On 25 November 2023 our friends lost their beautiful daughter in a tragic accident, and Matilda lost her best-friend. For 7 years, Isla was a huge part of our lives: play dates, sleepovers and dance classes slowly morphed into concerts, trips to London and emptying the shelves of SpaceNK. Their years of friendship thankfully ensured that Louise, Costa and little brother Xavier featured regularly in our lives too.

Losing Isla has changed our world as we knew it. We look for the magic in simple pleasures such as the beautiful sunrises and sunsets we see, and in the blossoming pink flowers of spring and summer, but life feels different now and, 15 months on, we still live in a state of disbelief.

On 3 May I am going to be taking on a challenge to raise money for the wonderful charity that is Shooting Star. The help this charity provided, and continues to provide, for the Pieri family, their extended family and Isla’s friends is nothing short of remarkable. Shooting Star recognise that every family will have a different journey through grief and their specialist bereavement service support these families in different ways.

My way of saying thank you to Shooting Star for all that they do and for taking such good care of 'my other family’, is to raise money to enable them to continue offering this support to those who find themselves in such unimaginable circumstances. I knew my challenge needed to be big, and for that reason I will be running a full continuous loop of the Isle of Wight Coastal Path - a total of 106km. I have done a couple of ‘half challenges’ before but a distance like this is complete unknown territory to me. I could bore you with how my training is going and about niggles/injuries I have picked up along the way, but I shall stop right there.

This page is for Isla Rose Pieri. A beautiful bright shining star who left us at the tender age of 12 to go and shine even more brightly in the sky. We miss you so much xxx