When the going gets TOF, the TOFs get going...

TOF/OA - Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula with Oesophageal Atresia.  A condition that means that a baby's oesophagus doesn't connect to its stomach (the "OA" bit) and that the stomach end of their oesophagus is attached to their trachea (the "TOF" bit).  There are many other aspects and potential complications, but that is basically what it is about.  It can be corrected surgically, usually soon after birth, but that has only been the case for about 60 or so years - before that, there was nothing that could be done.  Five years, two months and and about 6 and a half days ago, I had never heard of it.  Now, I probably know more about it than I know about any other medical condition.

On the 7th of August 2008, my world changed completely.  For the second time in 24 hours.  The first was relatively easy (for me at least, for Freya, not so much) - I became a father for the first time.  The second was not so easy for either of us.  There were, for me, two heart stopping moments - number one was the phone call that cut short my, and Freya's parents quest for lunch and sent us rushing back to the Simpson's.  Number two was the moment when a doctor  there did their best to describe what was wrong with Christopher (it is a rare condition and not the doctor's area of speciality).  Words cannot describe the way that I felt.  It was as if someone had flushed every fibre of my being out into the void.  Those are words, but they don't come close to describing the intensity of the feeling.

The rest of that Thursday is a bit of a blur.  Seeing Christopher in the Special Care Baby Unit at the Royal - looking like a giant next to the truly tiny miracles that surrounded him.  The trip through Edinburgh to Sick Kids with Freya's dad.  Practically being frogmarched into the chippy along from the hospital by the great man that I am now proud to call my father in law, who was smart enough to know that I actually did need to eat, no matter how trivial my own welfare felt to me at the time.  Hearing (with a not inconsiderable amount of relief) the much more positive prognosis for Christopher than the one that I had imagined from one of the surgeons that would be involved in his operation.  Holding the Wee Man in my arms for what seemed like no time, but was actually about two hours, until the nurses persuaded me that I'd be better off going to bed in the little room that was available to me, just along the corridor.  Not thinking that I would be able to sleep. but actually conking out as soon as my head hit the pillow.  The dreadful wrenching pain of separation, kissing him before he went into theatre.  The eternity of waiting in the side room at the maternity ward, and the explosive collective sigh of relief when we heard that the surgery had gone well.  I thought that we could have blown the windows out!

It has been a long, winding, sometimes joyful, sometimes painful road since then, but it has been massively easier with the help of our families and friends.  Many of those friends are ones we would likely never have met but for TOFS - the support charity for Christopher's condition.  It is not a big charity like the ones that have ads on the telly and bus stops and the like.  It is a small but dedicated group who work to support people affected by TOF, spread awareness and support research into the condition.  It is a relatively small charity, but it occupies a huge place in our hearts and minds.  We owe them so much.  

Also important is that much maligned entity, Facebook.  It is not all "selfies" and amusing cat photos - the TOFS groups on there are a vital and useful part of the "TOF family".  

Now, we are in a position to offer some help and support to new TOF families - I am "TLC" (TOFS Local Contact) for Scotland, which means that I call new TOF families and welcome them to the larger "family" and offer whatever help and support I can.  It feels great to be able to "give something back" - a cliche, I know, but true.  

Mainly, I aim to offer friendship, an ear to listen and understanding - a real sense that there are people out there who understand some of what they are going through, although everone's journey is a little different.  A feeling that you are not alone can be a powerful aid.  At risk of sounding arrogant, I know that this can help; but I know that because I know that it helped us a lot to hear from other TOF families when we were just starting our own journey down the TOF road.  Also, I hope that Christopher and his story can inspire and give hope to others because of how far he has come and how much he has achieved in 5 and a bit years.    

To try to get to the point that I think that I am trying to make here, this week (12th to 19th October) is TOFS awareness week, so I thought that I should try to spread some awareness.  If you wish, follow the link below and learn a bit more.  Maybe tell someone else about it.  Roughly one in 3,500 babies is born with this condition.  It is rare, but that is still roughly 20 a year in Scotland alone, if my back-of-the-envelope calculation is correct.  So, please be aware, understand, if you know someone affected by TOF, support them by sharing their experience and and "being there" for them.  It means more than you would believe.

http://www.tofs.org.uk

Peace for our time?

75 years ago this week, the Munich Agreement was signed by Neville Chamberlain, consigning Czechoslovakia to Nazi domination.  Whether or not his actions made sense at the time, the gift of 20-20 hindsight suggests that it was most likely a mistake, we will never know what would have transpired, had Britain and France stood up to Hitler then.

By coincidence, I am reading "Berlin Diary" by William L. Shirer, an American journalist who broadcast from Berlin and around Europe between 1934 and 1941 - seven years that saw Hitler's power grow and Europe slide inexorably into war.  It gives a fascinating insight into what happened and how ordinary people came to believe in Hitler's twisted view of the world.  Shirer risked arrest, expulsion and possibly worse to bring his view of the Third Reich to the outside world.  He also shares his views on how America's then powerful Isolationist Lobby risked playing right into Hitler's hands.

I have long been fascinated by history, particularly military history for a long time.  Not for any ghoulish reasons, it is not a morbid fascination.  Reading Shirer's book has possibly helped me come to realise why I am so fascinated.  

As a scientist at heart (and in my head!) boundary conditions, that critical zone between yes and no, where many of the most fascinating things in science happen - the event horizon of a black hole for one, have always intrigued me greatly.  They occur on a human scale too - I feel that I have spent most of my adult life enmeshed in the grey area that is the boundary between depressed and not depressed.

That period in the late 1930's that Shirer wrote so eloquently and perceptively about was also a boundary - between war and not war.  What tipped the world over the edge?  What drives ordinary people to do the heroic or the horrific?  These are the human boundary conditions that can make history such a compelling subject.

I have heard war described as "the continuation of politics by other means" (von Clausewitz originally, I think) - it seems to me that really, war is the failure of politics.  The failure to steer us away from, or the crazed urge of some leaders to steer us towards, that most bloody boundary condition between not war and war. 

Flying through cloud,,,

A couple of days ago, I finished reading "Luck and a Lancaster", a fascinating and moving account of a pilot's experiences during a 30 mission tour with Bomber Command.  It really brought an increasingly distant, but important part of our history vividly to life.  His descriptions of flying by night and day, in all sorts of weather allowed me to almost feel like I was looking over his shoulder in the cockpit.  

I have always wanted to learn to fly, but I will probably get no closer to it than flight sims and trips on airliners.  Lately, however, I have been feeling like I am flying in cloud - that stage in a flight before breaking into the glorious, sunlit paradise above the clouds, when you can see no further than the wingtips of the plane.

