Back teaching!

Kali's birthday! 8 today!

Last night I taught my first class official. I have taught a couple of one off classes but this is me back to the regular timetable. I feel energised partly due to having two medicines taken off my intake. I have been on the mountain bike and have been more active. I still get tired but I'm doing more. The only way is up!

This weekend I head off to Northampton to attend a seminar with Ajarn Chai. The US based Thai Boxing coach is an annual event and I learn so much. It amazes me that its not better attended and I see people with his badge on their tee shirts but I never see them attend. Isn't that silly!

Teaching at XTS

The ups and downs

Fighters training session

Sitting in front of Dr Marianne Nicholson, a consultant in clinical oncology with NHS Grampian, was a wonderful experience. She was ecstatic and was grinning from ear to ear. In her job, she rarely has success stories. Mostly she prolongs life by a few short months, but here she was in front of a patient who had told her he would survive and he'd done it. This is exactly what she lived for in her professional capacity. As she shook my hand goodbye, because it is very unlikely that we will meet in clinic again, I left her walking on the clouds.

That was Monday lunchtime. Earlier at 8.45am i had been in to my local GP for blood tests. I then went home for a sleep before heading to the Oncology appointment in Aberdeen. I have to sleep most mornings, a clear reaction to the potassium levels. My blood pressure on Monday morning was 170 over 110! Whoops!

My weeks medication

I did have a busy weekend. Bob Spour had arrived on Saturday am and we went to the gym where he taught a 3 hour workshop in Muay Thai Boxing and Krabi Krabong. Heading back we ate whilst watching England's opening World Cup game. I feel Capello got things wrong selection wise and the 1-1 flattered the USA but the world cup has been great for my recuperation as it has sent me to sleep many a time!

Sunday we were up early and up to Aberdeen for a fighters session followed by a Self Protection workshop. Bob went south and we went home. Football on and sleep commences!

Kali was meant to be in today for surgery but got a last minute reprieve when a more experienced vet considered that one 'growth' was a cyst and the other a fatty lump. We are to watch them closely though. It was noticeable that Kali was relieved!

Caz and Kali at the vets this morning.

Kali the Deer hunter

This is our evening habit. We walk down to the Dee and we 'hunt' the deer. It can involve just staying still for 10 minutes, something that wasn't natural to her at first. However she has learnt to stay quiet and be patient and the deer will move. As you can see, she's ready to go at the slightest movement. She's not fast enough for the deer so they are safe.

In the second video, she's trying to find her bone. She hid it somewhere but can't remember where.

Postcards fae Aboyne

The old Deeside Railway route.

Visitors

I'm feeling a lot stronger. My kidneys are working and I've been measuring my fluid intake/output since Saturday. it equals out and what a difference! My potassium levels have dropped to 5.0 from 6.2 and i expect today's blood results to see a further drop.

I had some welcome visitors over the weekend. Saturday saw my son Perry grab a lift off Bill Mutch and so a great afternoon of chat which exhausted me out. Sunday saw Peter and Paula Richardson, Gillian and Graham Williams come past at different times. All these broke the monotony and were a welcome sight, but it tires me out, in a good way.

Peter and Paula gave me some exercise bands which are really welcome especially as my arms are so skinny. Bicep 28cm, chest 105cm. I've never been so small, well - since I was small! Ill measure them weekly from now on. Im 78kg (12.3 stone/172lb).

They also brought along Deezal, a young Rhodesian Ridgeback pup that played with our aging lady.

Kali and a young enthusiastic Deezal

Gillian and Graham had been hill walking. Grahams about to walk around the alps in one go, having done all the Munro's continuously, so I'll be following his progress with interest in the next six months.

Over the last 3 months I have heard the sensationalist screaming of climate deniers jumping on any bandwagon that calls into question the science. That's OK as science has to be challenged and what survives the scrutiny has value in the scientific community. What is happening with the 'email hacking' incident - which was claimed to show it was all a lie - has not seen anything but profound silence after the independent inquiry totally exonerated the supposed corrupt scientist. You can read about it here.

Its typical of the world where the media sensationalist to pander to the prejudices of their audience. How many people though have been influenced by the loudmouths who are not savvy to the long term facts, who are simply influenced by corporate sponsored denier groups? We live in a throw away society and I for one spend my life doing the opposite.

I'll be spending my time of recuperation in the garden when I can, creating along with Caz a garden that will also produce food. I encourage you to read into permaculture and even if you have just a small garden in a city you can still turn it into something and this has been proved by Spiralseed. I know that it is close to election time, but I have advocated all my adult life self responsibility.

I dont want to sit back and expect a politician to organise my life with 2 minute moments of hate as portrayed in Orwell's 1984. I dont want to be a product or a pawn for some globalised profit making scheme that leaves victims everywhere. I want my life to be an example of what can be and with this 'second' chance I wont be changing too much but I wont be idling either.

We are not saying "Don't Vote". Whether we vote or not, or who we vote for, is largely unimportant. What is important is realising that it is not a cross on a piece of paper which counts, but how we spend the rest of our lives. Real change comes about not because we vote for it, but because we fight for it, shout for it, work for it. Placing hopes and fears on who holds power, or who will gain power through voting, is wasting time which might be spent in creating alternatives, both for ourselves and for our communities. Whether you choose to vote or not does not interest us. But we ask you: Organise! Educate! Participate! - Chumbawamba Statement - 1987

Merry Kalistmas

The River Dee 10am

Whilst celebrating the festival of Winter Solstice was akin to our ancient ways, the imposing Christians put Christmas day as near as hell to it (and bang on the Roman solar holiday Dies Natalis Solis Invicti) to which the vest majority here in the UK have grown up to recognise this as way to get the family together and be thankful for our wealth. The Julian calendar has it as the 7th January but we use the Gregorian calendar so hence the 25th.

This year Caz, Kali and I have celebrated in a new house. I can't recall last Christmas as i was still recovering from surgery and high on morphine but, whilst I'd started the I will Survive mantra, I guess I wouldn't have laid goods odds on making it this far. You can see by this post last Christmas that I was laying the right foundations but it wasn't till October that this tipping point was reached.

I owe the change to a lot of good friends who gave me strength, who have been there or who have helped in any way however big or small. For this I consider myself a wealthy man and so I can truly be thankful today of all days.

Its been a busy week with all the bad weather and hustle and bustle of this time of year. At the weekend we were up in Inverness, traveling in all the blizzards and it seems so long ago already. Kali has been lying protecting the tree with her presents around it, she's like a little child and sure enough she stuck her nose into every parcel this morning. The video clip says it all!

So I'm thankful for the health I have and the health I will have. After this Annus horribilis I can only see a more positive future. So let us raise our glasses, mugs of tea or whatever and join in a toast to the riches that are around us that money simply cannot buy! Amen