WE NEED TOOTHPASTE: Get my ass back into gear.

Sorry about the lack of blogs lately, no excuse really, just seemed to have lost a bit of momentum.

Going to do a couple of updates today and tomorrow.

First things first had a lovely email which I will copy in its entirety......

Dear Jon

Just spent a really enjoyable hour or so reading your blog, and hope you won't mind me putting a link to it on a website I'm working on just now. If you do, please let me know.

I'm currently helping out as a volunteer with a website called A Carer's Voice http://www.acarersvoice.com

The site was started at the beginning of May by Ann Pascoe. She's a carer for her husband Andrew who like your mum has vascular dementia. They live in Portgower, a tiny village on the east coast of Sutherland up here in the Highlands.

Through looking after her husband, Ann has become an active campaigner on behalf of carers. She was recently awarded a travel fellowship from the Churchill Trust and as a result, the pair of them are now in Goa, India, on the first leg of a trip where she will be looking at new approaches to supporting carers of people with dementia.

Ann has begun blogging on A Carer’s Voice with dispatches from Goa and Andrew, who's a keen photographer, is doing his own picture blog. It sounds like they're having fun - Ann(65) has been letting her hair down on the back of a scooter, doing yoga and sampling the delights of the local cuisine. Work-wise, she's been to visit a local care home, where she presented the manager with a little bag of Scottish Heather (some kind of drawer freshener) which the bewildered recipient apparently started to nibble at.

I wondered if you thought visitors to your site might be interested in keeping up with them via a link to us? They can get straight to the blog at

http://www.acarersvoice.com/category/ann-blog/

I'm attaching a recent press release about Ann and Andrew - please feel free to contact me for any other information you'd like

And keep up the good work - the new site's looking excellent.

Regards

Peter

A Carer's Voice

Please have a look at the site and the blogs, its very very interesting reading, and gives a good perspective on how dementia need not be the end some people think.

Birthday Girl

Last weekend Mum hit the grand old age of 75 so the girls took her for a spa and manicure at Rushton Hall, former home of the all round good egg and total nutter that was Thomas Tresham.

Heres two sisters and a Mum having a spot of lunch to tide them over..

And Sarah having a low-cal power snack after the swim..

Nails done..

In the afternoon we saddled up and travelled all the way to Wellingborough for one of the best meals I have had in a long time at the Mien Tay restaurant. Excellent Vietnamese food.