It seems an ideal metaphor for the dead, numb nothingness that is depression.  Occasionally, there is a break in the cloud that allows one a tantalising glimpse of the sunshine or the Earth below - our familiar, comforting home,  Our condition forbids us the power to climb above to that golden place above the weather.  

We have our "crew" along with us, those whom we love and who love us, our "navigators" helping us find our way home, our "radio operators" keeping us in contact with some sort of reality, our "air-gunners" keeping an eye out and protecting us from the "flak" coming up from below and the night-fighter (both real and imagined) that are out to get us... 

We fly on, through the blank, featureless void, hoping for a chance to find our base to land, rest and refuel.  Some flights like this are short hops, others feel like endless missions into the unknown.  The cloud may often seem impenetrable, but I am glad to know that I have a top-notch crew and my "kite", while a bit clapped out and past its best, is mostly dependable, and has always got me home thus far.  

No covers, no compromise...

I am (hopefully) about to embark on a new artistic journey - in the shape of a band with another guitarist.  Obviously, I have no idea how it will turn out - but I am hoping that it will be rewarding and feed my need for music making.  

It is a tricky business, because, like any other kind of relationship it inevitably relies on compromise and that seems to be something that gets harder as I get older.  I have been in a few bands over the years, some better than others, and some involving more compromise than others.  I have tried (other than one band) to resist the temptation to go the easy route and do covers - not that there aren't songs that I don't want to learn to play, or that I necessarily think that my songs are any better than anyone else's - it's more that I need that kinda personal investment in the music.  

Also, if you start off playing covers, people will often like your band because you play songs that they already like, and it makes it harder to move on to doing originals.  And to be honest, I don't play music to make other people happy (though I don't mind if they do) - I do it because I need to - and I feel that this is the most honest way to approach music making.  It is far too personal to do for other people. 

It perplexes me greatly when people complain because a band progresses and changes over time - particularly when they are talking about "progressive rock" bands.  It seems that they secretly (or not so secretly!) want them to keep making the same album over and over again (some bands appear to have made entire and alarmingly successful careers of doing just that).  That is most assuredly not what I want - I want bands to go away, search their collective "souls" and express what they find however they can.  I will listen.  I may well not like it, but if it is honest, I will respect it.  And it may grow on me.  If the artists are prepared to work hard on their music, I am prepared to put effort into understanding and appreciating it.  No X Factor(y) bad covers or written by committee nothingness.  (Yes I am probably a music snob, but I don't care - it is too important to me to take it lightly.)

So I go into my new band line up eyes open, sleeves rolled up and heart laid bare to feed the music.  I may get frustrated at my limited ability, but hopefully we will find something that will feed our souls, drive us on and maybe even someone somewhere, similarly twisted, may like it.  But in my heart, I don't care.  This is for me and my fellow travellers.

Who ate all the pie..?

Chart.

I have been having a bit of a mixed time lately - good times with family and friends, things are good at work, and Freya and I have had a chance to go and see a bit of the Fringe with Wee C away for a holiday at Granny and Papa's in Killie.  But the "Enemy Within" has also been in evidence, which is, I suppose, nobody's fault but mine.  The ol' Black Dog has been chewing my brain like it was a manky old slipper.  Which, in a way, it is.

I was thinking a bit about it this morning, and (being the sad old Excel-jockey that I am) I started visualising it as a pie-chart.  In my life, the vast majority is good, with my lovely family making up a substantial slice, and with friends, music, books and work etc. making up most of the rest.  Just now, however, I don't seem to have the whole pie - I am in possession of less than 100%.  One section appears to have been substituted for dark matter - or just nothing.

This missing part is, I think, the creative part of me.  And I damn well want it back.  I have tried asking myself nicely, but I am not playing, so to speak.  I know that it is all down to me.  I want to make myself feel better by grabbing my guitar and flooding my empty parts with music.  But I won't let myself.  It is too damned easy to not bother.  

If I do manage to get as far as picking one up, it is too damned easy for my mind to fill with the conviction that it is sounding awful and I should give up.  I need to play through this, I need to get involved in some sort of musical collaboration with others so that the creativity can flow between us and be amplified like in the cavity of a laser, reflecting back and forth and growing stronger with each pass.  

Of course, organising this takes the sort of energy that the depression steals away.  Depression, I feel, (and may well have mentioned before) seems to have a self-preservation instinct that tries to stop you acting to lessen its effects.

There have been small signs that I remember where my creativity is - I have been experimenting with odd tunings, and tiny fragments of passably ok new music have been emerging.  I have even been using my phone to keep these pieces for when my muse has returned sufficiently for them to be of use.  There are embers, but the flame is not yet returned.

I will though take strength from my family and friends and try to get my fire burning strongly again, because I know that when it does, it helps to make the rest of my pie/world shine that much more brightly.

A Long Way Away...

“You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch.'”

― Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot, Apollo 14)

44 years ago today, Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon, the first ever human being to set foot on another world. The last human being to set foot on the Moon left in 1972. All of the men who went to the Moon were profoundly affected by the experience - there is an excellent book, called "Moondust" by Andrew Smith which relates those experiences via interviews with the surviving Apollo astronauts. I wholeheartedly believe that we should be going back sooner, rather than later.

Not just for the challenge, we have proved that it is possible. Not just for the science, although I believe that we could learn a huge amount more about the origins of our planet, its Moon, and indeed the whole of our Solar System. A whole lot of other things too. Mostly, because I wonder if it is something like a return to the moon that could be our best hope for saving ourselves and our planet.

We need perspective, to remind ourselves just how tiny, this, our home planet is in a universal context. It is small, fragile, and so very vital to our survival as a species. Yet it seems that we don't value it, or each other anywhere near as much as we should. If we could see our planet from the moon, small enough that you could blot it out with your thumb, perhaps then we may come to realise that we need to start treating it and each other with an appropriate amount of respect and that we have to start sharing it more thoughtfully with all of our fellow inhabitants.

There are many ridiculous arguments about economical effects and the rest. I feel that if there is a plausible risk that we are poisoning the planet sufficiently to make it uninhabitable, then that risk is too much, and we shouldn't be quibbling about the minutiae of it. We should aim to make our world safer and better for all. A renewed space programme could create a lot of jobs, potentially. Both directly and indirectly through technology spin offs. I would argue that it is possibly more cost effective than baling out investment banks that should be allowed to fail. In addition, nowadays you could get a lot more buy-in from commercial interests without necessarily jeopardising the scientific worth of the missions. 

