Ron and Karen: Our lives and the world of recovery: 2009

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Ron is back in Australia

Ron is back in Australia, he has been there a week now & has returned to Tasmania to help start up their hearing voices network & to train the staff across the island in working with voices. We will both returning there in April next year to run a further making recovery happen course & some management training.

Tasmania’s services both NGO’s & health service, have made a real commitment to developing recovery based services for people in mental distress.

What is exciting is that because the population is below 400,000 & its an island it should be relatively easy to see the changes develop in the services & to be able to measure recovery outcomes.

He is there for a further week before heading for Melbourne to run a peer support course with Anthony Strafford. Vicserve are hosting the event.

For me the weeks Ron are away are a time to finally sort our house out, the outbuilding is now finished & the office is no longer our bedroom, but every thing is in piles waiting to be sorted

We have reclaimed the sitting room as an adult & child space & I am typing this sitting in front of a lovely roaring fire. I am 2 weeks into a 5 week stretch at home & it is fantastic, I can feel myself slow down , enjoy some mothering, & make everything ready for Christmas.

As to working to recovery we still have places left on the starting up hearing voices group training next week in Leeds & Birmingham.

We are now taking bookings for the next recovery champions course which we have moved to England to a lovely venue in Stroud in my home county of Gloucestershire

Ron Coleman and Karen Taylor have an international reputation as speakers and authors. They are the directors of ‘Working to Recovery Limited’ an innovative international consultancy, training and publishing company with a cutting edge approach to supporting and improving mental health provision.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Bring inhome the importance of strong network

One of the evidence- based sign that someone’s recovery journey is sustainable is having a good social network & strong family network. A few things in the last couple of weeks have brought this home to me. Firstly having a girlfriend I can occasionally travel with to explore mutual interests like New grange led to a very energising weekend in Ireland, which made me feel 20 years younger, it also left me longing to see old friends. Last Friday I drove down from the island in one go with Rory & Francesca to Gloucestershire to visit my parents the kids were great considering we had all got up at 5am to catch the early ferry & didn’t arrive in until 21.15.

Saturday I went to Cheltenham & old haunt & met up with my daughter Alex & her boyfriend Matt, it was lovely to see her happy, I left them to go to my oldest wisest friend in Gloucester Terry & her partner Simon & 2 other close friends Toby & Sue, its over 2 years since I have seen them but it was just like fitting on an old comfortable glove it made me realise how much good friendship is worth as we sat reminiscing, arguing and debating around the dinner table. 2 years apart just faded into the background & I felt I was living around the corner again. Friendship helps me keep that sense of who am I? my values & my journey through life so far

Yesterday was special for the first time for a few years my brother, sister, & me were in one place sharing lunch, I had brought down with me one of our own pork roasting joints, some of our kids were there happily playing together, & as is usual with families we adults had started arguing over politics, values etc, it ended amicably but also gave me that sense of how like & how different I am from my family. I love to see them & be with them, but I am also glad that I live far enough away in order to keep my own identity.

Recently in training I had 2 workers from Kerala, they were lovely people & we were discussing the importance of having a strong extended family, but they also pointed out that this led them to have much less freedom to be themselves as respect for their elders & belief in this model of caring for each other, meant they as individuals had to give up much of their individuality. Although I long for the return of the extended family in western culture, I actually probably enjoy more the freedom I have to be different than my family. I also passionately believe that children once they reach 18 need to leave home and grow up, take risks & learn what living is all about. I am proud of my 2 eldest children as I watch them takes those leaps into adulthood, they are always on the end of the phone but have the freedom to explore who they want to be with out me breathing down their necks, I must admit though facebook is an interesting way of keeping tags on them !

Thursday, October 8, 2009

A spiritual quest ....

At last some leisure time, Seppi my friend from Lewis & I had a whole weekend to explore county Meath & County Louth in Ireland, before I worked in Ardee for 2 days last Monday & Tuesday.

We had planned the visit as we had been told about New grange but to have a whole weekend of visiting sacred & historical sites with out kids was amazing, to take time, read all the signs, feel the silence was food for the soul, then to have the evenings Guinness, good red wine & fine Irish cuisine staying in a posh hotel thanks to an upgrade with priority club was sublime.

Many of you will know about my passion for spirals & search for spiritual meaning that they have taken me on, so to visit Knowth & New grange was an exciting climax to the weekend.

We started out on the Friday, visiting Monasterboice, & the huge Celtic crosses there, followed by a visit to a castle & driving down the back roads to Dundalk where we were staying. The hotel was pleasant with a lovely big room with 2 huge beds. We had a brief rest before hitting the town, we felt like 2 teenagers again, 2 pints of Guinness later we decided to find somewhere to eat, the restaurant next door had been recommended by the taxi driver, & it was good, we had a wonderful rum concoction whilst we waited for a table & spent the next 3 hours gassing, eating & drinking good red wine.

