The names Bond . . . Kiltwalk Bond

We've had some fantastic pictures of some famous Kiltwalk supporters during the 14 months we've been blipping, however for those of you who have seen the latest James Bond movie, Skyfall, then Scotland's very own 007 must be as famous as they come.

007 is, of course, known as a bit of a ladies man and his latest 'Bond Girl' conquest is none other than our very own 'Miss Moneypennyl' Ashley Adamson.

Ashley has appeared in our journal before and I've always had planned for her to appear again, however I thought the title would be something like "Love at first Kiltwalk" or "Our First Kiltwalk Romance" but I just couldn't resist using Bond's trademark introduction.

The picture above, which is one of around a dozen you can view on our Facebook page, was taken in Madame Tussauds, Amsterdam, where Ashley was taking a short break with her boyfriend Andrew, himself a seasoned Kiltwalker and will be taking part in his third Hampden to Loch Lomond Kiltwalk in April.

I'm sure you're intrigued to find out why "Love at first Kiltwalk" was a possible title, so as the Kiltwalk "Matchmaker" I feel compelled and qualified to tell the full story.

You see this time last year Ashley was a 'single' girl looking for love and having dated a few frogs, she decided that taking part in The Kiltwalk would let her get up close and personal to a #hottieinakilt. So that's exactly what she did. The mistake she made was taking to Twitter to launch her #hottieinakilt search as it meant that #nosyinakilt i.e. yours truly spotted it and couldn't help getting involved in her search for a hotty!!

After a few strikes!! Ashley took up my offer to whittle down the field, so I asked her for what she was looking for in a guy and here's what she came up with.

They needed to be between 25 & 30, SINGLE, have no ex-wife with children. He also had to be good looking 'in her eyes', have hair, all his own teeth, a job, a car and be clean shaven.

Now having read all of the above I'm sure you'll realise it was quite a struggle to find ANY candidates amongst our Kiltwalkers, never mind a selection of them.

However I set about my task with enthusiasm, as I'm always looking for a good Kiltwalk story and found myself interviewing some likely candidates and providing Ashley with pictures to help narrow down my search.

The Hampden to Loch Lomond came and went and sadly some of the guys I 'investigated' turned out to be in a relationship in some shape or form, not that they admitted it mind!!

As I was just about to give up I had a brain wave and kicked myself for not thinking of it sooner. The guy I identified ticked all the boxes bar one. However after some negotiation on 'age' and the submission of a photograph, she agreed to acquiesce and drop from 25 to 23. So Mr Matchmaker had found a suitable candidate, all I needed to do now was convince, sorry find out if the candidate was interested in Ashley.

Now you'd have thought this would have been quite easy, however the candidate in question just happened to be my nephew Andrew, therefore I had to make sure I wasn't going to ruin his peace and quiet by inflicting Ashley on him as anyone who knows her knows she doesn't have an "off" button.

Luckily for Ashley, Andrew was 'interested' so after being the middleman by swapping several photographs between them, a date was set for their 'blind Kiltwalk date'.

It seems they were sufficiently 'interested' to meet up again as here we are almost a year later and they're still going strong. Will we need to buy Kiltwalk Wedding hats? Well who knows, but I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, back to today's Blipfoto picture. Ashley and Andrew are both rather competitive, so when I threw down the "let's see who can take the best Kiltwalk pictures of 2013" they just couldn't resist taking up the challenge.

I knew they had something rather special planned, however I have to say they certainly excelled themselves and although I'll never admit it, their pictures are brilliant and had me rolling around laughing, so well done the pair of you.

Before I finish for today I want to bring todays Journal back to a serious point and that's raising money for all of Scotland's Children.

Ashley is a bundle of noise, energy and fun, but her best quality is her big heart which is why she took part in not one, but two Kiltwalks last year (Hampden to Loch Lomond and Speyside) much to the dismay of her pal Nicole Brown, who walked with her, with all the money raised going to our Kiltwalk charities.

This year Ashley is taking part once more only this time she is taking advantage of our Kiltwalk team proposition where any team of 5, or more, can nominate a charity or cause to receive 50% of all they raise and Ashley and Nicole have nominated Windmills Cafe in Motherwell.

Windmills, a warm friendly community café, offers homemade soups, a broad range of freshly prepared snacks and meals and a wide range of delicious home baking all prepared by their enthusiastic team at competitive prices. Now before you say "a café!!" let me explain further.

Windmills is not simply any old café, Windmills whole purpose is to help young people with learning difficulties, which makes it a very precious resource for the area and the children and teenagers that work there, preparing all that home cooking.

You see Ashley has a very personal reason for selecting Windmills as her "Kiltwalk Mad" brother Ross, has Down's Syndrome and Ross not only loves The Kiltwalk, he loves the experience of helping out in all aspects of the café.

Down's syndrome is the most frequently recognised form of learning disability and approximately one in every 1,000 babies in Scotland is born with Down's syndrome.

It occurs randomly at the point of conception and affects males and females alike. It is rarely hereditary and nothing the parents did before or during pregnancy can have caused it.

It is a lifelong condition, with no cure; however, there are many ways to ensure that each individual with Down's syndrome is given the right type and amount of support that they need to develop to their full potential and that's exactly what Windmills Café does for Ross and others alike.

Its projects like these that our Team proposition was designed to help as it allows The Kiltwalk and our Kiltwalkers to spread the Kiltwalk goodness and financial support across as many needy children's causes as possible.

If you would like to enter a team then register at www.thekiltwalk.co.uk. If you would like to sponsor Ashley and Nicole then look their page up on Virgin Money by searching for "Windmill's fundraising page".

Go on, you know it makes sense.