A woman from Worle is taking on a staggering 33-week swimming challenge in memory of her partner’s mum.
Hannah Martin aims to complete a mammoth 52 miles in the pool at Hutton Moor Leisure Centre to raise money for Weston Hospicecare after the charity cared for Lisa Osborne, the mother of her partner Josh Osborne.
Mum-of-three Lisa lived in Weston all of her life, and fought against breast cancer for five years before she died aged 52 in the care of the hospice in March 2016.
And Hannah said: “I met Josh on New Year’s the year Lisa passed. The whole family welcomed me into their lives and Lisa’s, which made me feel very privileged as she was very poorly by this point.
“This meant so much to me because my mum is very important to me and I knew I would have found it sad to never have known Josh’s.
“Every day I wish I got to know her better, got to share more family memories with her and wish she could see the milestones Josh and I achieve together and that’s why I wanted to do this challenge; to bring me closer to her.”
Hannah’s challenge will see her swim an incredible 3,348 lengths of Hutton Moor’s 25-metre pool.
The 23-year-old of Spring Hill began on 11 March – the second anniversary of Lisa’s death – and is now just over a third of the way to her target, having completed 1,221 lengths.
She aims to finish by October 22, which would have been Lisa’s 52nd birthday, and hopes to raise £250 for the hospice – and plans to add up a donation of up to £100 of her own, too.
She said: “The whole point of a challenge is for it to test you, therefore I wanted to create a challenge which wouldn’t be easy, wouldn’t take just one day’s commitment – therefore I have set myself the challenge to swim 52 miles.
“I thought doing this challenge would help me feel closer to Lisa and make my family proud while also raising money for Weston Hospicecare.
“I saw first-hand that Weston Hospicecare gives great care to its patients and support the family throughout the whole process of a loved one having cancer and feel that support is so important to every family.”
Hannah’s Just Giving page has already passed £200, but anyone who wishes to donate in support of her efforts should visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/swimforlisa