Next day we visited the Cooley mountains home of the Tain legends, drove around trying to find various megalithic monuments, some were more elusive than others & spent the evening watching “strictly come dancing” then to the hotel restaurant for a reasonable meal.

Sunday we had made for New grange we set out in anticipation, I felt very excited & quite intense, as to what effect the place would have on me.

Knowth the first mound was probably more interesting than New grange, it had less visitors and you cant go into the centre of the mound, but the art work on the stones were incredible, many were covered in spirals, diamonds & other shapes& they were carved into the stones 3600 years ago, Knowth has half the worlds known Neolithic art on the stones surrounding the mound, it is an incredibly spiritual & sacred place. & has chambers facing the east & west for the autumn & spring equinox.

New grange you are allowed right into the centre of the burial chamber, at one point they turn out the lights & simulate the sun rising on the winter solstice for 17 minutes the light enters the burial chamber, even the simulation felt very moving. What caught my eye was the stone carving of a fern, obviously this was related to the spirals but was the first time I had seen the fern symbol outside of NZ, what interests me more is that the spiral is both a Maori & Celtic symbol both interpret it as a sign of renewal, growth, regeneration, recovery.

The people also share similar traits, great warriors, live in a clan system, women are revered& they both talk to their ancestors.

Interestingly it was NZ that started my spiritual quest, & moving to Lewis has continued that journey.

The feeling that returns to me again and again is that doing the recovery work is part of my spiritual destiny, it feels so right to be doing this work there is such a strong feeling in my heart when we run the champions course & I watch as people start to heal themselves. If I can be this catalyst for healing what an honour that is. If one person on one of our courses goes away with a sparkle back in their eye and a sense of developing pride in themselves then what a fantastic life I have. I have felt the need to be identified as a healer for a few years now, sometimes that feels authentic sometimes I really question am I up to this, but I suppose the most important aspect is to remember that the person heals themselves I just put my self out there willing to walk a little bit of the journey with them. Recovery for me is definitely about Love, deep love for the human condition, for our vulnerability, for our frailties, for our humanness. I am a flawed person, with my own guilt & shame but I can be a role model for others to believe that this life is truly worth living

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Hertfordshire Recovery Conference and Maastricht

The Hertfordshire conference on recovery went very well, the presentations were really interesting, It was good to catch up with Helen Glover whom we had not seen for a number of years, it was good to see her looking so well & her & Ron’s presentations really complemented each other.

After the conference Ron & I made our way to the ferry at Harwich, a very strange place, it was very hard to find somewhere to eat but we finally managed to find something. Had a smooth over night crossing though I had the top bunk, I am definitely getting to old & stiff for bunk beds.

We drove to Maastricht, my first time driving on the right for a couple of years, but negotiated all the roundabouts the right way.

It was great to see everyone in Maastricht, especially Micheala Amering whom we had not seen for a number of years.

The conference was a roaring success, starting each day with 5 voice hearers telling their recovery stories set the scene & tone of the meeting. I particularly enjoyed Richard Bentall’s presentation & John Read. Jacqui Dillon told her story in an incredibly powerful way & Marius was his usual self.

There were people from all over the world, which was very exciting with many new faces from Australia, Canada & USA. I was particularly proud of the young group of Australians who had come with their nurse Ros from Wodonga. I am sure that the trip to Europe will be remembered by them as an important part of their recovery journeys, but they acted so professionally & confidently in their workshop it made me feel very emotional.

The bookstall was very successful though hard work, but it also gave us a good chance to talk to lots of different people. We had to pack up quite quickly in the end to make sure we made it to the ferry, which we did though we briefly got lost once on the way back to Hook of Holland.

Next day I drove for about 10 hours arriving back in Dundee in the evening. Ron took his mum out to the clubbie but I was too tired and stayed in the hotel watching strictly come dancing.

Next day I finished the journey back to Lewis, leaving Ron to make his way back to Edinburgh where he was meeting Jim , to travel back down to Nottingham, then on to Worcester. I had done a round trip of over 1700 miles driving the van, was it worth it definetly. I had learnt some new things met new & old friends 7 realised how proud I am to belong to intervoice this group of wonderful clinicians , voice hearers & family members.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Updating the Blog from the Lewis Sunday ferry ...

We are on the ferry from Lewis. This is the first time we have taken the Sunday ferry since it started it has given us an extra day at home with the kids. The boat is quite full, so proves there was definite economic case for it.