Without a viable planet, money is not a lot of good. Indeed, anything that made humanity focus more on the plight of the planet and its inhabitants and less on the artificial construct that is money would be welcome. I don't believe for a minute that we will achieve even a fraction of what I hope for, perhaps we can get just enough.

Fact is, if we let the planet die by our actions or inaction, there will be no "standard of living", no industry, no economy - there will be no human race to create or need them.

Mibbes aye, mibbes naw...

I had an interesting conversation last night with someone last night about a topic that is only going to become more important over the next year or so - the Scottish Independence debate.

I am genuinely undecided on which way I will vote when it comes around.  I am proud to be Scottish, but have no real problem with being British and am proud of the things that Scots and people from the other British nations have achieved over the years.  

Nationalism troubles me deeply however - far too many terrible things have been done "In the name of a piece of dirt, For a change of accent, Or the color of your shirt" to quote Rush's song "Territories" - which pretty much echoes my feelings on the topic.  I try to judge people (if I need to) based solely on the person that they are - where they happen to have been born is irrelevant.    

However, my real issue with the current Independence "debate" is not anything to do with Nationalism.  It is simply that I have seen nothing yet that can be reasonably described as debate.  Childish yah-boo yeah-but-no-but squabbling, yes, reasoned, adult debate, no.

All of it seems to be "if you vote yes, we'll do..." followed by something great that they probably can't guarantee that they will be able to carry out.  Or "If you vote no, then maybe..." followed by some dire apocalyptic consequence.  Neither side seems to be able to back these statements with anything even resembling hard facts.  Surely someone, somewhere is able to provide us with actual, definite answers to these sort of questions?  What we really need, I think is an independent (irony, we do that, yes!) assessment of the key issues, so that we can make a realistic and informed decision as to which box we want to check.

Maybe we could even extend real, grown up, sensible debate into the rest of politics too?  Nah, it'll never happen...

Just a Spanish Minute...

Hola!  We're just back from a wee sojourn in Southern Spain, recently enough that our collective skin tone has not yet reverted to our natural Scottish light bluish tinge...

While we were there, we headed off on a day trip to the Alhambra in Granada for our token bit of culture.  And it is indeed a stunning icon of the medieval Moorish culture of Southern Spain.  Our guide pointed out a feature of it's decoration that got me thinking a wee bit (oh no not again, I hear you cry!)  The outside of the Alhambra is quite plain, but the inside is beautifully decorated with intricate designs - as our guide put it, they "kept it to themselves"...

It made me think about how much is to be gained from sharing our creations - be they arts, scientific discoveries or even just daft blogs by depressive weirdos!  The thing is, I suppose, that you don't know what other people will gain from or do with what is shared - in work, for instance you can share something that you have learned and save your colleagues from having to discover it themselves.  Another way that I have seen this bear fruit is by sharing our experiences with Christopher, we have hopefully given other TOF parents, who are earlier in their journey, some idea of what they can expect.  I know that we have gained from the experiences of others.

I suppose that there is a risk sometimes of "oversharing" or perhaps becoming self-obsessed (which seems to be quite common these days) but I think if you can foster a sensible "interrnal editor" and a reasonable degree of self-awareness, hopefully you can realise what to share and when to have as positive effect as you can.  (Or you can put it in a blog that people can read or ignore as they see fit!)

The "Spanish Minute" idea is another thing that I encountered on holiday - it is like a less extreme version of "manana"- as in "the show will start in 5 minutes... 5 Spanish minutes, that is".  I remain unsure of the exact correlation between "Spanish" and "normal" minutes but I am pretty sure that it is always a ratio greater than one!

Skin Deep

The past couple of weeks have been quite hard for us, I think.  Sleep has been a very scarce commodity in the Rennie household.  And it is nothing to do with my depression or Christopher's TOF issues, but something that is probably way more common than either of those.  

I am talking about the fiendish scourge that is eczema - the demon itch that can drive even the most disciplined soul to scratch themselves in a frenzy.  I, myself have suffered from skin complaints, as has Freya - we both know the impossibility of resisting the urge to tear at your own skin until you bleed in an ultimately futile attempt to make that damned itch do away.  So it is difficult for us to tell Christopher to stop scratching, though we must.  

It is also difficult to come into his room at some obscure hour of the night, half asleep and nerves shattered by the howling that has woken us, to find him writhing about on his bed, crying unconsolably and feverishly scratching at himself, often with blood all over his legs.  We seem to have every lotion, potion, cream and ointment that exists from the simple emollients to the fierce steroid creams and the positively vile icthopaste bandages.  Many nights he goes to bed bandaged neck to ankle, looking like an extra from a b-movie.  It is no joking matter, though we try to make light of it for him.  

The hardest thing though, is hearing him say "I want to give my body to someone else" or "I don;t like my skin, daddy".  These are not the sort of things that you want to hear from anyone, least of all a four year old.  Once, the blood is cleaned away, the creams and bandages applied, and the tears have been soothed away - something that Freya has a particular genius for - then Christopher starts to reassert himself over his skin, and he talks about how he doesn't like the creams, but he knows that they help his skin.  

I am weak compared to my boy, but his strength of character lends me strength - coffee will push the tiredness away long enough to get the working day over - but my beautiful family are my true love in this world.  "Beauty is only skin deep" they say, but Christopher, to me, is beautiful to the core.

A modest man...

...Who has much to be modest about.  Attributed to Winston Churchill, allegedly speaking about Clement Attlee, his wartime Deputy and postwar successor.  Quite a put down, but my brain being the odd shape that it is, was twisting it about a bit and set me wondering if that might not be a good thing, ultimately.

I have long had my own little theory (which I may have unconsciously plagiarised from somewhere, I really don't know) that we all spend our youth "growing up" and becoming more and more convinced that we know everything, only, if we are fortunate, to spend our adult years learning just how wrong we were.  Perhaps we reach a stage where we doubt everything and know nothing...  I don't have a problem with that.  

Doubt is good.  

Questions and the journey to try to answer them, which inevitably leads to more questions - unless you are intellectually moribund perhaps - is the joy of life in my view.  And I know that I have been at stages where I have reached that point of mental rigor mortis - the darkest times, the most terrifying places in my mental landscape.  Slowly, though, the way back from there has become apparent and I have gradually freed the rusted gears in the me machine,  I know that I am not as mentally agile as I was back in the day, when I managed to persuade a certain seaside academic institution that I deserved a receipt for the mental effort that I had spent there.  

