Wow! What a great way to spend a Saturday in May…

We have been organising a Biennial event in aid of Metabolic Support (and in it’s previous guises) since 1993. In 1991, our daughter, Claire died at the age of 10½ months having been born with Gauchers Type 2. We found the charity to be hugely supportive in the months and years following Claire’s passing.

This year’s event – The Multi-Dale Challenge was our SIXTEENTH biennial event. It was our third in Derbyshire, having held events in Cumbria, the Yorkshire Dales, Cheshire, Lancashire and Wales in the past. It followed our usual format of two circular walks from a central location. This year’s base was the beautiful village of Hartington and it enabled us to devise walks that took us through four stunning Dales over the course of 10 miles of walking.

The morning activity saw 34 of us setting off in a northerly direction alongside the river Dove towards Pilsbury, before crossing the Dove and heading south back towards Hartington. The weather was stunning and of course that enabled all taking part to absorb the fantastic scenery .

Having refuelled in the garden area behind the Hartington Farm Shop and Café, 25 of us set off in a southerly direction, taking in the spectacular Beresford, Wolfescote and Biggin Dales, before returning west near the top of Biggin Dale. Having recce’d these walks for the first time in January, and at that time needing to circumvent a wildly flooded River Dove, it was incredible to see how dry and parched the area around the Dove has become recently.

Our thanks go out to all of those 37 people who took part on the 10th. A great number have been on virtually all of our 16 events and certainly pretty much all who took part have been on more than ten. This amounts to incredible commitment and support over an impressive span of time from family, friends and ex-colleagues. On Saturday, participants travelled from Merseyside, West Cheshire, Warrington and East Yorkshire in order to take part. Amazing!

As usual, we had a group meal in a pub at the end of the afternoon. Our thanks go to Ben and his fantastic and friendly team of staff at The Manifold Inn (Hulme End) who provided us with really good food in a most efficient manner. Our gratitude is also due for the competitive room rate that the hostelry gave to those of us staying overnight there.

Recent events have seen us move away from participants seeking sponsorship and instead, we have asked for a small donation via ‘Just Giving’ from anyone who comes along. However, the generosity of our supporters continues to amaze and stagger us: at the time of writing, we have reached a total just under £1500 (including Gift Aid), with some supporters donating three figure sums and others giving generous donations despite not being able to join us!

Our core supporters continue to get older and these biennial events are inevitably tougher on our bodies than in previous years. However, the grandchildren are getting bigger, so maybe they can take the strain as we start flagging!

We were obviously amazingly lucky with the weather this year, but then, fortune can often favour the brave!

Mike and Fiona Rivett

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