We are going to Hertfordshire for the recovery conference before driving to the ferry at Harwich crossing to Hook of Holland then making our way to Maastricht for the world congress. Apparently there are people coming from 20 countries, lots of people we know and some new faces particularly from America.

We are driving over as we are taking over a bookstall for the event, just managed to print Paul Bakers new book the voice inside in time & are picking the boxes up from Dundee on route.

This autumn Ron is going to be away a lot , with trips to italy in October & Australia in November where he is doing a couple of weeks voices training in Tasmania & a peer support course with Anthony Stratford in Melbourne.

Australia is investing in mental health at the moment& is developing mental health policies based around recovery.

One of the services which is particularly interesting is the phams programme, phams stands for personal helpers & mentors, its interesting because it is a non clinical programme aimed at working in a recovery based way with people, they can self refer to the programme as long as they are in a particular area for a phams team. It is also opening up work for Peer support as one of the possible requirements for working in this programme is to have lived experience.

Already a lot of recovery stories are being collated by the federal body behind the project & it is proving very popular with consumers & family members.

There is a real sense that Australia is shifting its mental health policy & it could become a very interesting place to work over the next 5 years. Ron and I have noticed a difference in the last 5 years of us working there. The statutory services are wanting training now on recovery & to be part of the growing hearing voices network. All of this can only be god for consumers.

I will report back on the Hertfordshire event & the world congress next Sunday on my return journey to Lewis

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Back from Australia

Recovery weave presentation on Recovery Champions course

Tasmania

Rain seemed to follow me around - wet in Perth & Tasmania, been back just over a week and its rained every day. Five weeks of over indulging , eating out most nights, no kids, very little exercise has left me ill prepared for my return to normality. Wading through mud up to the top of my wellingtons to feed the pigs, carrying around bags of coal & animal food , mucking out the animals, sorting out kids, wheel-barrowing loads of stones & gravel to try and make a path through the mud, weeding the vegetables, digging up my onions, planting. I am becoming more and more attached to Western Australia, particularly the Margaret river area. Found out the local rock at the beaches is gneiss the same rock that the standing stones are made of here on Lewis, I am not surprised as the area had the same pull for me, and felt like somewhere I could live.

Again on this trip we met many marvelous people, heard many unbearable stories that confirm again for me that mental illness is much more about what a persons journey has been rather than any biological or genetic malfunction.

Yet people are still being treated with huge doses of medication , cloziril is particularly popular over there, with no regard for the persons story or awful effects these drugs have on people.

Ron returns this Saturday we are both looking forward to going to Maastricht for the world congress on voices, it looks as though its going to be very big & loads of old & new friends will be there

September Newsletter

Working to Recovery

SEPTEMBER 2009 NEWSLETTER

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Please click on links for further details of our courses and publications or visit our website here

I Hope you have all had a good time this summer and are feeling reenergised and ready for the year ahead.

Ron & I had a very busy time in Australia, running 3 Recovery Champions courses and carrying out some other training & consultancy work. Ron attended the inauguration of the Australian Hearing Voices Network website in Western Australia & the Victoria Hearing Voices Network in Melbourne and during our stay in Tasmania, it was announced that a Tasmanian Hearing Voices Network was to be launched, what fantastic news for voice hearers in Australia! Read more on our Blog page here.

We have a great programme of events here in the UK this November, starting with the 4 day Working & Talking with Voices course in Scotland led by Ron Coleman & with the participation of our world leading expert on voice dialoguing Dr DIRK CORSTENS, a social psychiatrist from the Netherlands alongside psychologist and voice hearer, Eleanor Longden.

There will also be a one day Voice Dialoguing workshop run by Dirk & Eleanor in London 3^rd November for all of you that can’t make the residential programme.

PAUL BAKER also hits the workshop scene with 2 brand new workshops on How to set up & run a Hearing Voices Group, participants will also receive a copy of our new How to Set up and Run a Hearing Voices Group DVD as part of the package, the DVD can also be purchased separately.

Finally our long awaited new edition of The Voice Inside by Paul Baker will be ready for the Maastricht World Hearing Voices conference 17^th September. Ron is a key note speaker and I will be running a workshop, there a still places available if you wish to attend, go here for more details.

Ron will be speaking at the Hertfordshire Recovery Conference 15^th September in Stevenage & I will be running a workshop at Network East Midlands anniversary conference on October 27^th

Please contact me karen@workingtorecovery.co.uk if you want information on running courses in-house, we are now taking bookings for 2010

Regards

Karen Taylor

Director

Working to Recovery Limited

28 Habost

Port of Ness

Isle of Lewis.

