I'm taking steps to help Dementia UK - quite a lot of them ....

My mum Ethel will be 102 this year (fingers crossed) and since she went into a care home in 2019, her dementia has advanced. We are still lucky that she's with us and her delightful smile and sense of humour can still light up a room. She moved into the care home in 2019 and although she dodged covid, the isolation from family and restrictions on going out seemed to accelerate the condition. We are thankful for the daily continuous efforts of the staff to keep my mum safe and healthy - but sometimes conversations with her are unsettling - she asks when she can go and see her parents in Manchester (first time she said this it took me by surprise and I delicately said that they'd passed away and then she told everyone that she was suddenly an orphan and had lost both parents in the same week), asking why her husband left her ("we should have never got divorced" - they were married for 60 years and he passed away with pneumonia approx 15 years ago), giving people she sees daily a different name every week and saying that "I don't like this hotel much - when are we catching the train?". Fortunately all of the time she knows who I am, who my wife is and who her grand-daughter is - we are very grateful that this is so.

I'm raising money for Dementia UK, because I realise the impact that dementia can have - their Admiral nurses provide free life-changing support and advice and facing dementia without support is terrifying.

I'm getting on a bit myself and so I've decided to do a 25 kilometre London walk - a marathon would be a step too far (possibly several steps to be fair) Luckily I work in both metric and imperial units and so I've told my brain that 25k is 15.5 miles, which is obviously far more manageable.

I hope that you'll sponsor me so that I can do my best for Ethel before her birthday this year.