A very short post tonight to pass on good news and the plan for the next few couple of weeks followed by even more good news. The good news is that work has started on my flat. The wonderful Gary Mather is pulling the team together to do the work that I need to do to the flat I was so lucky to be able to buy. This flat is intended as an investment for the children in trust as it was the money I had invested for their future, when I left the Army, that I had to use to put the deposit down on the purchase. So in order to ensure that it is an investment for them an awful lot of work needed to be done to bring this 1970s original condition flat up to the sort of walk in modern day standard that would help realise the children’s investment. Gary is very generously doing all he can to make the work that needs doing affordable so it has taken a while to get to a point at which we could start but today. Work started which was hugely exciting. Gary had even, very kindly, said that I should carry on with the challenge while work was ongoing. That there was no need for me to hang around the flat but I have got to a point at which I need to get lots of work and administration done to prepare me and the the challenge for a renewed, post redecoration drive. I have policies that need to be written for the website, some leads to chase up and planning for future activity to do while also trying to finally catch up with my email intray. I also have the sitting room in the house to finish stripping wallpaper from in order to save Gary sometime and therefore me some money in the redecoration. I am of course also living in the flat so have to move my camp bed and me around the flat each day in order to ensure the selected rooms are ready for the next days work plan. In short I am going to be far too tied up to be able to take long days out on the hills. Hugely frustrating but this is of course an opportunity. An opportunity to take some extra time trying to build my cognitive and motor function in the left, healthy side of the brain, through organ practice while also pushing the envelope on my physical fitness program and attempting new but healthy recipes. So while time in the hills will be limited over the next few weeks, time on challenge activity will not. I will ensure that I conduct cognitive and motor training each day and physical training each day while feeding myself healthily and feeding my faith and healing through good quality prayer and meditation on God’s word. I will maintain a focus of ensuring that the flat is presented and ready for work each day and take the time to catch up with family and friends by catching up with my growing email inbox. Now at 194 emails!! So in other words I will maintain the 5Fs of Food, Faith, Family and Friends, Focus and Physical and cognitiveTraining each and every day and write a teeny weeny post just to keep you updated as to what I have managed to do. To let you know that I continue to fight to ‘beat the beast’ Right now I have to put my bedroom back together, clear all my storage boxes from James’ bedroom and clear the kitchen ready for work starting at 0800hrs tomorrow. The really good news? I have the use of my loo back for now. Still the old loo with the ejector tip mechanism but at least it is a loo. Otherwise it would have had to have been a bottle overnight. I can’t very well be disturbing my wonderful neighbours for a pee at 3 in the morning!! I’ll keep you posted. But before I do, some even more good news. The Buttercup Cafe have very kindly given me 152 pounds and 92 pence collected as a result of their customer’s very generous donations in the Cafe. I am quite sure that this sum would have detracted from the generosity of tips to the wonderful team in the cafe so this wonderful sum represents not only the wonderful generosity of the Cafe’s customers but also the wonderful generosity of the Buttercup Cafe’s staff team. So a huge thank you to you all.
Yours aye
Archie.