HS20TG

tel 01851810060

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Two weeks gone in a flash

Two weeks gone in a flash. Two Recovery champions courses finished, two very different groups of participants, one outcome though, 42 people have gone away energised, reflective and enthusiastic about going back to work. I love this work, I love the power of the recovery process, and I love the way we can generate love for each other restoring faith in humanness with all its frailty

First week was mainly people from the NGO sector, mainly from organisations that have embraced recovery as a way forward, half of the group were relatively new to mental health work & are joining new programs, the other half were already engaging with recovery in their workplace. The second week, the staff were nearly all health sector staff with many years experience. What was beautiful to see was watching them being energised & revitalised as the week went on yes they were physically & emotionally tired and even though we were working very long hours by the end of the week they were all ready to go back to work & implement what they had learned, Ron & I were both exhausted by yesterday & Ron was particularly emotional as he had grown very close to this group as had I too, being an ex nurse, it is special when we have a group of nurses to work with.

Perth was very wet, Tasmania has been sunshine, showers, rainbows, wind & cold just like home. We hope to return here again it’s a lovely place much greener than the main land. Richmond fellowship Tasmania, announced this week that they will auspice the setting up of the Tasmanian hearing voices network, which is fabulous news too.

Today we had a well earnt rest, walked to the famous Salamanca markets & bought winter boots, gloves & hats ready for the cold of Canberra next week, spent the rest of the day chilling, dosing & watching TV-heaven!

Tomorrow we fly to Canberra where we will work for 4 days with old friends and new.

Getting ready for Australia!!!

I am sitting in an exhausted stupor at Glasgow airport waiting for my flight to Dubai. The last 4 days have been an absolute whirlwind as I prepared for leaving home for 5 weeks. Hoovering at midnight last night to make sure the house was reasonable for the nanny to take over, stupidly up at 6am this morning making a cheesecake for the kids tonight as it was promised a couple of nights ago. Yesterday was 3 trips to Stornoway -180 miles to get building materials for our new office, which hopefully will be complete when we return & our bedroom will no longer be a multi task space!!!

Cleaning out all the animals, making sure they all had plenty of feed for next few weeks, weeding my beautiful veggies, which will be most productive when I am away. Trying to give the kids some time, who were all giving me big hugs all day, leaving them for the school holidays is a big wrench, but we would have hardly seen them as we are working solidly day & evening whilst away so they are best at home in their own environment pier jumping, playing with friends & sleeping in their own beds.

Living in a small village can be difficult, yesterday I got reported to environmental health for going a way to Australia & leaving my 13 yr old in charge of the animals, nobody had rung me to check the facts, he is feeding the pigs every day under supervision to earn £75 for a pair of ridiculously expensive football boots, but that’s his passion & I think important for him to have earned the money rather than being spoilt. Any way the guy turned up saw the animals were in good health, that I had contingency plans in place & reassured me that he gets a lot of malicious phone calls, no wonder people get “paranoid” I am busy trying to work out who would do such a horrible thing with out the guts to speak to me first.

5 hours sleep, two nights in a row definitely don’t suit me. I hope I manage a long sleep on the plane.

We have a great tour ahead of us & are visiting & working in Tasmania for the first time, which I am really looking forward to as it is meant to resemble NZ my most favourite place on the planet.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Since Palestine time has just flown by

Since Palestine time has just flown by, Ron had a really hard time coming out of Israel, which included an humiliating strip search, he was then ill with what turned out to be gastroenteritis, flew straight to Ireland, to take part in a conference in Cork, arrived back home looking grey & ill spent the next 3 days insisting he didn’t need a doctor & then ended up in hospital on iv antibiotics etc

Any way he is fine now & 4kg lighter!

Meanwhile I have been very busy on the croft, Seppi & I shared some peats this year & we already have them stacked & almost dry on the moor& ready to bring in, very different from last year where I just managed to get them in at the end of august before the rain started.

I have been doing loads of work in the poly tunnel & the courgettes are now in flower, tomatoes, beans, pumpkins & cucumbers are growing well too. We added 3 new chickens to our growing flock, Orpington’s who are very pretty, but it a mystery that our daily egg numbers haven’t gone up, we think the ravens may be stealing them.

The biggest delight though has been the addition of 2 female Kune Kune piglets, they are absolutely gorgeous and very friendly, they sit like dogs when you stroke them & make squeaky noises similar to the guinea pig. We are going to find a boar from the main land & start breeding them.

Meanwhile our other pigs are doing well, porky is off down the road soon to live with 3 new females, though we believe he may be leaving our 2 sows pregnant. Which means when we arrive back from Australia, we may have new additions to our ever -growing family.

