Most people would find hiking 10 miles in open countryside or cycling for two hours in hilly Northumberland challenging - but grandmother Janet Robinson loves doing both, even though she is blind.
Janet, who lives in Hexham, lost her sight four years ago after she was diagnosed with glaucoma.
For the first few months in darkness she relied on her husband Alwyn to be her eyes - but he was taken from her suddenly at the age of 68 when he died from a brain tumour he did not know he had.
"It meant I had to start a whole new life," said mother-of-two and grandmother-of-three Janet.
"I didn't want to sit around the house and I didn't want to be someone who people told, `you just sit there while we go and do this' or `you stay there while we go and do that'. I wanted to be part of things."
She was first diagnosed with glaucoma 30 years ago and doctors tried to halt the onset of blindness with operations and eye drops but, gradually, her sight worsened and finally went completely.
"When I was first diagnosed, I was horrified," she said. "I didn't ever think I could live my life blind. But you don't get a choice. This is how things are and you have to get used to them."
Janet, who lives in Causey Brae, Hexham, was always determined to live her life as much as possible in the way she had when she could see.
And, now, she regularly goes on 10-mile Sunday hikes with the local Ramblers' Association and she often cycles around the Tyne Valley on the back of a tandem.
"People ask me whether there is any point in doing it as I can't see," she said.
"But I haven't always been blind and I have done some of these walks in the past. Whoever I'm walking with describes what they can see and I can build up a picture in my mind. It may not be right - but it is a picture. And I love the sounds of the countryside - the birds singing and the sound of water.
"I had always walked. When my husband was alive we used to go for walks with another couple and I missed doing that," she said. "I've always been very active so I hated not being able to get out."
The Ramblers' Association contacted Dennis and Jenny Harrington, the secretaries of its Hexham branch, and asked if they could help and Janet went on her first walk with them along Haltwhistle's South Tyne Trail.
"It does mean I have to put my trust completely in the person with me, but I just need an arm or a rucksack to hold on to and I'm fine.
"I've only had one mishap when we went walking in Wark. A couple of people had done the walk a few days before and it was fine but, on the day, it had been pouring with rain and the streams looked like rivers.
"We got to one and Jenny told me I was going to have to take a huge running jump, which I did, but not quite far enough. I ended up knee-deep in water."
But times when she has got wet or tripped up have not put Janet off and she has recently completed her most challenging walk to date.
"We went to a set of steep crags known as the Whanneys, at Sweethope Loughs. It meant getting down on my haunches to make it to the bottom. Some people said there was no way I could make it down, but Dennis was always convinced we could make it - and I think we got down first."
After joining the walking group, Janet heard about an old tandem at the Northumberland Blind Association and asked if she could use it. Now, a volunteer comes out every few weeks to Janet's home to take her cycling around the Tyne Valley.
"We were both a bit frightened at first as neither of us had ever been on a tandem, but to be pedalling is a great feeling and it creates a lot of attention from the local children as many of them have never seen a tandem before."
Janet swims once a week and also goes to the gym at Hexham's Wentworth Leisure Centre.
Janet is not sure what her next challenge might be, but she is determined to keep active.
