There’s not much I took away from being a Girl Guide apart from a love of kayaking and the importance of being prepared.

Back then when I was 14, it meant being able to get a campfire going without any matches (flint, steel, silver birch tinder nest and a magnifying glass) and knowing how to make a waterproof mud-daubed shelter should I ever find myself caught in a downpour in the Great Outdoors at night.

I was also a dab hand at lacing tree branches together with complex knots and creating all kinds of contraptions from luggage racks to washing up stands, complete with draining boards, so we could do the dishes standing up.

Needless to say, I haven’t needed any of those skills since but I’m still as prepared now as I was back then.

These days it means that my black leather handbag that I carry around almost everywhere has been dubbed The Mary Poppins’ by just about everyone because of my ability to produce whatever is needed in any given moment.

It’s deceptively large. As well as keys, mobile, Kindle, sunglasses, make up and purse that most women cart around with them, I’ve got a whole lot more.

A rummage through it this morning proved that hidden inside there’s also a Dictaphone, notebook, diary, school registers, text books, paracetamol, a magazine, felt-tips, glue, string, Sellotape, plasters, sweets, scissors, a screwdriver, a torch with spare batteries, a packet of almonds and a bottle of water.

It weighs a tonne and it is isn’t doing my back a lot of good, but at least I come good in an emergency. The only times I don’t carry my black hold-all is when I’m travelling low-cost and want hand luggage only or, like last week, I lock myself out of the house.

Although you wouldn’t think it to look at me or my messy house, I’m as much of a ruthless, ambitious perfectionist now as I was when I was 18 years old and on work experience here on the Echo. I was regularly in tears because I didn’t get my name in the paper as often as the chief reporter.

I simply don’t like other people bettering me or being more geared up than me to tackle something difficult.

What that means in terms of the Big Em and M Challenge is that I’m determined to pull in £2,000 sponsorship and I refuse to be one of the last to cross the finish lines after walking 60km across the South Downs next May.

I’m walking as much as possible and doing around 70km a week and, up until Wednesday, thought that that was enough with just over six months to go.

But then the email from Gemma at Across the Divide, the organisers of Just Walk 2013, rather changed that.

As I read through the event pack, my casual “I can do this” changed into a grimace of “What exactly have I let myself in for?”

The mere thought that I have to be at Goodwood at 6.40am for sign in is bad enough. After all, we’re talking about me. I’m the person that once switched newspapers in order to avoid early morning starts.

Then there’s the fact that the walking is expected to take the average person between 12 and 16 hours.

And, finally, as if that wasn’t bad enough, we’ll be stopped to check we have a head torch plus spare batteries and a fully-charged mobile phone before we’re allowed to continue on in the pitch black to the finish line.

We’ll be tramping through marshland, on bridle paths, through mud and along tractor tracks, uphill and downhill, pretty much all the way. Even now, with 189 days to go, I’m praying for good weather on May 11, 2013, because while I can handle walking in rain for ten minutes or so, 16 hours of sogginess doesn’t appeal at all.

It slowly dawned on me that this wasn’t going to be as simple as I first thought. While walking around town might have been okay back in June, I now have to step up a gear.

And that’s why yesterday saw Mario and I set off for 10km of nordic walking up to the top of Capo Figari, in the north east of Sardinia, which is where Marconi sent his first microwave radiotelephone signal to mainland Italy 80 years ago.

The area is breathtakingly beautiful, with 100-year-old junipers and knotted, knarled olive trees lining the steep path up to the now redundant beacon and yesterday was so clear that once we’d reached the top, we could see across to the Bonifacio cliffs of southern Corsica. That we also spotted rare Corsican Gulls and Sardinian Partridges and got caught in a cascade of Red Admirals fluttering around us made it even more special.

It wasn’t the easiest of walks. I’d forgotten, until this morning, that Nordic walking uses 90 per cent of the body’s muscles making it a really tough workout.

I slowly made my way up the hill as Mario, being Mario, left me trailing and puffing in his wake. I don’t know how he does it. He’s only got one functioning vocal cord after radiation for a rare tumour he had 12 years ago yet he can still power on ahead.

“Come on,” he shouted back down to me as I stopped to catch my breath.

“We’ve only done 10km. You’ve got another 50 of these to do next May.”

“I know,” I grumbled back.

“That’s the whole point.”

“Be positive,” he said.

“The more you do now, the easier it will be on the day.”

At least one of us is prepared - even if that person isn’t me.

I’m walking 60km across the South Downs to raise £2,000 for Winston’s Wish. Please sponsor me here. You, yes, you, can really make a difference.