My name is Fran and I work as an Occupational Therapist at the Somerset Neuro Rehab Centre based at Dene Barton, Cotford St Luke just outside Taunton. I provide therapy for patients with Neurological conditions, in particular, those recovering from acquired brain injury. Some of you may know me if you have stayed at SNRC for rehabilitation. We have 10 beds for patients across Somerset to support them in recovering from a life changing event.

Headway Somerset plays a vital part in supporting people across the county from the moment they arrive in hospital through your rehabilitation journey to on-going support and services for you, your families and carers.

My sister Vee and I started long distance walking and challenges through lockdown in 2020 to help our own health and wellbeing. We have always enjoyed walking together but wanted to take it further.

Our first challenge was the Southwest coast to coast in July 2020 when we walked from Minehead to Dawlish, a 100km walk over two days. It was a tough challenge, but we made it and caught the bug. We have continued to complete walks of 50 or 100 Km since then until deciding to go big and signed up to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in July 2023.

At a whopping 5895m from sea level it is a serious adventure and one we will need to train for.

Luckily the ActionChallenge company is great and will look after us all the way but we will need to start some serious training. We will start the year with the London Winter Walk, a walking marathon along the Thames over one day (42Km). We have other challenges to complete as part of our training programme in the hope that we will be strong enough to make it to the top as long as altitude sickness doesn’t stop us.

We both felt it was important to raise much needed funds for charities close to our hearts and it is for this reason I am going to raise money for Headway Somerset and Vee has chosen the Brain Tumour Charity. I am also keen to raise the profile of Headway and its amazing work so will be updating you all on our progress and starting our fundraising page shortly.