Meanwhile work is hotting up. Ron is off down to London to run the first workshop with Jacqui Dillon, then he has 2 days in Roehampton, then he is home for the Thursday, the day the kids break up for school, Saturday we all leave for the main land Ron to carry on the workshops in Manchester & Glasgow with a conference speech at the national assertive outreach conference.

Then he fly’s out to Australia & will be away for 8 weeks, I join him on the 16^th July & I will be over there for 5 weeks, we have a really good tour lined up with work in Perth, Tasmania & Canberra.

We are also looking to run a really exciting programme of workshops in the autumn, Ron & Rufus May looking at psychosis & emotions, Paul Baker on how to run a hearing voices group, 4 day voices course, making champions happen residential & a one day voice dialoguing in London.

I am looking forward to our home office being finished , firstly we get our bedroom back & secondly we will be able to hire an admin worker to help me, which will vastly improve the time I can spend on the croft & being with the kids

Thursday, June 4, 2009

They could stand up to any recovery team in the UK ...

I have almost come to the end of my stay here in Palestine.

It has been a wonderful trip, for the last 4 days we have stayed in Bethlehem, this has been good for several reasons, firstly we have avoided the traffic in Jerusalem every morning, secondly we have not had the awful Israeli checkpoints to go through. Thirdly the hotel is luxurious & would normally be with out our finances, but because of the lack of tourists still the rates are very reasonable, fourthly it has a swimming pool. The training has been good at the hospital, the nursing staff we work with are very committed to recovery & are learning more all the time, they could stand up to any recovery team in the UK, particularly when you take into consideration their lack of resources, the stigma & discrimination & the cultural norms they have to overcome. They are proud to be nurses & very human in their approach to their patients.
Adnam took us around the church in the old city & then to Afaf ‘s house where we were invited last night for dinner, this was a wonderful experience, & lovely to meet all the family. Particularly to see the care & love extended to the grandmother, since her husband died the elder children vowed that she would not spend a single night alone in her house where she wanted to stay so they take it in turns to sleep there.

The intercontinental in Bethlehem is well worth staying in, if you come to Bethlehem, ignore the Israeli advice to stay in Jerusalem, it is very safe to stay in Bethlehem & helps the local economy.

Tonight we go back to Jerusalem as we are working in Nablus tomorrow, I have not been here before, and we are running a workshop on recovery at the university.

Temperatures have been around 25C, looking at the forecast for Lewis on my return it is drizze & 10C UGH!

Sunday, May 31, 2009

From planting to Bethlehem

I am at the airport again.

Ron & I are flying to Tel Aviv to work in Bethlehem for the next week. We are really looking forward to this trip to catch up with old friends and see how recovery is developing in the hospital. John Jenkins who is in charge of the programme & Ron have known each other for years & share the same birthday which happens to fall on this trip after I have returned, so no doubt they will be celebrating their birthdays in style some where in Jerusalem.

I was in Dundee last week, running a mentoring workshop for Dundee hearing voices network. Pat has trained up a fantastic group of people to be befriender’s & mentor’s. I took them through the PATH tool which every one loved & everyone took away a plan that they were going to implement.

I also met up with Susan from Plus Perth who I mentor she is an excellent leader & is developing a dynamic, forwarding thinking organisation it s well worth visiting Sue if you are in the Perth area.

Once I drove back from Dundee the rest of this week has been a whirlwind of activity in the garden. All the seeds I had sown a couple of weeks ago are now all through so Ron helped me plant & re-pot every thing.

I am torn about this trip as the weather here is fantastic, there is loads more to be done in the garden , my peats have been cut and now need to be turned and I am not going to be here. Its ok wanting a simpler life on the island but its hard work & still seems to eat up money trying to buy every thing we need for the croft. So I think I will be travelling away working for a few years yet.

Monday, May 18, 2009

How do I cope? Well the island helps ...

It’s a while since I wrote my last blog, but I have been extremely busy. The weather apart from the odd day has been glorious up here. So all my spare time has been spent in the garden. We have managed to get Ron’s poly-tunnel completed as we finally had a day with hardly any wind. John, Ian with Seppi & myself managed to get the cover on stretched and dug into place. Now I am busy filling it with germinating seeds. So if everything goes to plan we should have most vegetables we need during the summer, autumn & winter. I have salad stuff , spinach, carrots, onions, leeks, cauliflower , cabbage, sprouts, potatoes, parsnips , beetroot, leeks, borlotti & cannelloni beans , runner beans, marrows, courgettes, tomatoes, cucumbers & pumkins.
The new chickens are now laying & are in a nice new large run on the croft, keeping the pigs company. It is already still light until 10.30pm & the sunsets last week were spectacular. Today It was so warm I sat down on the beach with the dogs watching the surfers.

