Final Friday

The final Friday test for me today, and it so happens to fall on Burns' night! Normally I would mark the occasion with the usual haggis and a wee dram - not forgetting the year I addressed the haggis and with a floursih withdrew a paring knife from my sock! I couldn't face the haggis without the whisky, so it was chicken tonight. Two years living in Edinburgh and I'm an honorary Scot.

I have driven to Dunstable three times this week and I'm beginning to feel tired. I ran one of my CBT mini-workshops this afternoon on the theme of hopelessness. I think I was my usual inspiring self and managed to convey a pervading sense of hopelessness to the participants. My workshops are experiential. We looked at Beck's Hopelessness Scale (BHS) - but in my lexicon BHS was always British Home Stores. Maybe there is a link - abandon hope all ye who shop there! No, that's not really fair - I used to work there.

So, time is running out for you to support my efforts to raise funds for Cancer Research UK as one of their Dryathletes. I am making sacrifices to do this - it may not amount to coping with cravings, but I miss something that is a pleasurable part of my life. If this in itself is not worthy of sponsorship, I hope you will show your appreciation for my daily posts, my wisdom, my wit, my humour, my self-disclosures (and remember the photo I have teased you with and promised to post!) and the educational Alcohol Info Shots that have featured in some posts. The good news is that this blog will continue beyond the end of the month, hopefully until the end of the year, although there may be gaps when I am out of the country (still working on this).  Thank you.

Alcohol Quotes #3
"Strong ale was ablution,
Small beer persecution,
A dram was memento mori,
But a full-flowing bowl
Was the saving his soul,
And port was celestial glory."
[From Epitaph on John Dove, Innkeeper, by Robert Burns, 1759 - 1796]