Now though, that thought doesn't bother me as much as it did, because I have got my hunger and curiosity back, along with the humility (I hope) to realise that I can learn from anyone that I meet.  Particularly from a certain small boy who, like all of his kind can reflect our conceits and self-deceit and show us how ridiculous we are sometimes.

I think that we need to recover some of our childlike qualities, stop trying to be so smart and so full of our own importance - and find as much as we can to be modest about

Six words to drive you mad(der)...

"Cheer up! It might never happen!"  Or a variation thereof, generally uttered by (probably) well-meaning people - who have absolutely conception of the nature of depression...  

This week is apparently "Mental Health Awareness Week", and I saw a fairly good article on the BBC Website regarding mental health "role-models", suggesting that the "traditional" famous role-models with mental health issues (Winston Churchill, Stephen Fry etc.) are perhaps not the best ones for those of us less exceptional folk with mental health issues due to their unusual circumstances and that we need more everyday role-models.  Or at least that was my reading of it, possibly somewhat distracted by a ham roll and some soup, given that I was reading it while lunching at my desk.

But it got me thinking (Nooooooo!  Not that! I hear you cry...)  I'm no sure that I need any role-models - I am quite capable of being depressed and coping (mostly) with life without someone to show me how.  Necessity shows me how.  I think that what we still need is less fear, more understanding and for a lot of people with mental health issues a lot more support.  I am lucky - I get a lot of support from my wonderful friends and family and have also benefited from a succession of understanding managers at work.  I have also been helped by medical professionals and the medication that it seems I will probably be taking for the rest of my life.  There is no all better, as I have said before, but there is better than before.  

An analogy for the way that I experience depression came to me the other day.  I think that it is like being tired - that exhausted, bone-weary tired after you haven't slept properly for days.  (Lets pretend that going for a kip is not an option!)  You can force yourself to carry on, you can do your best, you will have times where you get a kind of "second wind" and can almost forget just how tired you are, and of course you can drink coffee or energy drinks etc. to lessen the symptoms - but you cannot simply decide not to be tired, you cannot just "buck your ideas up" and just be well rested.  That, for me, is pretty much what depression feels like - without the "good night's kip" get out clause.

Was that summer that just happened?

I am not really much of a one for flowers.  I don't think that it's a dumb machismo thing - cos I am not really much of a one for that, either.  They just don't really do much for me,  Perhaps part of it is down to the fact that I am, at best a grudging and somewhat inept gardener - few, if any, things that I have deliberately tried to grow have done so.  I have even managed to kill off mint, which I was assured generally takes over and grows like a weed for other less inept would-be exponents of the dark arts of gardening.  Perhaps it's not that; whatever it is, it generally concerns me not a jot.

There is, however one particular flower (if it is truly a flower - I don't know, or much care for that matter) that I do love to see - cherry blossom.  I think that there are few things more beautiful in nature than a flowering cherry tree in full bloom.  I still intend to replace the poster of one of Van Gogh's studies of cherry blossom that I acquired in Amsterdam, then foolishly neglected until it was too trashed to frame.  

I got to thinking about this because I noticed the first blossom emerging on the tree that is a few feet from the door of Christopher's nursery.  It has evidently been conned into coming out of hiding by the random day or two of sunshine that our wondrous Scottish weather has decided to throw at us, no doubt to pull the rug out from under our over-optimistically sandal-clad feet by then hitting us with a couple weeks of rain/hail/snow/plague of frogs more befitting a Scottish May.  I think though, joking(!) aside, that this is a clue to one of the reasons that I think I like it so much - it is a sign of impending (slightly) better weather.  Which is generally a good thing for my (and everyone else's) mood, coming from the darkness of winter into lighter mornings and longer evenings that make life that little bit better.

On a related note, I was interested to see research (done in Edinburgh) that suggests that the health benefits from exposure to sunshine (decreased likelihood of heart attacks and strokes, it seems) may well outweigh the elevated risks (but still quite low in Scotland) of skin cancer.  Particularly if you manage to avoid getting burnt - everything in moderation I suppose.  Though it is quite hard to get sunshine in anything other than moderation here!

So let us rejoice in the "cherry blossom in the market square", and try to forget how soon we'll be back to "dancing in stilettos in the snow"...

A Mistaken Perception...

I don't know if it is really more common now or if I just notice it more because I am a parent, but it seems to me that there are a lot more cases where people are killing themselves and taking their children with them.  Whatever the circumstances, it is distressing, but I wonder if it is often  at least in part, down to a warped perspective of the nature of parenthood?

I can see that in many cases, it seems to be one parent denying the other "possession" of the children as part of a divorce/break up.  Obviously, these people are not functioning quite "normally", but the bit that confuses me most is where they get the idea that they are in whole or in part the "owners" of their children?  This is certainly not the way that I think of parenthood (though I in no way claim to be an expert).  

My view is that we, as parents, are merely caretakers of our children - bringing them into being, feeding, protecting and educating them and guiding them to adulthood to make their own contribution to the world.  They owe us nothing, other than perhaps a little gratitude and maybe respect (assuming we have earned it) and they are in no way our possessions.  I have seen my son on the boundary between life and death - at one point with a heart rate of 253 - and have had to make decisions (no-brainers really) such as signing consent forms for surgery, that no parent would want to have to make, but it is not my decision to end that life or anyone else's.  His life is his own, and always should be. 

This brings me to another thing that I have encountered in news stories recently that I find difficult to handle.  I am an Atheist.  I am very happy with that and feel more at ease with that aspect of my life now than I ever have.  However, I have no real issue with people having religious beliefs. I can't really understand how they rationalise them, but fair play to them.  There is a definite line in the sand, though.  I think that where religious belief starts to require the suffering of others then it loses validity for me.  

An example of this is the stories that I have seen where religious parents (often, it would seem, American) have failed to get their children proper medical care, preferring to rely on prayer and ultimately resulting in the death of the child ("God's Will" my arse).  This is, in my eyes, one of the grossest types of dereliction of the most important duty of parenthood - to protect your child to the limit of your abilities.  Any god who wants your child to die is worthless in my view.  

I have decided (partly inspired by an interview with Neil Peart that I read recently, though mainly through years of contemplation of such things) that I can see only one rule I need (laws of the land notwithstanding) and the best way that I can think of to formulate it is "Wherever you can, lessen suffering".

Three travellers, Men of Willowdale...

On Thursday, my favourite band was inducted into the American "Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame" - which is basically an old pals club for artists that are approved by the too cool for school hipsterati that run "Rolling Stone" magazine.  I, for one, have never found myself feeling that Rush needed that sort of approval - surely coming third behind The Beatles and the Stones for number of Gold and Platinum records tells you all that you need to know...

