Six

You might think this is an odd shot with which to celebrate 6 years worth of blips.

But the little girl in the photo is also 6 years old. She's my sister's little girl, my niece and my god-daughter. Her name is Ellen.

Unfortunately, less than a month after I took this photo, Ellen was diagnosed with cancer. A particularly nasty, devious and difficult to treat cancer.

She's been fighting it ever since. She's been very ill, then a bit better, then very ill, then felt a bit better but in actual fact been much worse. She lost all that lovely hair, but has grown some back. She's had some treatments that worked (for a while), and more that haven't. Some of the tumours have responded, some have just got worse and worse.

This week she's starting on another round of treatment - a pretty unpleasant treatment, but something that will hopefully give her some more time. And time is what she needs. There's currently no cure for her particular form of cancer, so she needs time for someone to find one.

Maybe you can help. There's a few ways you can.

1. If you can spare some cash, my sister and her husband are raising money to help fund a clinical trial for a drug which may help Ellen and other children like her. Although we hope she will, there's no guarantee that Ellen herself will actually benefit from the trial -but either way the trial is something concrete that we can do to help advance research into paediatric cancer treatments.

2. Or give blood. It's simple, it's free, and you probably (like me) have no idea how many blood transfusions a child undergoing cancer treatment needs. White blood cells, red blood cells, platelets - they're all essential to keep a little girl healthy, and there will be a child near you who needs some.

3. Or if you're the praying type, please say a prayer for Ellen. If you believe in the power of positive thinking, please think positively. If you don't believe in anything, just wish her luck. She needs some of that too.

Thank you.

Here's to 7.