People often ask how I cope with the pace of the work, sorting out all my kids & run a home, but it is the time I now have on the island that is rejuvenating me ready for the next lot of training. when I am outside I often just break out into a huge smile thinking about how lucky I am.
In just a few weeks though I will be the other side of the world , leaving my kids & the croft behind for 5 hard weeks of training & consultancy in Australia, in Tasmania where there will probably be snow & Canberra, where there will hard frosts, so I hope the good weather continues up here for the next few weeks.

Ron is away most of the time at the moment, travelling around Europe & the UK He has just returned from a week in Italy , next week he is in Wales , Norwich & south Yorkshire, then has a short respite at home then we both travel to work in Palestine , I return after a week and he stays on to probably work in Gaza & celebrate his birthday with John Jenkins who shares the same birthday, then he flys straight to Ireland working in Cork for a day.
Its Sunday evening & the kids are screaming for the cheesecake I made earlier!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Three weeks fly by

Another 3 weeks gone by in a flash. Another recovery champions course, a week in Cornwall & all the travel back to the island.

We ran the course at Drumoig in Fife again, 10 participants this time from across the UK. There was a strong spiritual dimension to this course, it was a powerful week, with people developing & changing & recovering. As usual the staff at Drumoig were friendly and helpful, helping to make the week successful.

I had been over ambitious with our travel plans though, I was meant to drive up to Ullapool Friday afternoon catch the ferry, get every thing ready for our trip to Cornwall then catch the Saturday lunchtime ferry back to Ullapool then drive to Dundee stay the night pick up Ron & his mum & drive down to Gloucester on the Sunday, then on down to Cornwall on the Monday.

Unfortunately a gale got in the way, the ferry was cancelled & I was stranded in Ullapool, spending the night in the van, luckily I found a great pub with live music so the evening was fine. I travelled over on Saturday morning ferry a very rough crossing which then meant we couldn’t get back to mainland that day, so had to book only crossing out of Harris on a Sunday which involves driving 2 hours down the island catching ferry to Berneara then ferry from North Uist to Skye.

Spent Saturday sorting out all the admin, clothing , etc & decided to get the kids fish & chips which are now sold at Borve garage 14 miles away, drove over , picked up food then managed to reverse van into parked car, things are not going well. Finally managed to finish all the business admin by midnight, tumbled into bed setting the alarm to 6.15 am giving us an hour to get ready before driving to ferry, forgot one thing though the clocks going forward to British summer time, so ended up in mad panic, waking kids & Alex up and getting us all out of house in 15 minutes , unfortunately 5 minutes down the road I realized the ferry tickets & my purse were still in the house , so had to turn around & go back for them,

This led to a fast drive down to Harris but we made it in record time!

Ales had to get back to Gloucester by 11am Monday, so I ended up driving down to Glasgow rendezvousing with Ron & his mum, then driving as far as the M5 other side of Birmingham, arriving 11.30pm Sunday night.

Arrived in St Austells Cornwall where our accommodation was, I felt like I never wanted to drive again, of course this was short lived as I am the only driver and we needed to get around.

The weather was great all week and had a relaxing time meeting up with John Jenkins, 2 Palestinians & Italians from Trieste & Brescia, Friday was a Whole Life conference hosted by Cornwall NHS trust at the Eden project. Whole Life is an interested international project set up by John Jenkins, trying to connect systems so that consumers get all their needs met to be able to recovery and be active citizens.

Travel back was a much more relaxed affair, stopping off for a couple of nights with my family in Gloucestershire, driving up to Dundee on the Monday, meeting up with Mike Smith in a car -park, then detouring to pick up 6 new chickens near Preston, they are at point of lay and beautiful old breeds.

We dropped my mother in law off in Dundee, Ron met up with our DVD maker and did the final edit on the hearing voices DVD & I took the kids to the cinema. We then stayed over night in Perth, Tuesday drove up to Ullapool for the ferry in the afternoon.

So we are home again, Pigs & cats to greet us, new chickens introduced to old, old chickens not impressed but I think the cockerel is impressed with his 6 new wives. Its cold , windy and guess what I have 10 days of admin to catch up with but its good to be home!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Seems a long time since I wrote my last blog ....

Seems a long time since I wrote my last blog, Francesca has spilt red wine all over the keyboard of my Mac completely ruining it, luckily I’m insured, but it doesn’t seem right, writing this blog on a different computer.

The evenings are already drawing out here, nearly 7 pm before its dark, we have even seen a little bit of sunshine this week, but the rain is still tumbling down most of the time. The ground is sodden all I want is a few dry days so I can plant the early potatoes &onions.

