Thanks to all you lovely people who have sponsored me so far. In return for your generosity, I am rewarding you with a step-by-step (get it?) account. Well, one avid reader (of about two) said she wanted to "hear all about it", so here it is...

Firstly, I got picked up by two friendly girls (not picked up, picked up, you understand), one of which turned out to be a physio student. This made me stress a bit in my normal over-reacting sort of way as I thought coughing would betray my CFness and she'd hate me for turning her nice Saturday into a reminder-of-work-day. I had to remind myself that there are other types of physios and that the whole physio-world doesn't revolve around people with cf.

When we got to Gargrave we met by the river and split up into three groups; the six mile people (us sensible ones), 11 miles for the slightly more fit types and 16 miles for the wannabe Duke of Edinburgh Award participants as well as some with an over-inflated view of their fitness.

We all set off on our separate routes with me striding out in front with the leader. This didn't last too long as a hill suddenly appeared and with the sun bearing down on me, I rapidly reduced my pace and panicked that we weren't even a quarter of the way into the walk. Six miles suddenly seemed VERY far.

Luckily at the top of the hill, someone suggested we have a rest and we had a much needed sit down in the shade. Fair trade chocolate eggs were even being passed around and one of those plus some water and Monster Munch revived me enough to stride on through the meadow. There were some friendly cows and calves as well as some lambs who were suckling really aggresively, poor mummy sheep.

There was more shade on the rest of the walk which stopped the heat from being unbearable and thankfully, no more hills. We stopped for lunch by a brook and there were homemade Vietnamese spring rolls and some more chocolate to keep me going. (I might start going on walks more often as they are a great excuse for much chocolate and sweet consumption.) I even made friends with some maths geeks but our conversation halted when they told me they worked with symbols not numbers. All very confusing.

When I came back, H said he wished he'd come. Apparently his phobia of organised walks comes from a walking holiday with his mum when he was 12. It was led by his science teacher who was an ex-army officer and he forced them to practically run 20 miles up and down mountains every day!