I have never really rated the opinion of music critics - they largely seem to be bitter wannabe musicians with an axe to grind and a desire to like the "right" bands and to brainwash the gullible would be hipsters into toeing the party line.  The NME is a classic case in point - pretty much the British equivalent of the "Rolling Stone", and a prime exponent of the vile "build 'em up yo knock 'em down" culture prevalent in so much of British journalism.  They infamously described Rush as "Nazi Fascists" - which is surely particularly hurtful given that Geddy Lee's parents survived the Nazi Death Camps in WWII.  Think of that and listen to "Red Sector A" again...

I don't care if people like Rush or not.  Equally, I don't mind if other people do like them - I am not (or at least try not to be) an elitist.  I would rather like it if people gave them a chance and due credit for being a talented, innovative, hard-working and influential band.  Their music has spoken to me and many others) more than anyone else's, often describing the "view from the suburbs" - a middle class geek's view of the world.  "Subdivisions" and indeed many of the songs from the album "Signals" deals with this sort of theme.  

They are also an excellent live band who are never anything other than well-rehearsed and respectful of their audience - something that certain other Canadian artists could do well to learn.  They are now members of a club that they never really cared for, but they recognised that many of their fans cared and when inducted had the decency to turn up and thank the people whose opinions do matter to them.  Now it's back to the real business for them - see you in Glasgow on May 30th, guys!

A Hielan' Laddie...

This Friday just past, Christopher and I wore kilts of Black Watch tartan to our friends' wedding.  C looked very smart indeed.  I wore it by choice, and am proud to have done so.  

My Uncle Iain also wore it by choice, though in circumstances as far removed from a wedding as you can get.  He wore it as a member of the Black Watch, having (if I recall the family stories correctly) lied about his age to join up.  He then volunteered to join the Parachute Regiment, which was then in its infancy.  Just over 70 years ago (28th March, 1943), he was killed in action in Tunisia.  

I am glad that I have never had to join the Forces - with absolutely no disrespect to those who have - I really do not think that I am made of the right stuff for it, for a start.  I am not a brave man. Then again, I have read many stories of ordinary people who did extraordinary things in extraordinary times - perhaps I could have measured up.  I doubt it, but perhaps.  I am glad that my Uncle, and many thousands of others did, but deeply saddened that they had to.  And, because they did, I am free to choose to not join up, free to choose to wear the Black Watch tartan, and free to hope that my son will know a better world than even I have...

http://twgpp.org/information.php?id=2634521

Creepshow...

I am, in general quite lucky.  

Although my life has its challenges (whose doesn't) and the old "black dog" keeps nipping at my heels (and indeed sometimes seems to sneak in and pinch my lunch), I am fortunate to have a wonderful wife, a stunning son, a supportive and fabulous (blood, step, in-law and extended) family and some of the finest friends a man could hope for.

The snag is that I have an arch enemy - The Master to my Doctor (Mad Tom stylee, of course) if you like.  He knows and exploits my weaknesses, preying ruthlessly on every foible and failing, never failing to put the boot in when I am down...  There is no remorse, because he believes implacably that I am deserving of his venom.  And of course, as you will have already guessed he gets his digs in before anyone else because he is the hairy shambling mess that stares at me from the mirror each morning.  Perhaps being the Edward Hyde to my Henry Jekyll is the more appropriate comparison.

My mind can run off at the most unlikely tangents from seemingly innocuous starting points - imagining how people have taken something I have said differently to how I had intended and set off some sort of chain reaction with terrible consequences.  Part of me knows that I am being ridiculous, and this almost makes it worse - like being powerless in the passenger seat of a vehicle being driven by a maniac.  

But then perhaps driven is a good word to use, because I am, in some ways, much more driven than my usually relaxed exterior might suggest.  I want to do everything the best that I can - and I want to do it better the next time.  Unfortunately my expectations are all too often (perhaps) somewhat unrealistic - my reach exceeds my grasp, but I cannot cut myself any slack to accept this failure.  I do expect too much of myself, but I also can't bring myself to live any other way.  

This drive is also one of the things (as well as a fine support network and Mirtazapine) that allows me to function in any way normally - get out of bed, be a husband, parent, employee etc. A lot of the time I can reach a grudging understanding with the mirror me - perhaps this is the best that I can hope for.  The title, by the way, refers to a Twelfth Night song - which seemed appropriate to these thoughts.  

I would like to finish with a reference to another song - "Between Today and Yesterday" by Amplfier.  They just put the lyrics up on their site, and reading them reinforced why this is another song that has made a particularly strong connection to my maverick brain, like the ones that I referred to in a previous ramble.

http://www.amplifierband.com/lyrics_betweentodayandyesterday.html

Enjoy!

Pain in the Plughole... The difficulty of Remote Parenting.

I have in the past been offered quite lucrative contracting posts in the nether reaches of England, but I have rarely hesitated in turning them down.  This week I reminded myself why it is so easy to refuse relatively obscene daily rates in favour of a lesser, but still comfortable salary in Edinburgh. (Other than of course the relative security of a permanent job, and the slight but significant unease over being paid that sort of money).

Christopher headed off to Dundee last Tuesday to spend a few days with Grandad and Oma (and of course, Granny Rennie, Mad Auntie Lesley and Uncle Graeme and Auntie Pam) - giving Freya and I a chance to chill, and C the chance to be spoilt rotten for a wee while. Then, on the Wednesday night, we got a call from my Dad.  Christopher was not well - nothing major, certainly not by C's standards, just an ear infection.  Christopher was understandably not a happy bunny, but Calpol was doing its job and if things weren't better in the morning, a trip to the GP in Broughty Ferry for an antibiotic was on the cards.  

I had absolutely no concerns about the care C would receive - after all between Dad, Janice and my Mum, there was a large amount of parenting expertise, having raised 5 children successfully to adulthood, who all turned out (fairly) normal.  It still made me feel somewhat uncomfortable - I wasn't there to give the Wee Man a cuddle, help calm him down or administer the Calpol.  It reminded me a bit of the darker times when Christopher was in and out of hospital and we had to take turns spending the night in a camp bed at Sick Kids.  When it was my turn to spend the night at home there was almost always a twinge of regret that I couldn't be there beside him.  

