’s Heart Unit based at the Freeman Hospital and the many other hospitals providing care for cardiac patients throughout the North of England.