I’m taking the H2Only Challenge with three friends to raise money for the RNLI. This means we will drink only water for 10 days from 5pm on Tuesday, September 13th, until 5pm on Friday, September 23rd. No coffee, tea, squash, pop, wine – even fizzy water is banned! It has to be just plain water, “H2Only”. You can sponsor me, Beckie, Karen and Keith at https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/createh2only.

I imagine this coffee and walnut cake was delicious.

Get ready to give me some sympathy – I think I have sinusitis. I feel rotten. It’s even worse than man flu. I have been poorly throughout this whole challenge. I have missed out on the withdrawal headaches and the renewed burst of energy once the fog clears. I have just felt awful the whole time. I’m breastfeeding my 10-month-old so I wouldn’t have been knocking back the Lemsips anyway, but I reckon a few good strong cups of coffee would have pepped me up a bit. Thank goodness for afternoon naps, giving me the chance to lie down too. It’s a challenge in its own right to get up again for the afternoon school run.

But, as everyone knows, a mum doesn’t get to stop for long and I have more or less carried on as normal despite the full body aches, fatigue and the copious tissues full of snot. I went to the women’s group at church this morning and forced down, FORCED I tell you, a piece of coffee and walnut cake. I normally would have gone for the lemon drizzle but I felt duty-bound to get a coffee hit where I could. I’m sure it was delicious, but I couldn’t really taste it at all.

Day 8 (167.6 lbs) – my big boy wanted to be in today’s picture

Interestingly, I’m still not missing Coke at all. If you’ve been here from the start of the H2Only challenge, you’ll remember me (almost literally) kissing my Coke goodbye. I just don’t fancy it. I could really really REALLY drink some sparkling water right now. Oooooh, bubbles. Fizz. Carbonation. “Give her effervescence, she needs a little sparkle.”

By the way, thank you so much to all the people who have said they are reading this. I haven’t blogged for a long, long time (this website is usually more of a portfolio for work) but it’s been a lot of fun, and it’s nice to know that people are enjoying it. And thank you also to all our generous sponsors who have taken us past our £100 target!

Day 7

Day 9