Looking back now, I realise that you need those nights away, because the hospital time drains you more than you notice at the time.  But the sense of remoteness still gets to me.  C is home tonight, snoring away quietly upstairs (before continuing his jetset lifestyle with a few days with Papa and Granny Crosbie in Kilmarnock) ear on the mend thanks to the antibiotics.  And the selfish part of me that wants to keep him close is content.  The generous (for want of a better word) part of me is glad that I can share him with our family and let him see more of the world than he can see at home.  And I am also glad that he is confident enough that he can happily head off without too many concerns - which I am convinced is one of the positive aspects of the time that he has spent among caring strangers in Sick Kids,

I am glad that I am lucky enough to be able to stay at home with my little family most of the time - so many people - Forces or contractors or whoever - are not that fortunate.

Oh yes - and the title?  A couple of weeks ago Christopher and Freya were horsing about a bit and Freya was making noises in C's ear - eventually he exclaimed "Stop yelling in my plughole!".  Freya and I were in stitches, Christopher perplexed as to what exactly was so funny...

Closer to the Heart

i don't know about you, but for me, every so often a song comes along that seems to stand out more than its fellows and makes a more immediate and profound connection to me.  In addition  to quite a few Rush songs, an example of such a song would be "May You Never" by John Martyn.  But they don't come along that often.  So I'm happy to have found two such songs in a relatively short period of time.  

One, perhaps predictably, is the last track on the latest Rush album "The Garden" - a meditation on life and the passage of time, which just seems to express a lot of what I feel more succinctly than I am capable of.  The other is "Matmos" the lead track from Amplifier's new album "Echo Street" - I haven't spent enough time with the song yet to understand  why it makes this connection with me, I just know that it does.  

And these give me something to aspire to - I long to create something that comes in any way close to meaning as much to someone as these songs mean to me.  I used to write a lot of songs - it was a way of getting stuff out of my system - problems seem easier to comprehend when they are down in black and white in front of you.  Somewhere along the way things seemed to dry up and I started feeling that such creativity as I had, was gone.  Which in turn became a source of regret and fed the feelings that seemed to be leeching the creativity from me. This seems to be starting to turn around again - I am finding some small crumbs of inspiration creeping into my head again - and rather than the collection of dogeared notebooks that I always kept with me before, I have "OneNote" on my phone, laptop and tablet...

Now I have to find the right people to put this into action and bring it to life.  To feed my one real addiction - music.

Music fills my empty bones...

I like my commute by bus...  Seems odd, but I do.  For one thing, we live a few stops from the terminus, so C and I can always get seats for the trip to nursery.  Also, the first part of our morning commute (and the second part of our return trip - although this can often be grumpier) gives me a great chance to speak to Christopher about a lot of things - often inspired by what we see on the bus or out of the window.  
Some of the things that he comes out with really give me pause for thought, an unschooled insight into the world uncluttered by adult preconceptions, prejudices and well... ...tact!  

The other part of my journey, my solo trip to and from the office is also welcome - because it gives me a chance to be utterly selfish and do nothing but listen to music.  And I always enjoy the chance to listen to music.  Recently, I have started to enjoy it even more, because I got some rather nice new headphones (AKG K451s if you're interested - quality far beyond their £60 price tag if you ask me!) which have lead to a change in my listening habits.  I have weaned myself off the equaliser on my Creative Zen XFi-2 (although I still use the XFi setting cos they do make MP3s more listenable).  

This got me thinking this morning about how much we filter our experience of the world and how much it is filtered for us before we even really notice it.  Our perceptions are not as straightforward as we perhaps like to believe - spin of all varieties is omnipresent - so we need to apply different filters to try to get back to the truth if possible.  Which ultimately makes me somewhat jealous of Christopher and his clearer, straightforward view of the world.  Say what you see, say what you see...

Metadata...

Well kind of...  A fairly simple definition of metadata (descriptive metadata to be slightly less vague) is "data about data".  This word came to mind the other day while sorting through some stuff in the guise of tidying when I found a piece of paper with a roughly drawn sketch on it.  It is a sketch that changed my life forever.  It shows the outline of a head and torso with details of the  oesophagus and trachea - as they appear in what is known as a "Type C" TOF/OA.  

It was drawn by a doctor in a side room of the Simpson's Maternity Wing of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on the afternoon of the 7th of August, 2008, as they tried to explain to me, Freya, and her parents what was different about our son who had been born almost 24 hours previously.  Shellshocked doesn't even start to cover it.  Only by experiencing that could one ever really understand how it feels.  

But that is not really what I am wittering on about this time.

I suppose what I am trying to talk about is the unseen weight that some things can carry - the hidden story that they contain.  The most obvious examples would be the many and varied items to be found in museums all around the world, or the seemingly abstract information that astronomers have used to infer the rotational speed of black holes and so many other information about our universe, but also there are many more mundane items in pretty much everyone's home.  

Sometimes these are things with some broader historical significance - on my mantelpiece for instance, I have a piece of wood that was once part of the ill-fated first Tay Rail Bridge.  Most of them (though possibly just for sentimental hoarders like me)  are invested with more specific and personal meaning - like the sketch, a number of hospital ID bracelets from C's many visits to Sick Kids, or even just the various gig t-shirts that I can't bear to part with... (None of them are actually older than my beloved wife, despite what she may try to persuade you!)

I am comfortable with these artefacts of my personal history and their attached "metadata" they are part of what has made me who I am - you can't cherrypick which parts of your past inform your future.  What I am less comfortable with is my own personal baggage - the personal foibles , fears and oddities that are almost like the mental scar tissue from the scrapes that I have landed myself in, but maybe I still have to carry these.  

What I can chose is how those "packets" of metadata effect me and my interactions with those around me - like the picture which used to represent a painful time in my life, but now I can see as a symbol of how far Christopher, Freya and I (and of course all of our friends and family) have come and how much we have learned.

Star stuff...

Over the past week and a bit, I have spoken to three other TOF parents who are a good bit earlier in their journey than Freya and I - well one is still a TOF parent-to-be - and it has really brought home to me just how far we have come in the past 4 and a half-ish tears since Christopher was born, and we first discovered what on Earth "TOF/OA" was...

TOF/OA, or Tracheo-Oesophageal Fistula and Oesophageal Atresia to give it its full name, is a rare (roughly one in 4000 births) condition where a baby's oesophagus is not joined up (the atresia bit) resulting in a dead end in the top part and having the bottom part that connects to the stomach attached to the trachea (the fistula bit).  Remarkably enough, the operation to fix it is usually surprisingly straightforward (assuming you're a paediatric surgeon!), but it can come with a variety of other related complications.  Christopher was born TOF/OA (and with a large hole in his heart), but had, I suppose, the relative good fortune to be born within a short ambulance ride of one of the leading specialists in the repair of this condition.  So it was that he had  "keyhole" surgery to join his oesophagus and fix his trachea at two days old. 

