The Challenge

In a moment of madness, sat having a cup of tea in the Bonhoga Gallery, James and I came up with the slightly ridiculous idea of doing our own version of the 3 Peaks Challenge. Usually this would entail walking up Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in the space of 48 hrs (or something silly like that); we however have "tweaked" it slightly to suit the fact that a) we are not super fit, b) we live in the Shetland Islands and c) we have a baby with us. So our 3 peaks are: Rhonas Hill in Shetland, Scafell Pike and Snowdon. Esme will be carried up Rhonas Hill but it will just be James and I doing the other two. We really are not fit enough to carry Esme up the other two! We are going to do all of this in the space of 2 weeks which includes travelling south to the British mainland.

Why are we doing this? Well....not for fun! We are doing this to raise money for the Gilbert Bain Maternity Unit in Lerwick. This cause is close to our hearts because of our beautiful daughter Esme. When she was born, Esme had a few problems one of which was keeping her temperature up; the staff in maternity were brilliant with us and worked hard to keep Esme warm but they didn't have the specialist equipment that would have made this job a little easier and so it was felt best that Esme and I were flown south to Aberdeen so that she could spend a week in the neo-natal unit to give her the best start possible. Esme was fine within a week and we were sent home to start our new life as a family. She is now nearly 5 months old and is doing brilliantly.

We wanted to be able to say thank you to the fantastic maternity team at Lerwick; the level of care and support they offer is second to none and they deserve the equipment that will help make their jobs a little easier. So our goal is to raise enough money to buy a special mattress that will fit into the existing cots that is filled with warm water and kept at a constant temperature which will help keep little babies who need a little help like Esme did warm. It is going to cost £2200 but we want to raise as much money as possible. A difficult task in the current economic conditions but we are hoping that people will be able to give something, no matter how small.