Our new shed is taking shape, solidly built this time to withstand next winters hurricanes. One thing has greatly improved our quality of life here, we have had our drive and yard resurfaced, no longer are we wading ankle deep in mud if we try to cross the yard. The dogs are not covered in mud every time they need a pee! And most important of all Finn can practice his dream of becoming a world class footballer by doing as many “keep me uppies” as possible.

I was away last week in Stafford with the forensic service again, I spent 3 days with 21 staff, they were a great bunch, enthusiastic, fun & fully participated in the sessions, we had plenty of laughter,, music, dancing, poetry & plenty of serious discussion. I believe they left full of inspiration on taking recovery forward in their service, Sally Carr is doing a great job in steering the service in a recovery direction.

Meanwhile Ron has been busy editing our new DVD on setting up a hearing voices group, only trouble is the cricket has been on , so I have had to be constantly reminding him of his priorities, so sorry to all of you who have ordered a DVD it may be a couple of weeks late , the cricket won , which is no surprise to those of you who know Ron well, he is passionate about the game & I sort of promised that if business is going well he can go to next world cup, its in India, so I hope it’s a family trip so the kids & I can go and explore a bit more of the country.

We are starting to plan our next trip to Australia, we already have a week in Tasmania, which I am really excited about , because it is meant to be very beautiful and similar to NZ my all time favourite place.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Talking of Dreams ....

I am sitting in yet another airport, this time Newcastle; I think I have flown in and out of most of the UK’s airports now. This time there is 3 inches of snow on the ground having had a steady morning of snow. The runway is currently closed whilst the snow ploughs work their magic I hope! I am flying to Cardiff to work in Port Talbot tomorrow.

We have been called to the boarding gate, but it’s started to snow heavily again.

Ron is looking after the kids this week, all of them won races, Frankie wants to be an Olympic swimming champion so who knows. Talking of dreams those of you who have been on courses with me will know my dream of becoming a professional Jazz singer, this weekend I was a participant in a wonderful weekend singing workshop with Sophie Bancroft and Madeleine Eastman from America. It was interesting being a pupil for a change and gave me time to reflect on both facilitating skills and also my future. By the end of the first day after making a hash of my song I had talked myself into giving up, going back to just singing for fun, that I just didn’t have the commitment, time, talent, energy to go forward, but after an enjoyable 2nd morning thanks to both tutors warm encouraging approach I realised that I was talking myself down, that if I really wanted to do this I could but I had to find a way of putting a 100% commitment into it.

The afternoon we performed & I sang with a fantastic musician just playing bass, it was wonderful to play at blending my voice into a musical alliance with the double bass & experiment. I am hooked again have bought some training cd’s on learning some jazz standards properly and I am going to continue taking my dream forward. I have done a PATH in my head and have an idea where I am going, it is not going to be straight forward but so what –isn’t this what recovery is all about the excitement, of anticipation of what is possible of new beginnings, of nurturing newly found talents, of believing in yourself.

I have Ron’s full support what else could I need.

Meanwhile Ron is busy painting the kitchen ,and having morning coffee with the group of friends he has made up in Ness, no doubt contemplating how he wants his future to unfold.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Pinky, Percy and Spotty ....

We now have 3 little pigs called Pinky Percy & Spotty named by Francesca, they are settling in well, being particularly noisy at feed times. The kittens are out of sorts as they were spayed last week & Scooby our runaway pup has been castrated , hoping it will calm him down a bit so a very expensive week at the vets.

I ran 2 workshops in Glasgow last week although there was only a small group there was lots of discussion and a lovely reflective atmosphere. Enjoyed 2 fabulous gigs at Celtic Connections but gave the late night review a wide berth this year as Ron & I didn’t have the energy to stay up to 5am.

This week Ron had a very emotional day at the male survivor conference in Edinburgh at last recognition of the emotional & mental damage abuse does to a person with full government support in Scotland for specific services for survivors hopefully young people will not have to suffer the fate that Ron and many others had with in our mental health services which in the past have denied the importance of abuse when diagnosing & mis-diagnosing. Ron also called for the churches to set up a fund to help pay for the services that are to be provided.

Next day he was back teaching student nurses at Caledonian university, time for some fun & Banter. He received a lovely e-mail from one of the students saying how much the group had enjoyed the lecture and that it had re-inspired them in their quest to be qualified mental health nurses, I noticed a tear in his eye when he read this, indeed there was one in mine, after all isn’t this the passion & inspiration we want to create when we are out there travelling miles ,tired & home sick but realising we are making a difference.

I am at Stornoway airport again flying out to enjoy a jazz singing weekend before I embark on work in Durham & Port Talbot.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

The winds ....

