Audrey’s Blog on living well with disability and breast cancer

Alaska "Do you people here in Scotland ever talk about your history" was the question that got the biggest response in the fascinated audience. It was a slightly nervous laughter that spontaneously entered the room. Oh yes we talk about our history, especially just now as we approach an independence referendum. But that wasn't what the lecture was about, it was about the Alaskan approach to building wellbeing in, with and through a community, the Nuka system. The story of this thirty year process was inspiring and thought provoking. There's much for us to learn from this I'm certain. There's so much we are doing well here in Scotland. A focus on person centredness, on co-production, on safety and quality are so important.    They feel hugely important parts of the jigsaw but just maybe not the full picture. The difference in the Alaskan experience was the community involvement and the commitment to that at every level. It's a cultural mo

I will admit to the odd rant at the news this week. It's a heightened time in Scotland as we approach a referendum on independence so we are getting used to political posturing.   In this week alone we have had the prime minister asking the rest of the UK to love bomb the Scots to persuade them to stay in the Union. I won't take it personally but I have had a distinct lack of love bombs from the south. I'm sure ever rising flood plains are a much bigger issue for most and rightly so. It's been a terrible spell of relentless rain and a large dose of misery for many. The spring cannot come soon enough.    And then the chancellor arrived in my home town to tell us we can't have the pound if we vote Yes to independence. Whatever your voting intention you could be forgiven for thinking "but its our £ too". He didn't even stop for an Irn Bru. But it wasn't that that made me lecture the newsreader. It was the pronouncement about the ne

I posted this a couple of years ago and its eerily topical-right down to losing at the rugby and the chest infection-so its for my even longer suffering husband as valentines day approaches. An alternative Valentines…So here are my thoughts about what love really is to me It's making my favourite soup when everything else makes me cough It's putting up with Leonard Cohen on the iPod deck for the zillionth time It's singing Flower of Scotland with my Mum (they are both English!) And not laughing when we lose the rugby (again) It's knowing he's there for the kids, whatever it takes It's not going Duh! when I say maybe I have been over doing it It's saying I look lovely when I feel it least  It's welcoming my friends in his life too It's not resenting the job when it takes so much of me It's making me laugh at the worst of times It's letting me cry at the worst of times I

The Field of Light St Andrews Square It's been my birthday this week and you know how it goes with these dates in the year. It stimulates reflection on life and the universe and so forth, pledges to make this year special and I even asked for a food processor for the first time in my life! It's still in pristine condition but I will get there.....really. Perhaps my biggest decision however was to join a writing class. It's a wonderfully old Edinburgh experience with a tenement stair being the entry to a different world. Our workshop leader has a well thought out method and an engaging other worldliness. My sense is already that I will learn a lot and who knows what will emerge? I haven't thought of elaborate fictional plots but instead wondered about a similar approach to my blog where I weave through my own experience, what I have learned about life and love ( in its widest sense-a Barbara Cartland is not not my goal!) and I started not quite clear of my p