When we planned this week's journey to Northmoor House from London we purposefully planned it so that our last day would just be a few miles and we could relax and cycle the last few hills knowing the end was close.

This morning we woke up, very tired, but in beautiful surroundings and knowing that we could even ditch the bikes and walk if needed (or wait for one of our many friends who's coming down to spend the week with us at Northmoor to pick us up). But we want the satisfaction of making it all the way so we pack up for our last day's cycling and hit the road.

We're so eager to leave that we do our first 2 miles in no time and get to our planned stop, at the Bridge Inn pub, 1 1/2 hours before it even opens!
But the town is lovely and so we spend a few hours wandering, browsing vintage books, and reading in the sunshine before lunch at the pub and toasting our almost-done-success.

Come the afternoon it's time to hit the road for the last leg. Even though it's only 2 miles it's very hilly and we're worried about friends seeing us struggle at the last leg - or even having to walk up the hill at the end- the horror!

So off we set, serenading each other with uplifting songs all the way and it soon becomes apparent that all those days of cycling have paid off and the hills we feared are defeated in a matter of minutes and we pull into the grounds of Northmoor house having hit 211 miles done.

This is the 3rd time we've stayed at Northmoor House (the first time was for my cycling companions' wedding 3 years ago) and on previous visits I never could have imagined getting there any other way than in the car. Cycling would have seemed an impossible task, actually even a week ago it seemed impossible.

Since getting MS I have struggled physically on many occasions, but more often than that I have struggled mentally with no longer being able to rely on my body behaving the way it should or I expect it to. My body and its behaviour has become unpredictable and this had made me lose faith in my abilities and sadly very wary of pushing myself. If you don't know from one day (or minute) to the next whether you'll have strength in your limbs, whether you'll feel sick, whether you'll lose feeling or movement in any of your body, it makes you scared to push your luck. But after my diagnosis I had to learn quickly that was no way to live and this cycle ride has been a huge boost to me physically and mentally. Realising that I could do it, and did do it, has given me back some confidence and I hope to take that to heart.

I'm really looking forward to the next week as a big group of 20 of us are spending the week here and I plan to sleep, laugh and have fun. And not sit on a saddle all week.