Evening all

Hello everyone, after coming under considerable (though good natured) peer pressure, I've decided to keep this journal of what I'm planning to do with my Summer.

This Summer, I set myself the target of walking from St Gallen in North-East Switzerland, where I am currently working, home to Dublin. 

The rough route. Ignore the distance; I don't intend to walk along the seabed, not after last time; bloody maritorial Atlanteans with their anger and tridents.

My main aim is to see if I could do it in the time available, get in shape and hopefully have a laugh along the way meeting strange people (but hopefully not too strange). I was initially hesitant to write about this (and am still rather reluctant to be honest).

I was also unsure about whether I should try to fundraise for charity. This wasn't down to a Scroogey, mean mentality but rather because due to time constraints failure is a distinct possibility and I was worried about letting the side down a bit.

Then a friend suggested that, this being the case, I could instead suggest people sponsor the distance that I do manage to cover; serving the dual purpose of motivating me to succeed and ensuring that a few quid will be raised even if I didn't.

So I've created a Go fund me page here, from which I will give any funds raised to a combination of Cystic Fibrosis research and Irish homeless charities.  I intend to keep a rough "kilometre-meter(metermeter) on this yoke and will put it on facebook too. There will probably also be a number of selfies of melooking sweaty and dishevelled in a variety of locales (So business as usual, then).

I'll give more detail on the route, preparations, what I've done so far as due to etc in subsequent posts but for now I'm already (typically) behind schedule, and need to get going.