We are the Cann family, there is Jim, father, husband, thatcher and bike mechanic. Myself, Sam - wife, mother and labourer for Jim. Then there are our four children:

Calamaty-Jayne who is 15 3/4, currently taking her GCSE's at Queen Elizabeth school Crediton.
Haby-Blu who is 14 1/2 and is studying to take her GCSE's next year at the same school.
Capabilaty-Jack who is 8 1/4 and is at Cheriton bishop primary school.
And last but by no means least is Bow-Jango who is 7 1/4 and suffers from Cystic Fibrosis, he also goes to school in Cheriton Bishop with his brother.

We live on a small holding with some animals. We milk a cow called Truly Scrumptious and have a pot belly pig called Elly, who came for a holiday and decided to stay after foot and mouth, we have some sheep and a ram called Burty, a baby turkey called Perky, some horses: Megan, Misty and Zac, some chickens, guinea fowl and geese, two dogs, one cat and a guinea pig called Holly that arrived at Christmas. Capabilaty loves to cuddle Holly and when he's not cuddling her, he's cuddling the turkey, who likes to sit on your arm when reading a book by the fire.

We do lots of activities together, our favourite is cycling. I have always liked to have a bicycle, as a form of getting down to the field and places, when the girls were about 4 years old we got them BMX bikes and started cycling a bit ,and began to upgrade our bikes, then I became pregnant with Capabilaty and my parents brought us a special baby seat(called a Bo bike seat) that went on the front handle bars, with a wind screen to protect the baby. When Capabilaty was about 3 months old he started to ride in it and really enjoyed it, because he could see where he was going and I could keep watch of him between my arms. We then moved to the farm where we are now and while I was pregnant with Bow we would cycle the girls to school on their bikes, I had Capabilaty on the front of my bike with Bow in my tummy, which was a little awkward, as there wasn't much room left between them, but it was so nice to be able to take them out on the bikes.

Then Bow was born in the early Autumn and we stopped cycling for a bit, then in the spring we were off again this time on the way to school, the girls on their bikes and me on mine with Bow now in the baby seat on my handle bars with the windscreen,and Capabilaty on a child's seat on the back, it was the only way I could get the girls to school as we didn't have two cars at that time, but I must say the children really enjoyed cycling that way, and it beats pushing a pram on a 4 mile circuit, twice a day.

It was that spring that Bow was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. It was such a shock for us, we knew he was not well a lot of the time, we even thought perhaps he has a wheat allergy or something like that, he was always having colds and sounding so chesty. We kept going to the doctors and he had antibiotics, foul nappies and an appetite like a horse. Luckily I kept feeding him 3-4 weetabix a morning for breakfast, I had never known a baby with such appetite, but because his digestive system was not working properly he was not getting the nutrition he needed, so twice as much food needed to go through to get enough, so he never actually looked a sickly baby which was another reason why it wasn't picked up sooner by my GP.

After 2 admissions to hospital, pneumonia and a collapsed lung, he was diagnosed by our main man now, Doctor Patrick Oades at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. He attends regular check ups at the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic, we see a nurse, dietician, physiotherapists and our consultant, so we are now in good hands.

Bow has to have ‘pat pats’ (physio) on a tilted bed, which is giving him postural drainage, he has this every morning and evening each day, but when he is unwell he can have it up to 6 times a day, trying to keep his lung as clear as we can, to prevent infection from taking a hold and doing damage to the lining of his lungs.

He also has to take quite a lot of medication, firstly he has inhalers , a steroid inhaler twice a day after physio and bricanyl inhaler before physio, some times a nebulizer also to help break down the phlegm in his lung before doing pat pats, which helps to get it out. He has a cocktail of vitamins to make sure he is getting all he needs, because of his poor digestion. He is permanently on antibiotics, well once he came off them in the summer for 2 months, but is back on them now, due to infection. When he eats anything he has to take tablets to break down the food in his gut because his pancreas ducts are blocked, and the enzymes don’t get released to do this job. Without these tablets to aid digestion and absorption the full nutritional value would be lost.

Despite all of this, Bow is one of the fittest young boys you could come across, his disease has never stopped him from doing all the things he really likes doing, being out side and active. He has been riding a bike since he was 3 years old. When his brother learnt to ride a bike at 4 years old, Bow was watching and wasn't going to be left behind, he picked up the other bike and got on and scooted round the tarmac, before the afternoon was out the pair of them were riding bikes, we never bothered with stabilisers, they just hinder children, it only takes a minute to learn balance, then a small while longer to trust in themselves and away they go, no stopping them then.

