30th April 2025

And we’re done. 30 days of purposeful walking, just about 350,000 active steps done in total. (I only had my phone for tracking so my passive “doing chores” steps are undocumented) Currently £743 raised! Amazing, amazing, amazing.

I’ll keep the account of our walk short and sweet. I started today’s tally by going for my usual Wednesday run, which was okay in fact. And then some pottering til it came time to pick Wee Daftie up from school.

Usually, on a Wednesday, Wee Daftie has drama after school but the class wasn’t on this week which was disappointing of course but also good for me as it gave us an opportunity for a lovely walk in the evening.

The weather was stunning this evening so we walked ourselves down to Wardie Bay for a walk along the pier. We used to live down here, before we moved in December 2023, so we have walked this pier countless times but I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever walked it in weather this glorious.

We wander down past the fishers, the runners, the strollers and the leg danglers all the way to the end and then back home, via our local chipper for a celebratory tea!

We have walked, run, scooted and laughed our way through this month and the challenge. We have had support from folk walking with us, donating, cheering and sending words of encouragement and love. And we are eternally grateful.

Despite my sadness, grief and loss I am grateful. I have been so surrounded and supported through the most awful thing I can imagine happening. I have connected and reconnected with new and old friends. I have shared my story with others and had stories shared in return. I have learned things about myself I didn’t think I needed to know.

I’m not the same as I was before but I’m not entirely different. And that’s okay.

I think that’s all I want to say today. Aside from thank you. To everyone who supported us. Who cared for us. To my Daft Family Household. And, of course, my Saoirse.

I’ll leave you with this last thing that I wrote.

Running Through Rivers

I come to the mouth of a river.

It looks dark, cold and unfriendly

I try to turn back but

Something…

Holds between my shoulders

Pushing me precariously forward

Closer, closer to the edge.

I don’t want to go in.

I don’t want to be here.

My heels dig in but the ground moves beneath me.

But it’s not the mud and silt moving.

I can’t go left, right. Or up, down.

I can’t escape the deep undulating below.

And suddenly I am in it.

I don’t remember falling

But I feel it all around me.

Soaking my skin to the bone.

My muscles seizing as everything goes dim.

Wave upon wave upon wave washing over me

Crashing around me

Pulling under, dragging me down.

I don’t know what to do.

I flounder, I panic, desperate.

Desperately trying to manoeuvre through the gloom.

Maybe I can move this blanket aboveme instead.

I am soaked. I am lost. I am losing…

Losing my grip, my footing – my mind.

Something small is helping me forward.

I don’t feel it. Not a first.

Can’t feel anything.

Still I struggle on, fighting with myself

Trying to turn back though I can’t.

Trying to succumb to the damp, though I won’t.

I can’t really move anywhere

But I know I’m not completely still.

As suddenly as the river was upon me

I find a breath, gasping at the respite.

My head barely above the surface,

My shoulders weighted down.

I can see pinches of light

But they don’t seem real.

They are fleeting and manufactured.

On and on I struggle

On and on and on and…and…

I didn’t notice the day that only my feet were in the river,

It must have happened so slowly.

But my feet will always be wet.

That little something is still pushing me forward

And I can see hand outstretched to catch

To pull me out of the depths.

But my feet will always be wet.

The river ebbs and flows

Pulses, rises, falls.

Some parts are deeper and murkier

And it can still be hard to be there at all.

Others, the water is warm

And the air is bright.

But my feet will always be wet.