After a month of feeding and caring for my moustache the ungrateful wretch has escaped and was last seen hot-footing it across the local park. A small reward is offered for its safe return.

A month of daily applications of Miracle-Gro is finally over and the result is... underwhelming. Rather whiter than last year, and rather more straggly. Though there is something of the bedraggled walrus about it.

Unfortunately the walking challenge didn't quite go to plan when my left knee attempted a rapid unscheduled disassembly and then swelled up to twice the size of the right. Resting it up and taking a break from daily walks helped, but at the expense of a week of disrupted sleep thanks to calf muscle cramps due to the lack of exercise. Thankfully, today, the last day of the challenge, I was able to get back to a 5 km hobble.

Here's the latest image of the horrific growth on my top lip - you can see why my wife complains of pogonophobia.

But it is worst than that - I've been struck by the Curse of the Exploding Knee Cap!

I've been having a few warning twinges from my left knee for a few weeks now and today this transmogrified into continuous pain - of course at exactly the point when I was furthest from home. Eight hours later and I have a very swollen leg. Damn annoying, since I've only been doing fractionally more mileage than normal. Do I get extra donations if I hop the remaining 42 km?

So, more than a week into Movember and my wife (who doesn't follow me on social media) has only just noticed that I'm growing a moustache... I'm not sure if she needs new glasses, or whether it's just that she can't bear to look at me. She claims the latter. Either way, I'm certain that it is nothing to do with the hair on my upper lip being rather whiter and perhaps a little sparser than previous years...

I thought I should share with you the luxuriant growth on my upper lip after only five days. So here's a selfie from today's Movember walk. Oh... wait...

First day of Movember and a quick photo to prove how lovely and smooth my upper lip is... what? Oh, OK... well it's smooth anyway.

Untidy, unsightly, and unnecessary... but enough about me. Today the moustache was to come off... but you know, now I'm having second thoughts...

End of week 4 report. A total of 212 km walked and £90 raised. I've really enjoyed the motivation to get out and do a bit more walking, and it has done wonders for the backlog on my podcast playlist. My right little toe has seen better days however.

I'm really looking forward to getting rid of this moustache on Sunday. I visited hospital today for a anticoagulant test. Two nurses came into the waiting room and one said to the other

"You take the lady, I'll take the old man."

I looked around to see where the old man was, but there was nobody else there...