The operation was a great success (as was the later one at Yorkhill in Glasgow to fix his heart), but it has been (to paraphrase the Grateful Dead) a long strange trip since then.  Only in the past year have things really started to go reasonably smoothly, and Christopher, Freya and I have all spent way more nights in the Sick Kids.  

This, however is not the main thing that I am thinking of at the moment - I am more focussed on the positive side of Christopher's experiences.  The thing that shines out more than any other to me is the Wee Man's confidence - not much fazes him, he has never been a clingy child, and he is well at ease in the company of adults and will happily chat away, quite the thing.  I think that this is likely due, at least in part, to the amount of time that he has spent in hospital surrounded by doctors and nurses, and not always in the company of mummy or daddy.  Don't get me wrong, if there had been a tick box offering TOF/OA as an option, there is no way I or any other TOF parent would have chosen that, but I am relieved to see positive aspects of the ordeals that my beautiful, caring wee boy has been through.  And compared to some TOFs, he has had a relatively straightforward journey.  

I hope with all my heart that all of the other wee TOF children can reach the stage the Christopher is at now - able to eat most of the things that other children can eat at his age, though we still need to make sure that he chews carefully and drinks between bites etc - mealtimes will probably always be a wee bit different Chez Rennie, but that is ok, and I hope that other TOF parents can take hope from my brave wee lad.  We are all made of star stuff, but to Freya and I, Christopher shines brighter than most...

W = F.d

I finished this week a little bit happier in my job than I started it...  I do quite like my job - I get a chair with wheels on and a computer to play with, it's indoors and there's no heavy lifting - but I am definitely in the "work to live" camp.  
It's not what I grew up dreaming that I would do or anything like that, but it plays to my strengths, is reasonably challenging and I am reasonably good at it.  My employer is decent for a big company - I have no complaints there - and I am reasonably well rewarded for my work.  The perks can be good too, a company bonus, a discount on my council gym membership and MS Office Professional Plus 2013 for £8.95 are not to be sniffed at.  
But what made the difference for me this week is that the head of the project that I work on came over and thanked me and my colleague for our work in getting a part of the project "over the line".  For all of the financial rewards and such like (and lets be honest not many of us would do our jobs for nowt!) sometimes it's the personal touch that makes it feel that much more worthwhile.
On a related topic, I have a way of approaching my work and how I feel about it that helps me keep going with it when it gets tough - and with my depression in the mix, that can happen more often than I would like.  I divide my work into two parts - the part that I'd (almost) do for free and the part that I get paid for.  The "free" part includes the problem solving and the programming - that sort of stuff - I suppose the more mentally challenging part, while the "paid for" part involves testing and documentation - the motivationally challenging part!
Also this week, I was saddened to note the passing of Reg Turnill, a true giant of scientific broadcasting - the man who amongst many other things "broke" the story of Apollo 13.  This week also saw the 25th anniversary of the death of one of my biggest science heroes - Nobel Laureate, communicator of science par excellence, bongo player, artist, wit and raconteur Richard Feynman.  If you want to experience complex physics explained straightforwardly and clearly, pick up pretty much any of his books and prepare to be amazed.

Feeling Gravity's Pull...

Thursday past, I was on a flexi-day to take Christopher to see his surgeon for his regular six monthly check up - and they are so happy with his progress that they don't need to see him again for a year - which definitely made me float a bit higher.  
I also took advantage of the day off to go to speak to C's nursery about the stars, planets and gravity - the nursery like to encourage parents to speak to the children about their jobs etc.  I don't mind my job, but I can't imagine any child in their right mind wanting to know about Insurance, so I fell back on having done quite a cool degree...  One thing that made it a good bit easier is an incredibly cool piece of software called "Celestia" which is free to download and allows you to "travel" around the universe and do some sightseeing.  Christopher loves it - so does his dad!
Anyhoo, almost as soon as I agreed to do the talk, I realised how tricky it is to describe gravity in simple terms (specially to 3 and 4 year olds!), but I had to give it a go.  And I think that I managed to an extent, with the help of thinking about things falling, a video of Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt dancing and singing about on the moon ("I was walking on the moon one day...) and an improvised experiment involving a ball and a bit of string.  I don't know how much they understood, but at worst I showed them a funny video, some cool pictures and a silly game with a ball!
We followed that with a nice (and carefully calorie counted) Pizza Express lunch as an early celebration of Freya's birthday, cos she was headed down to see her "Ooh errr Matron Of Honour" Iain to see Rocky Horror on her actual birthday.
Yesterday was slightly odd - left to our own devices, C and I had a chilled morning, but things got a bit stressful over lunchtime when C wouldn't eat his soup - small things, but they can really tell on your mind.  I find (in a vague parallel with C's TOF issues) that the worst part of being a depressive is that it's not big things that cause down times so much - more an accumulation of small things.  Like tiny crumbs of discontent and failure that swell and stick in your throat.  Small failures like winding up shouting at C for things that are ultimately my own fault.  So when we headed along to C's swimming lessons, I wasn't in the best headspace - but how quickly things can turn around...  
Once the Wee Man was ready to swim, he headed off and did very well, which definitely started to lift my mood - and I made sure that I told hum how proud I was.  Then our friend Chrissie took him off for an hour so that I could head to the gym and he could play with her wee girl Caiomhe.  That finished the job for me - the combination of physical exercise and Killing Joke at high volume really lifted my mood back up.
That seems to be typical of my experience with depression - I don't have more things than anyone else to weigh me down - I just seem to interact more strongly with gravity...  Though with the love of my friends and family, music and exercise maybe I can fire my engines and take off from this black planet and at least orbit it a bit more distantly, so the tides of my moods are smaller. 

To infinity and beyond...

I went to the doctor the other day - nothing exciting just the regular check in to see how I am going and renew my prescription for anti-depressants.  And in the course of discussing my recent experiences, she told me something that gave me pause for thought - and left me somewhat conflicted.

I have been feeling, by and large, better more consistently than I have for a while - and, despite my scepticism, I reckon that it is a lot to do with the fact that I have started going to the gym.  So, with this in mind. I asked my doctor when it might be wise to start thinking about reducing my dosage, with a view to eventually coming off the tablets completely...  She asked me how many episodes of depression I had experienced, so I answered (honestly) that I wasn't really sure, but that it was more than two - two that I have sought treatment for, plus too many in the preceding nearly 20 years of my life that I did my best to ignore.  

