On a very wet, cold and windy March day I decided to pay a visit to one of my oldest friends; a local postman who fortunately finishes work early in the afternoon. In the past we have sometimes made the most of this opportunity to pass an hour or two before we’re both recalled to our varied parental and husband duties.

Ideally we would have met in my friend’s more than cavernous shed – a well documented male sanctuary that many people will readily identify with - but the early Cornish spring weather was typically inclement that day so our discussion took place in his much warmer dining room; a rock album playing on his stereo and his computer demonstrating the latest web-page authoring program for me to review. I freely admit that we probably sound more like a couple of spotty adolescents but in many ways my friend and I have obviously yet to grow up! And in that space before our respective teenage children came bursting out of school and college we took the opportunity to revert to the juvenile behaviour we have both excelled at for more than thirty years! The rain continued to lash down heavily on the windows; the sound muffled slightly by the rock album (the title of which I cannot recall now). However, the conversation that followed stays etched into my memory and it was one that would go on to shape the majority of the following year.

My friend had been demonstrating the benefits of this new program he had acquired and whilst he paused to sip a particularly hot cup of tea he managed to change the subject suddenly by stating; “Did you know," hesitating slightly due to the unexpected high temperature of his drink, “that your God-son has been chosen to represent the county next year in Sweden with the Scouts?”

Brilliant I thought! My friend’s son (who at that stage was fifteen years old) was the sort of teenager who was always active; mad about Judo and dedicated to the Scouting movement. This potential trip was a just reward to the years he had devoted to one of his favourite past times and truthfully, I was delighted. However, a heavy guilt that I had carried for many a year, soon began to sting at me; as unfortunately I cannot claim that I could ever win God-parent of the year! So my friend's following comment put my previously ignored responsibilities sharply into focus.

"The only trouble is," my friend continued as he fumbled with the computer, all of a sudden being rewarded with yet another warning bleep stating the program wasn’t quite as perfect as we had first assumed, "that he needs to raise a considerable amount of money, at least a couple of thousand pounds just to be able to go!” Just so the cynical reader is crystal clear, this wasn't my friend scrounging for help or money - it was just a conversation topic while he scalded himself on over-warm tea and did battle with a reluctant computer. However, it suddenly got my mind working overtime!

I abruptly realised I could at last do something positive for my previously neglected God-son - but the only question was; how?

Well, once I had wrestled my friend’s attention away from his computer (and he had fortunately managed to safely drink that scalding hot cup of tea!) we proceeded to dream up various daft and frankly totally impossible ideas for us to help raise the money to send the boy to Sweden the following year. You name it, we thought of it! Parachute jumps I have done in the past (over twenty years previously when I was nineteen!) but that suggestion fell on deaf ears; pushing a wheel-barrow from the north coast to the south coast of Cornwall was something the Scout Troop were doing to raise funds but that was something I really didn’t want to do. After a couple more truthfully foolish ideas were suggested and thrown out accordingly (my favourite idea that was abandoned was a non-stop road trip between Lands End and John O'Groats and back again - the fuel alone would have cost more than anything we might have raised!), my friend and I agreed on a suitable task that we could do for the youngster, something that we could achieve but would still be a major challenge. We decided that we would raise money by doing a sponsored walk from the River Tamar in the east of Cornwall all the way along the South Cornwall Coast Path to Lands End - a distance of approximately 154 miles and due to time constraints it would have to be walked in just eight days.

This would be no mean feat for a young, fit person but when you consider the majority of the walkers who would finally take part hadn't regularly exercised in many a long year - well the result was going to be interesting to say the least.....!