What Are You Doing? 🙉🙊🙈

I am walking:
🏅Half (25km) Easter50 Ultra Challenge on Saturday 1st April 2023 - DONE ✔️
🏅1st Quarter (25km) Jurassic Coast Ultra Challenge on Saturday 15th May 2023 - DONE ✔️
🏅2nd Quarter (25km) Thames Path Ultra Challenge on Saturday 9th September 2023 - DONE ✔️
🏅Henley 10 (10km) Ultra Challenge on Sunday 10th September 2023 - DONE ✔️
🏅Halloween Walk (25km) Ultra Challenge on Saturday 28th October 2023

To see the reasons why I am doing the challenges listed above and to keep updated with my progress, please visit:
https://www.facebook.com/RetroRambler/

💳 Please Donate What You Can...

So whether you donate 50p, £5, £50 or £500, every single penny counts!!!

🚶‍♀️Have You Done Something Like This Before?

YES!!!

I have walked various Ultra Challenge events in 2021 and 2022, including South West Coast 2 Coast (Minehead to Dawlish), part of Jurassic Coast, the Halloween Walk in London and part of the Cotswold Way 🚶‍♀️

In August 2020, I also walked the full length of The Kennet and Avon Canal over 7 consecutive days, to celebrate my 40th birthday; which I am planning to do again in 2025 for my 45th birthday! 🚶‍♀️

💳 Why I have chosen to do these challenges in aid of Alzheimer's Support for the following reasons:

My Grampy Arnold is currently in care home with Alzheimer's. The effect it has had on my Gran is upsetting, and having my Grampy not recognise me was heart-breaking. His condition came on very quickly, and within 2 months, he had to be placed in a care home a few days before Christmas 2020 😢

This was even more difficult due to the lockdown of coronavirus (Covid-19), as my Gran had not been able to visit my Grampy Arnold in the care home. This, in turn, has affected my Grampy, too, as he no longer recognises my Gran when she had been able to visit as restrictions eased. He recognises my Gran's voice on the phone and can point her out on photos, but sadly not when she is standing in front of him 💔

The sad thing is, my Grampy Arnold's sister Pat, also had Alzheimer's, but where my Grampy has reverted back to a time before I was born, Pat's personality changed from a funny, caring and quite a character to a violent person who would lash out for no reason at all 😢

My Nan also had a form of Alzheimer's in her last few years. She, too, was in a home and had no recognition of me or my sister. Again, this was heart-breaking. Her condition came on slowly, with her forgetting little things. We started knowing something was wrong when she started saying she was waiting for my Grampy Jock to come home... he had passed away from cancer 10+ years before 💔

Other members of my extended family have also been affected by Alzheimer's. Where their loved ones too have been diagnosed and either going through the motions after being diagnosed or have seen the devastating affects on their loved ones in their last few years 😢💔

Alzheimer's and Dementia comes in many forms, and the affects on family and friends is heart-breaking, but the work Alzheimer's Support is doing, is important, whether it is with specially designed care environment or support for the family, it all helps!!! Peggy-Sue Ford