Her response surprised me, having assumed that she would be keen to get me off the pills.  It seems that the current thinking is, given that the Mirtazapine that I am on is not harmful, that it would probably be best that I stayed on them indefinitely, minimising the risk of a further serious relapse.

On the one hand, I mostly content that the tablets have a relatively small impact on my life - a trip to the docs every couple of months and a wee pill every night before bed seems a small price for me generally being easier to be around, better able to function mentally, and as a perk, sleeping way better than I have for many years.  The effects of sleeping better are boosted by having a CPAP machine to combat my sleep apnoea. 

On the other hand, I don't feel particularly comfortable about being dependent on any drug for the rest of my life - even if it is legal and prescribed.  And then there is the cost to the NHS (of which I am a great fan - not just because of what they have done for me, but also because of the amazing things that they have done for my son, Christopher.), which makes me feel somewhat guilty.  For now at least, I think that I will follow my doctor's advice - not least because I am still somewhat nervous as to what I would be like without them.  I have no desire to blindly hang on to a crutch that I may not need, but sometimes you need a crutch to stop you falling on your pus!

On another topic - I visited the NASA website the other day - as is my wont - and saw a piece saying that the first of February is the annual memorial day to those who have lost their lives pushing back the boundaries of mankind's ignorance while working for NASA.  The human cost of our exploration of space (both for NASA and Soviet Cosmonauts) is definitely something that we must remember, but it also struck me that between Apollo 1, Challenger and Columbia, NASA have only lost 17 lives on missions and the Russians 4 (I am possibly cheating slightly by calling Apollo 1 a mission, but I think that it's fair since they were in a spacecraft at the time).  It could be reasonably argued that those are too many, but I can't help but think that given that manned spaceflight is probably the riskiest thing that mankind has ever undertaken, it could have been a lot more... 

Astro Man...

...And other Jimi Hendrix tracks from "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" would seem to be my ideal gym music.  Having conducted a highly un-scientific and random survey of music to drive myself to the edge of physical ruin to, some conclusions have been reached.

 

I have discovered, for instance, that the dreadful radio that they pipe into the gym just makes me want to leave, Iron Maiden (specifically "Live After Death") drowns it out nicely, but is a bit too quick to be conducive to things like being able to walk the next day etc,  Rush's "Hold Your Fire" is an excellent album and nicely paced, but with Rush there is always the risk of odd time signatures and therefore of tying ones legs in knots!

So tonight, I opted for a bit of Jimi - and I think that Mr H's groove is ideal for this gym-bunny...  Well, probably more of a gym-rhino or gym-diplodocus.  

Anyway, James Marshall Hendrix has loomed large in my life for a long time now - being one of the guitarists who really made me want to take up guitar in the first place and has both driven me to try to approach some level of competence or occasionally made me despair of ever making a suitably musical noise out of the damn thing.  He also made me realise that it was possible for weird, tall, frizzy haired dudes could be cool.  (Not that I could ever dream of even being on the same cool scale as Jimi, of course!) 

And more amusingly, a friend who I was briefly in a band with, claimed that I had freaked out his sister, who thought that I was a reincarnation of Jimi sent to haunt her.  Strange girl.  And anyone who has ever heard me play will realise exactly how preposterous a thought that was!  Although, the only famous person that I have been told that I look like where I have actually seen the likeness was Noel Redding of the JHE...  Although I believe that I am about a foot taller than he was.

If there is a point to this interminable ramble, it is that I am glad that music has slotted into this new-found aspect of my life.  If anything other than my friends and family has kept me even borderline sane over the years, it is music.  There are few things in this world that give me an ecstatic rush like the one that I get from hearing the wonderful wail of a guitar being used and abused by a true master of the art - certainly none that I am prepared to share in a blog!  So thank you Jimi for bringing your groove to my bi-weekly torture sessions.

 

Spacewalk In Morningside

There is a famous photograph of the astronaut Ed White, the first American to walk in space, showing him floating above the Earth with a slender cable his only connection to the rest of humanity (or at least the Gemini 4 Capsule).

One morning this week as Christopher and I headed along the road to his nursery, I felt his hand slip into mine - another slender connection to the rest of the world.  Just the feel of his slim hand in my big, clumsy paw made my weary heart leap.  That small connection pulled me from whatever self absorbed thought was on my mind at the time and reminded me of the luck and responsibility that is being a parent.  I have someone to protect, to care for and to nurture.  

The connection doesn't have to be physical - I think of the buzz of happiness that I get when I hear Christopher or Freya's voice or see anything that brings them or any of my friends or family to mind,  Depression can make one terribly insular - either shunning company or feeling alone in a room full of people, so sometimes it takes something like this to remind me of the importance of the connections we have to the ones we love,

So Christopher's hand in mine felt a bit like Ed White's tether to me - vital and lifegiving.  Of course even if one is at the end of one's tether, at least one is still on the tether!

One small step...

Oh well, here we go...  I like faffing about on the Internet, playing about on the computer generally and wittering on endlessly about all sorts of rubbish, so a blog seemed the logical next step...

Today, Freya, Christopher and I went for a walk through Colinton Dell, by the side of the Water of Leith - muddy and a wee bit cold, but it is definitely my favourite part of Edinburgh.  It makes you feel like you're far away from the cares and concerns of the modern world in a beautiful wooded rural idyll - while you are really only a brief bus ride from the centre of the city.

It gave me pause to reflect on that I am actually (a mere 14-ish years since I moved here from Dundee) beginning to quite like living here...  

The past six and a bit of those years have definitely helped, in that time I have moved on from the absolute lowest point of my life to meet and marry my wonderful wife Freya, become a father (to the fabulous Christopher), move house (once), change bands (twice) and change jobs (three times).  

In that time I have also started to come to terms with my own mental health - finally seeking help for what had been a 20 year private(ish) battle with depression.  It's not always great, but some counselling, the anti-ds and the love of my family are all helping me to get things sorted. 

 One of the side effects of my current (prescription) "drug of choice" is that it increases my appetite (which was already fairly "healthy") - as a result I am now the heaviest that I have ever been (not quite twice the skinny 11 stone that I was when I headed off to University but far closer than I am happy with) and have decided to draw a line in the sand, so to speak.  The gloves are off, and the gutties are on!  Freya and I have hit the diet and joined the Cooncil gym (a lot flashier than they were the last time that I ventured into one) and this time we mean it.  

Which brings me back to Colinton - I reckon that if exercise comes in the guise of wandering through a beautiful place like the Dell, then I may actually manage to stick this diet and fitness thing out...