Were the blisters and sair legs worth it?

I know I'm getting on a bit, however that doesn't stop me going to as many 'gigs' as possible, even though I'm often mistaken for one of the bouncers these days.

I mention going to gigs, as it was at Glasgow Barrowlands last year that I was introduced, via a friend from New Jersey of all places, to a young lady called Lisa David.

Lisa (pictured second from right above) was there to see The View and as we got chatting I found out she was a primary school teacher in a school local to me, so it was a very small world and it got even smaller when at the same time I was introduced to Stewart Stanfield who in addition to The View, shared another passion of mine, which is supporting Scotland home and away.

Fast forward a year and Lisa and Stewart are now an item and I've shared a beer or two with Stewart when we met up in Kopar, Slovenia back in February.

Lisa of course may have wished she hadn't become acquainted, which would have saved her walking 26 miles, however as you will hear, she didn't take too much persuading when she realised it was actually a way of not only raising money for CHAS, TACC, CLIC Sargent and Aberlour, but also an excellent opportunity to raise money for 7 year old Ayesha Siddiqui from Newton Mearns, who has a rare form of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia called Philadelphia Positive.

Ayesha is hoping to find a Bone Marrow Donor, however it costs £100 to recruit and add each new donor to the register, so 50% of what Lisa and her team raise, which is £1,800 so far, will be donated in support of the Anthony Nolan Trust.

Here's Lisa's story.

It was with some trepidation I agreed to do the Kiltwalk. . . . not that I didn't love the idea of it and everything that it stands for, just the idea of training for a 26 mile trek, goading people for money and having to get up in the middle of the night (7 o'clock is the middle of the night to me on a Sunday) that brought out the sweats and shakes in me! Ian, one of the Kiltwalk organisers, is however a determined man and, before I knew it, I had agreed!

Queue me bullying the boyfriend Stewart and some friends into joining me! As a teacher in a primary school, it wasn't hard to decide I wanted to get a team together so that we could donate half our sponsorship money to a very brave but very poorly little angel in my school.

With three weeks to go, my friend Sharon and I determinedly started walking everywhere, Mark started bullying EVERYONE he met into sponsoring us, including his dentist who he talked out of 50 quid! Jane had sleepless nights at the thought of walking 26 miles on a knee that was just recovering from an op and Stewart, well he just chanted "it'll be a breeze!"

Not going to lie, even with the training, I had underestimated how hard it would be but the atmosphere, banter and the thought of everyone having so much faith in us and donating so generously made us keep going! Well that and the thought of the bar at the end!

Were the blisters, sair legs and drooned rat looks worth it?? Absolutely!! It's a special occasion run by great people with great people for great people and I can't wait to do it all again next year!!!