CONGRATS go to Cumbria’s very own wonder woman, Helen Skelton Myler who has completed her latest challenge.

After canoeing 2,000 miles down the Amazon, running the 78 mile Namibian ultra-marathon and setting a record for reaching the South Pole by bike and kite ski, and tightrope walking across Battersea Power Station, this latest feat lacked a little bit of glamour and a little less travelling.

She swam the Humber estuary.

The TV presenter was one of a group of people who made the 1.3 mile crossing in a fierce current to raise money for the Humber Rescue lifeboat charity.

Before she took part in the swim, the lass from Kirby Thore did say she hoped she hoped to get carried along on the current “like a giant Pooh-stick”.

Never one to blow her own trumpet, despite her amazing achievements, I thought she was being a bit too humble. I had to read the comment twice before I realised what she was talking about.

Helen never stands still (or treads water) and the Blue Peter and Countryfile star is probably already planning her next big feat.

*There must be thousands of young lads - and lasses - raising a cheer to expensive fancy-pants clothes designer Stella McCartney.

She revealed at the weekend that she NEVER washes her clothes.

Don’t dry clean your posh stuff, she advises, “just let the dirt dry and brush it off”.

She learned the tip while working for bespoke tailors in London’s swanky Savile Row.

And she admitted she rarely washes her bras: “I wouldn’t change my bra every day and I don’t just chuck stuff into a washing machine because it’s been worn.

“I’m incredibly hygienic myself, but I’m not a fan of dry cleaning or any cleaning, really.”

She has long championed environmental causes and warns against daily washes because every laundry cycle coughs out millions of plastic microfibres into our waterways.

Fewer washes also make our clothes stay in shape longer and increase their longevity.

Of course, the sort of dirt she’s probably talking about is the kind found in the wine cellars of chateaux, the libraries on a yacht or from a nightclub VIP area.

It’s not quite a easy to brush grass stains or mud off a shirt or make-up from a collar.