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

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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.

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!

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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.