Up The Farway Tree

Where to start?

I last blogged when I was heading off to the advocate weekend and I don't think I have stopped to draw a breath since.  I will give you the high lights of the last 10 days :-)

The advocate weekend was fab and very useful all round.  Myself, Kirsty and Victoria (as the three Scottish advocates) headed down to London on the Friday evening.  The train journey wasn't too bad but it was a late night with us just arriving at the hotel around 11pm.  The next day was a full day of meetings with the LLTGL team, looking at the advocates role, where the charity is going and where funding is being allocated etc.  It was useful to chat over all this and also good to get to know the other trustees a little better.   It was a busy day and we managed to find time for a mini photo shoot, to capture us wearing the new t-shirt with the slogan "think about it, talk about it, do something about it".  We had a lot of fun doing this and got some great pictures.  In the evening we all grabbed a pizza and headed back to the hotel for a while.  I was pretty much ready to go to bed when Kirsty announced we were going out.  I somehow agreed to this and we ended up having a really good night with lots of dancing and posing :-)  The Sunday involved information about the Speakers Project which LLTGL will be running.  We covered the basics about how to deliver a speech in three minutes while still including all the necessary information - I may attempt this at the ball.  I find it really hard to stop after 3 minutes!  We then headed back up to Glasgow on the Sunday afternoon and were all absolutely shattered.

Hard at work...

Matt (Vice-chair), Kirsty,Victoria, Louise (advocates),Emily (Chair), Me, Holly (trustee)

Team Glasgow  - would you trust them?!

Straight back to work on Monday and quite a busy week.  I still have a PBL group so had that on Tuesday and managed to squeeze a bone scan in before I got to work at 9.20am on the Wednesday - pretty good going.  On Thursday we headed up to Aberdeen straight from work as it was my dear friend Fi's funeral on Friday.  We stayed with my friend Andrew (thank you!) so that we weren't driving there and back in one day.  The service was beautiful and very fitting for Fi.  She had her burial at a woodland site called Clovery Woods,  which was stunning.   So many lovely tributes were made and there was a warm gathering afterwards and I am really glad I was able to join everyone.

The weekend was also rather hectic with some rushing about doing house DIY type things on Saturday and then a family party in the evening.  Sunday was my nightmare trying to print booklets but not succeeding day.  I am printing a wee programme for each table at the ball, with some information on the evenings proceedings, prizes, sponsors etc.  I had planned to print everything on dads printer so set aside Sunday for this task.  Then the worst happened - the printer wouldn't work!  After several hours I gave up and decided to head home, only to discover the power steering on my car had gone and it was impossible to drive! So dad had to drive me home and I then started trying to print on my own printer - but because it doesn't do borderless printing it was impossible to centre the pages correctly.  My friend had a go on her printer and had the same issue.  After weighing up a number of options I ended up going to Asda at 9pm last night and buying a printer.  Probably a bit excessive but we were planning to get a new wireless printer because we both use laptops - although I didn't really plan on buying it this week.  Ah well - it looks very pretty and seems to be up to the job.  I have one booklet completed to show the girls this afternoon then full on production will commence!

Me and my Dad

Me and Mum lead the way with The Slosh

The ball planning is getting to that rather manic phase when all the last minute things have to be done and pulled together.  We have a final meeting with the venue today and then its full steam ahead until Friday.  I cannot believe it's only 3 sleeps away!  It will be a fantastic night although I think all three of us will collapse in a heap afterwards.   For anyone who cannot come, please consider giving a small donation via the Just Giving link on the right - every penny counts towards our final total.

Finally, in the middle of all the above, the extension continues.  It is more or less complete with just a snagging list to work through.  The main issue at the moment is getting the radiators in (hopefully tomorrow) as it is freezing in there at the moment.  The shower room is also complete and just needs painted.  In fact a lot of things need painted!!  We are also plastering the hall but this will have to wait a few weeks now as the guy is really busy.  All in all, things are coming together though and hopefully we will be feeling more back to normal soon.   I will post some more up to date photos soon but this was taken last week..