Main losses as a result of brain disease

I)  Ability to drive due to mandatory –automatic two year driving ban to begin with. This is awful. I passed my driving test at eighteen having bought my first car, a Mark (I) Cortina for £110 which I had earned working stacking shelves on a Saturday in addition to my full time job Monday to Friday graft. I have been the main (supermarket, visits, holidays ,tip etc,) driver in the household  for the past twenty five years and hate the fact that Anne now has this burden in addition to everything else ; it’s not fair! What crime have I committed to warrant what feels like a harsh punishment? I do intend to return to driving in time, and in the meantime will get back on the bike and perhaps get myself a bike trailer for transporting stuff as needed.

Trains to Newmarket and Bury from Cambridge mean I do not have to depend on others for a lift to cover the main part of the journey to my work bases. It was tough (unfamiliar, busy disorientating) getting the train to Bury/Newmarket and I felt sad knowing I am banned from making the trip independently by car which I have done for over a decade.

Bottle conditioned, tasty, thanks Paul

Turkish delight, thanks Chista 

Four weddings and a ... Two weddings being planned (Ben & Melissa) & (Joseph and Lucy) a 

I have much respect for the railways and in particular train drivers .My grandfather Arthur “Ben” Salt-marsh worked for the railway for over forty years, beginning as a tea boy, rising  to  stoker-steam driver-diesel driver. His garden was overlooked by the Victorian Warley hospital asylum, an enormous, thousand-plus strong edifice. It warehoused county “lunatics” and the "insane", along with anyone who the authorities deemed had transgressed in society

Ben Saltmarsh at work

Ben estimated that in the course of his career as a driver he may have encountered at least six suicides on his routes as a driver and told me that on arrival at the main station, the Station Manager-Master would provide him with a broom and bucket and he would be expected to clear away the human detritus from the engine. I sometimes wonder whether his stories influenced me in choosing a career in working with serious mental health problems.

iii) Work Role I started work at the age of sixteen for an Insurance company in London commuting daily from mid Essex to Liverpool Street. I have worked ever since, training both as a general then psychiatric nurse, before training (2001) and accrediting (2003) as a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist

My next career goal was to become an accredited (CBT) clinical supervisor and to specialize in working with Psychosis and Personality Disorder.

I was also hoping to explore my interest in the relationship to CBT of other established therapies namely Personal Construct Theory; Narrative Therapy (as its use emerges in working with PD) and psychoanalysis.

I have worked full time since 1977 and have had periods where I have worked six days a week through choice to earn extra money as needed. Prior to the 2^nd January 2012 I have had a fortunate health status reflected in minimal absence from work.

Therefore been forced to take time off is very destabilizing and a major readjustment. The prospect and uncertainty in relation to the future is daunting and I appreciate that this is set to continue and will be dependent primarily on how effective treatment progresses beginning with the radiotherapy is in terms of ‘damage limitation’. There is no cure. I have to accept that my career will be taking a different trajectory and that the clients (patients/users) I was treating prior to Christmas will have to have their needs met by another. Particularly as I move into the treatment phase which will inevitably be prolonged and likely to be debilitating.

Still, I am confident I will continue working as a Cognitive Behavioural Therapist /Supervisor in some capacity in addition to my involvement with the BABCP eastern region.

Plenty of tea and....

Ballantines, the most influential of whiskeys?

Let's put it to the test with a team of tasters

Bucket list?

Ideas for this have been suggested; here are a few of my own
Drinks at bar Kamni with friends and our Greek hosts then off to eat greek food then return for a nightcap ,chinwag ,laugh,hoot,skinny dip anyone?

I would like Rory to legally buy me a pint in October

I would like to take Rory and Sam and have a bet on the Rugby

I would like to have a conversation with Joseph in French

Play snowdrop on the banjo at pub session level

Enjoy a pint of Guinness and the craic at the ‘folkie’

Chris Wood at the Junction 29^th April 2013-02-03

Revisit East Anglia Coastline with Anne and the boys washing away the taste of the sea with fish &chips and a pint of locally brewed Ale,

my go at being Best man.Enjoy the video?

Apparently we are peas from the same pod! Spot the family resemblance?

Anyone for a bet?

.........................................

NH 03/02/2013