Up The Farway Tree

2013 in Pictures

January

We had a lovely family gathering to celebrate new year 2013. 

The rest of the month was quiet, and sadly we lost mums Aunty Nancy but there were many happy memories to share.

February

I presented my Body Image booklet at the CF conference in Southhampton, which was a great experience.  We visited friends in Manchester and had a lovely weekend, and LLTGL launched their fab "Let Love Live On" campaign for valentines day :-)   I finally met an online friend Kelly and Seb met her lovely poodle Barney - and made his first good friend haha.

March

I presented to the physio team at my hospital about pulmonary rehab in Cystic Fibrosis.    We had a lovely family celebration for Easter.

  

April

This was a busy month for organ donation awareness!!  It was my 5th transplant anniversary so was rather apt to be spreading the word!   I  did two talks at George Heriot school to 4th year pupils,  I helped out some media students , who were creating a short film about organ donation as part of their module and met with another student, Mike, doing a masters in Design who was completing a project and dissertation around organ donation.  Finally on the day of my anniversary I spoke at the  Regional Collaborative Meeting - this was essentially key players in organ donation, ITU and A+E consultants - all the people involved with identification of donors and dealing with donor families in Scotland.  I did also manage some 34th birthday celebrations in April too and we went to a 1950s party for Irene's 60th ;-)

May

We had some amazing weather this month, so spent lots of time in the garden - I went on a spree of painting everything in sight :-)   At the end of May I went in for my shoulder surgery.....ouch! 

June

I spent most of June recovering from my surgery - I had some problems with my chest post surgery but otherwise recovered well!   We went to Mike's design show to see his final work on organ donation, which was really interesting.  At the end of the month we had our friends over for the weekend to stay, and Seb learned to tolerate his arch enemy 'Alfie' for the evening ;-)

July

Busy month!  Had my lovely friends Barry and Louise, and their 3 kiddies for the weekend - we had great fun!  

Then we had Uncle Hughs Golden Anniversary celebrations, a trip to Hawick for Andrews cousins 40th and it was also great catching up with my cousin Kelly Ann and her family :-)  

August

We went to Pefkos in Rhodes for a lovely relaxing week.  

Mum and me went to Stobo Castle for some pampering and at the end of the month me and Andrew zipped across the Clyde in aid of the Willow Foundation.  Team Glasgow riased over £4000 together! 

September

We had a fab trip to Brugge with Claire and Giuseppe -mostly spent drinking beer! 

Myself and Victoria ran the organ donor desk at Freshers Fayre.

 

October

Andrew completed his first half marathon in aid of Breast Cancer.  

We attended a charity 1920s night, so got dressed up which was fun. 

We then went to Elgin for the weekend as my friend Sheila was organising a  quiz in aid of LLTGL. 

At the end of the month I was in London for the LLTGL advocate weekend :-)  Mum got her hip replacement this month and continues to make a good recovery.

November

We celebrated our friend Cameron's wedding!  Then I started a post graduate course in Autism and spent most of the month frantically researching and writing a first draft of my essay.  

December

We started the month with a trip to visit Louise and Barry and start the Christmas fun!  

I enjoyed the run up to Christmas - making crackers, wrapping presents and baking mince pies :-)  I had my work night out which was great fun and met up with my friends for a Christmas lunch.  

Sadly we lost Andrews Gran this month - we did however know that she was finally at peace and no longer suffering.  

Christmas itself was lovely (as always) and we have both enjoyed spending time with all our family :-)

 

I don't know what next year will hold, and I am not one for making new year resolutions.  I hope for more adventures, dreams coming true, fun and laughter and health and happiness for all my family and friends.  I thank my donor once again for giving me this chance to celebrate life.  And regardless of what happens in my life this year;  I am content, and I am happy.

“When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, 'Oh yes -- I already have everything that I really need.”   

Dalai Lama