Well that was it, from then on cycling has been a very large part of our lives. The summer of 1997 we decided we should take special time out. Life is for living and we want to do as much as we all can together, so having 4 children and not a large budget, cycling seemed to be the best idea. We love camping and cycling, Cornwall was a beautiful place and not far away. We have a great friend called Jenny, she would hold the farm, we waited for some good weather, got all our panniers packed, as much medicine as the doctors said we would need, we had got a brilliant gadget to go on the back off Jim's bike, which was a wheel, seat and handle bars for Capabilaty to ride on he was 3 1/2 and Bow was 2 1/2 and he sat on the front seat on my handle bars with his windscreen. We all carried panniers on the back of the bike, Calamaty and Haby 11 and 10 carried sleeping bags and cloths, I carried the tent, Jim took bike repair , cooking equipment, food and any thing else we could possible need. A pillow was soon to be very important because a 2 1/2 year old still had an afternoon nap, so I put it on the handle bars and Bow could rest his head on it. Capabilaty also sometimes wanted to sleep so we swapped, he still fitted on the seat, but Bow was very young to go on the Tag-a-long (that is what it was called) so we had to really emphasise how sensible he had to be, well he loved every minute of it, even though his feet couldn't reach the pedals, he thought it was great fun. Well I could go on for ever about what a fantastic holiday it was, we swam when we found a beach or a pool, we got through 2 bottles of suntan lotion because the weather was so good, the tent was perfect and we cycled from Petrokstow, Devon down to Bodmin out to the coast all the way to Lands End and then along the south coast as far as Fowey. The weather started to change after about 10 days and 300 miles, so we decided to get home, poor Jenny thought we weren't coming back, we had been away for so long. It really was a wonderful time , we managed to do pat pats in the tent and all the medication was fine and the children were so happy and a lovely golden shade, it looked like we had all been to the Caribbean.

That was it, the only way to travel with children, it was such an adventure, we just had to do it again. In 1999 we went to France, took the car to Plymouth and left it there. We had everything we needed with us even a letter from my GP just in case we needed a hospital although we never did. This time the boys were 5 and 6 and they had their own bikes, so the Tag-a-long wasn't any good, we had now found a gadget called a Trail-gaiter, which was like a tow bar, you put it on the seat post of the adult’s bike and then to the handle bar stem of the child's bike and it lifts the front wheel off the ground. So the boys can cycle sometimes and be towed if they are tired or we have a big city to go through, it was perfect, a little wobbly to start with, cycling on and off the ferry was scary, but it wasn't long before we were out to the coast of Brittany and they could be let free, blue sea white sand it was perfect, we had 10 days and again cycled about 300 miles, it was an even bigger adventure being in a foreign land. The rain did soak us one day, even our passports were wet, all our sleeping bags, clothes tent - everything. We were very lucky and managed to cycle to a holiday camp that had one spare caravan to bed down in . The children's wet faces lit up when they saw we had a caravan. We went on to have 3 more lovely days cycling before returning on the ferry home. We had felt a little nervous going abroad with no car or any sort of support, not only with 4 children but one with Cystic Fibrosis, when we got back, it was such an achievement.

So in 2000 we said an easy holiday this time so we took them to Holland. Drove to Harwich, left the car and cycled on to the ferry, again. We had Trail-gaiters, a bigger tent and all our own sleeping bags, because trying to get them all to sleep under two large open ones in France wasn't going to work now, they are getting quite big. Holland was brilliant for cycling as you can imagine, having your own roads and signs was brilliant, camping was good, the 20 mile dyke in a head wind took some peddling, Haby did say she is never cycling again with us at that point, Capabilaty had to go on the trail-gaiter, Calamaty just kept on peddling and Bow wanted to race the whole way, he was at least a mile a head of me and I still couldn't close the gap, he was the first to complete it, later at the camp site he was still buzzing around on his bike. We clocked up 325 miles in 8 days. One of the days Bow said he didn't want to be towed until he had cycled 30 miles and he did, which took him until lunch time, he was 5 years olds then. It was a good holiday but a little to easy for my lot they almost got bored. Haby said she would only come if we went to France again.

Well 2001 we had a bad winter with foot and mouth, not a lot of cycling done, lots to do on the farm, Bow’s health still brilliant (touch wood) so in the summer we decided to do lots of cycling round here. Jim and I cycle with a group called Bashers, TVPB, (Teign Valley Pedal Bashers) Its like Hashing but on bikes. (Hashing involves a ‘hare’ laying a trail of sawdust dots which the rest of you then attempt to follow as fast as you can on foot). We as a family have hashed for about 2 years now, Capabilaty and Bow both do it as well , Bow really likes his running too. The bashing is the same but on bikes, and on the odd Sunday we would all go and I would take the boys on a slow route, they could do the distance but not the speed, but as the summer went on the boys came on the main rides and now bash on and off road as good as the rest, I am amazed how much they have come on this summer. 'Under', one of the men who bashes with us wrote an article on my whole family because of how well we cycle. In the article we said we would do the ‘End to End’ challenge one day, and a friend of mine said do you know the youngest child to cycle the end to end challenge is 9 years old. Well this got me thinking, are we really that good? Bow is 7 and I know he could do it at his pace, and what a great adventure it would be, and what about the Cystic Fibrosis fund raising angle, that is when I thought “Game On - here is a challenge we have got to have a go at, Bow could even get in the Guinness book of records !”, so that is how the CF3 was born.