Doing it for Dean

Hi everyone, a bit of a long winded post here but a very important subject for myself and the family. As you all know, over the last couple of years, we've done a lot of fundraising for the MS Society after my brother Dean's diagnosis back in 2018. For you who know Dean, you'll know how much he's continued to live his life to the full since then, whether it was his push to finish climbing all the Corbetts, cycling around the country or Summit camps to enjoy the hills for sunset, night skies and sunrises and at the same time splitting up the effort to make it more manageable for him to do so.

I've watched him struggle on many of these activities and he's never moaned during any of them despite how much pain he was clearly putting himself through to reach that next summit, simply because he didn't want to give up and his love for the outdoors is too strong.

His mobility has become so bad recently that he won't walk to the shop now. Luckily he has a road e-bike and a mountain e-bike to allow him to get to the odd bothy or a little adventure with a Josh but walking hills are now not possible unfortunately.

I know his pride is strong and he won't want to give in but we feel that a wheelchair may actually allow him to have a little more freedom again so he can move around and cover more distances without risking falling over.

What we did for the MS Society was amazing and I'm proud of that but it's now time to do something directly for Dean and I'm setting up this Go Fund Me page in the hope that we can raise some money to pay for a chair that will suit Dean and give him the freedom he deserves. Of course they're not cheap and we've looked at one that costs in the region of £10,000. It's electric, lightweight, super mobile and can move on various terrains. Something that will hopefully allow him to continue in the outdoors on some level (this has now changed since we were informed of a chair we couldn't imagine existed so we've set a new target of £20,000 to push on for that).

I haven't set anything in stone yet but I'll no doubt put myself through some sort of big challenge this year. There's a plan to cycle the width of the country (around 220 odd miles from Ardnamurchan to Stonehaven) with Stephen & Stevie. It'll be done over 2 days so just need to sort out the logistics of it all (Support crew, bike transport etc) and set a date! Maybe another mountain marathon later in the year too. I am running the London Marathon again in April after it was cancelled in 2020 so I have that to focus on at the moment. We will no doubt do a few things to help raise money and give something back at the same time. In the meantime, the page is here for any donations that would be greatly appreciated. Times are tough for a lot of us but even the smallest contribution can make a big difference. Thanks for reading❤️