On Wednesday 6th September my beautiful Mum, Julie, passed away peacefully following a 12 year battle fighting 2 mouth cancers and the disabilities it left her with. 

She really was the most inspirational and courageous woman I have ever met and I feel so blessed that I got to call her my own mum. I have never seen a fight so fierce as hers, with a smile that never left her beautiful face. 

Almost 6 months ago, myself and my husband Rob, and our close friends Kate and rob, decided to take on the Yorkshire 3 peaks challenge just for fun. Accommodation booked, map bought, hiking boots worn in, we were all set for Saturday 30th September. 2 weeks time. 

The easy option would be to cancel the trek and stay home, crying into my pillow. The alternative option, the harder of the two, is to get up and do it. So I plan, with the help of my mums strength and bravery and my 3 fellow hikers, to take on the 38km challenge in under 12 hours in 2 weeks time, just 3 days after my mums funeral. 

In memory of my precious mum I will now be raising money for the Daisy appeal which is a local charity close to my families heart. 

Help make cancer, heart disease and dementia a thing of the past. Since it was established in 2000, the Daisy Appeal has raised £12.5m to fund cutting-edge research and state-of-the-art equipment and facilities.The Daisy Appeal built an £8m research centre, which opened in 2008, and in 2014 we opened the £4.5m Jack Brignall PET-CT Scanning Centre. Both are on the Castle Hill Hospital site. We now want to build a £7.2m radiochemistry and cyclotron unit so we can produce our own radioactive tracers.

I want to make my mum proud and will be toasting her at the top of each mountain climbed. And if we get lost, I’ll look up to the sky and my mum and her pretty lights can guide us home. 

‘Because I am my mothers daughter, I can do anything. My mums strength lives in me’