The winds have dominated our lives over the last few weeks, but Saturdays wind was the strongest so far, with gusts up to 109miles an hour. We lost a pig arc which landed 6 crofts away. It was extremely heavy –Ron & I couldn’t lift it on our own. Walking down the croft the next day the spray & waves coming of the sea was really powerful. There were lots of boats hugging the coastline, weather is always a talking point up here. The local Gaelic speakers greet each other by a comment on the weather.

Even now whilst I am writing this, the winds are growing again. Yet in between we have had beautiful calm days. I have been down to Callanish today. We picked up 2 new piglets a very spotty female & her pink brother, both Tamworth crossed. Ron & his friend Donald have been out mending the pigsty & tidying up the yard. Ron is now moaning that he aches all over, its a long time he has worked so physically hard.

I also popped to Great Bernera to meet Simant & his partner Dizzy, he is a sculptor & she a psychiatric nurse, he does some amazing sculptures based on Celtic mythology. I t was lovely to meet him & I could highly recommend his work.

He uses a lot of spirals in his work, those of you that know me will know about my fascination for them. I hope to get to know them both well over the next few months.

The short days are already getting longer, I have noticed we already have an extra hour of light in the evening since Christmas, & it is 5pm before it is dark. We have almost survived our first winter !

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Snuggling with a howling gale around us ...

We are having a long lie in snuggled under the duvet as a howling gale surrounds us with expected winds of 70 miles an hour. Ron & I did some work on the house to reduce some of the drafts yesterday, brought in loads of coal and peat so we don’t need to go out much. Unfortunately Francesca has a birthday party this afternoon so I will have to venture out in the van I hope there is a lull in the wind.

Yesterday was the funeral of our dear friend Ian Murray. A community psychiatric nurse who worked in North Wales he was a lovely man, a fantastic practitioner, who worked towards recovery, he had a intuitative understanding of why people self harm and has helped take thinking forward on this subject, he was also a great dad to his talented son’s and husband of Anne a fellow mental nurse. Our thoughts are with them as we were unable to travel to the funeral.

As I thought our trip to Palestine has been postponed to later in the year, as it was deemed unsafe, also staff were in no mood for training in the west bank as they hear more and more about the destruction of Gaza. The mental health centre in Gaza, a ground-breaking, very forward thinking community mental health project has been bombed and completely destroyed. The mental health workers have to work from their homes. They have lost all their records and are practicing in extreme difficulties. These were some of the staff we were meant to be doing recovery training with next week. I feel so powerless as the West continues to allow this degrading bombing to go on. No human being deserves to live in these conditions. Our thoughts are with our friends in Gaza who showed us such wonderful hospitality last time we were there.

Ron & I will now use this free time to catch up on writing and planning for the coming year. We hope to complete a manual on person centred planning and develop some further training packs.
I have some workshops coming up at the end of this month in Glasgow and am looking forward to training again. As I have not done any since our return from Australia in November. Its also the Celtic Connections festival so I am hoping to catch up on some good music too.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

A crazy world ...

Back home in Lewis, concentrating on getting every thing sorted for Christmas. Finn had the flu like virus whilst in Denmark & I think I might be next. I have had an on going problem with my thumbs, you don’t realize how important they are until they are painful to use, so we have decided the pigs will have to go and we will get new weaners in the spring. I had become very attached to the pigs especially Charlotte but this is what crofting is all about, living off the land and making it work for us.

I did go down with the flu Saturday before Christmas, couldn’t move from my bed for 2 days, Francesca went down with it on Christmas day, luckily just after she had opened her presents, Ron followed on boxing day and Rory yesterday. We are a house full of sick people, thank goodness it ‘s the holidays.

Ron and I have been following the news in Gaza , we are meant to be working there in 2 weeks time. It is horrific what is happening there. Having been there and seen how closely every one lives together it is impossible for civilians not to be hit. The mental health of the people is deteriorating rapidly.

We are meant to be doing some recovery training and teaching some future planning skills, how to do that in a meaningful way? I know it can still work we have had some fabulous success in Bethlehem, the Palestinians certainly understand hope but the fear of not surviving must be huge at the moment.

How can one persecuted people do this to another. The walls that have been built around Bethlehem are such ugly concrete monstrosities. They tower over you, imprison you and try to suck the spirit out of you. But the spirit of the people is still so strong. They hold their heads high as they are forced to wait hours to get through he check points. To be a mother in Gaza at the moment must be a terrible burden, how to keep your children alive and safe. I have just watched on television as they pulled the bodies of 5 sisters out of their bombed bedroom. We sure do live in a crazy world.