A WOMAN has taken the plunge - time and time again - to raise cash for a charity.

Lynnette Maling is currently nearly halfway through the equivalent of a cross-Channel swim and there’s not a drop of sea water in sight.

That’s because Lynnette, of Thurlow Avenue, Beltinge, is undertaking the marathon swim at the Herons swimming pool in Herne Bay.

Lynnette needs to swim 1,408 lengths of the pool to reach the equivalent of the 22-mile Channel crossing.

Most mornings before she starts work as an accounts assistant at Chaucer Insurance in Whitstable, she puts in as many lengths as she can and is at the pool at weekends too.

Lynnette is doing the swim in aid of ASPIRE, the national spinal cord injury charity, as part of the organisation’s annual Channel swim fund-raiser.

The 36-year-old was inspired to do something for charity having been badly injured in a road accident 20 years ago.

She suffered a serious leg injury after being knocked off her moped by a car.

“I’d seen various appeals for people to take part in fund-raising efforts for charity but most of them involved running, which because of what happened to me I can’t do,” Lynnette said.

“Then I saw the ASPIRE appeal and as I enjoy swimming thought it was something I could do.”

Lynnette has already clocked up hundreds of lengths since last month and hopes to finish her swim well before the target date of the beginning of December.

“I go to the pool four or five mornings a week and do about 40 or 50 lengths each time,” she added. "I have a card the lifeguards sign to say how many lengths I do.”

Her employers have sponsored her to the tune of £250 and Lynnette hopes pledges from family and friends will take the total she raises to around £575.

Anyone who would like to sponsor Lynnette can do so by logging on to this website.