Dear All,
Some of you might say “Heather, it’s a mid life crisis, buy a sports car, get a face lift or a boob job!” and you are probably right.
Last year I made some half hearted noises about riding across India in a Tuktuk. I never actually did anything about arranging that, it just didn’t seem right. Not ridiculously extreme enough! Not an actual achievement! An extreme holiday, organised and controlled, staying in hotels along the way with a daily Tuktuk adventure.
Anyway my brain didn’t stop thinking! I considered The Mongol Rally, The Great Wall of China charity hike, The Inca Trail, forests, canoeing, cycling, climbing, nothing seemed like a match. So that brings me to what I am actually going to do…… drum roll please.
I have signed up to take part in the 2019-2020 Clipper Around The World Yacht Race, it leaves the UK in August 2019. Twelve identical 70 foot yachts with 20 amateur crew and a professional skipper. I have completed the selection stages and now have an intensive year of training to complete. It will be freezing cold and wet, unbearably hot and sweaty, incredibly stormy and rough and then windless and becalmed, ridiculously hard work and then don’t mention sleeping on a narrow bunk for 11 months, working a watch system with little rest and limited washing facilities (think a cloth and a bucket!) It will also be the experience of a lifetime, an exhilarating adventure, a truly life affirming epic adventure that only a handful of people ever get the opportunity to achieve and most importantly I will prove the Earth is in fact a globe.
I will need to get some personal sponsorship to enable me to compete, it is an actual race, I keep forgetting that bit! and I am also planning to put my charity fundraising hat back on as its been a while since the 505050 when we all smashed the £50K target and in fact raised the amazing £100k in total for North West cancer charities. This time I am raising funds and awareness for ‘East Cheshire Hospice @ Home’ a service that provides incredible palliative care for people in their own homes. This service was not available to us when Adam was so desperately in need and he was perhaps hospitalised when he could have been cared for for longer in his own home.
I still have so much to sort out, people to meet, knots to learn, sea sickness remedies to sample, plans to make, a years supply of spaghetti bolognese to freeze for Darren and a years supply of diacalm to get in stock. But I just needed to let everyone know what I am up to, I have been busting to share but was waiting for confirmation. For those who are interested in my adventure I am going to set up a Blog, apparently they are all the rage these days. It will be my link to the outside world once I am on my way and it will be my own personal reminder of my exploits, something for the grandchildren. Hopefully they might be inspired by their reckless granny. No pressure Alex and Megan BTW to produce any grandkids while I am away 🙂
Much Love
Heather x
But you can call me Salty 🙂
Dream It Now Do It 