Up The Farway Tree

Why blog?

I have not written since August and it's probably because of several reasons.   I am not sure this private blog is working out, as I really have lost most of my readers.  Even people who I did send invites to seem to have problems logging in!  I have also been busy with life - which is surely a good thing :-)

However I think that it is nice to look back and remind myself what I have done over the year and to record some thoughts on the way, so I am going to try and get back to my blog again....

So maybe best start with a quick (!) summary of august to november!

August

Team Glasgow and friends took part in a zipslide across the Clyde at the end of August in aid of The Willow Foundation.  This is a charity who provide special treats and days out to adults with life threatening illness.  We had great fun and I am pleased to say I made the jump and zipped without any problems.  It was over so quickly though!  As a team we raised over £4000 for the charity so it was well worth it!

Me zipping!

September

In September we went on a lovely weekend break to Bruge with Claire and Giuseppe.  The weekend consisted of sampling beer, visiting the local brewery, sampling the traditional food, sampling some more beer...and then some more :-)  We had a lovely relaxing weekend and Bruge itself was very quaint, with its winding cobbled streets and beautiful canals.   We also ran our annual Live Life Then Give Life stall at Freshers Fayre over two days.   It was a great success again, although exhausting.   Team Glasgow have started early planning next years ball and we viewed a venue with a provisional booking for 25th October 2014 -so get that in your diaries!   It was of course also Frances Ann's birthday and 9th anniversary in September - it really doesn't get any easier.

Bruge

October

This month started with Andrew taking part in the Great Scottish Run - which is a half marathon.   He did really well on the day and completed it in 2 hrs 22 mins and 22 seconds.....spooky!!  He did this in aid of Breast Cancer Breakthrough.   We also attended a charity night for Quarriers, as my friend Victoria is volunteering for them at the moment.  It was 1920s theme so I managed to find a 20's style hat to go with a dress I already had.    The following weekend we were up in Elgin at a quiz in aid of LLTGL, which my good friend Sheila had organised.   It was a fab weekend and lovely to catch up.

At the end of the month I was down in London for the LLTGL advocate weekend.  It was a great weekend and we generated lots of new ideas and heard about some upcoming changes for the charity.  Watch this space :-)  I gave a little presentation on psychological issues post transplant at the meeting, as it has been found that depression and anxiety are more common in people post transplant. Although that might seem surprising to some people,  I think it makes sense.   Some of this is related to changes in role and expectations about life achievements, as well as dealing with the trauma of what has happened, and also the fear of what is still to come.   It's an interesting area and probably often overlooked.

October was busy for mum too - she had her first hip replacement - with hopefully the second one early next year.  After some initial problems with low blood pressure post op, she has made a great recovery.  She is able to move about with one stick now and has done really well with all her exercises.  She will be seeing the surgeon next month and hopefully will get an idea when the next one can be done - as this is painful so holding her back.

 After the run!

 20s charity night

Elgin - at the beach

Elgin  - quiz night

November

We were at a wedding this month - our friend Cameron, who we shared a flat with at uni.  It was a lovely weekend, although the weather wasn't too kind to them!  We did have some fun at dinner carving pumpkins - these were part of the table décor but someone suggested an impromptu pumpkin carving competition and Cameron ended up being presented with about 20 small pumpkins haha!  Andrew used his sgian-dubh (the wee knife you put in your kilt sock) to good effect :-)

I then started a postgraduate certificate course in Autism and Aspergers.   There was three days of lectures and I have now got a 6000 word essay to finish before end of February.   I have started researching and writing up parts of it, so feel reasonably under control just now.  I really don't want to be doing any of it over the Christmas holidays, so wanted to get a good start now.  I am planning to look at how Autism and Aspergers presents in acute psychiatry and related this to the theories (analysing the theories is the main learning objective).    It's definitely been keeping me busy....

So I think that is more or less up to date!  Let's see if I can actually update again before Christmas...

....which is getting very close!  Woooooooo!!