Smile a while...

Alan refuses to look at the camera but still gives me a smile.  I'll take that :-)

Woke up at 3am and that was me wide awake till just after 6am.  I don't let these odd nights of insomnia get me down as they are so infrequent now.  Instead I use the time to think about and plan things that are coming up. 

This time it was our trip to Harris in August.  I would have probably fallen back to sleep faster if I'd thought of something else as I am so looking forward to this trip, I probably got myself hyper thinking about all the things we will see and do!

Pottered about upstairs for the rest of the morning then after lunch went back to the study to work some more on the watercolour still life I started.  I absolutely hate it!  lol!  But it's teaching me the kind of painting I don't want to do, or at least that I need to take a different approach to it.  I won't destroy it though, I will either keep it as something to look back on in the future when I have improved (positive thinking ;-) or more realistically, I will use the back of the painting to colour test paint.

We had a meeting with Kim from the management company who manage Alan's team of support workers.  She wanted to give us feed back from the recent training days that Alan's team took part in (the one where I did a talk about Alan's early years experiences.)

The training took place over four days and was quite intensive and we are delighted to hear that it went really well, with all team members taking part fully and enthusiastically.  

The training was all delivered remotely, with them all working from home and I think they all thought they were going to be talked at for four days and shown videos but it wasn't like that at all.  It was completely interactive and all about them sharing their experiences with and knowledge of Alan, and covered many topics including communication, activities, emotions, future plans and supporting each other, to name a few.  They all really enjoyed it and are keen to have a monthly interactive team meeting to keep the conversation going.  Kim also said she was blown away by their affection for and commitment to Alan and how keen they all are to ensure he has the best life possible.  We are of course delighted by this but not surprised as they really are the greatest group of individuals, each bringing their different life experiences, personalities and humour to the job, and most importantly, they all adore Alan and enjoy spending time with him.  We (and he) are so lucky to have them and don't take a second of their time with us for granted.

It was almost 7.30pm when Kim left and the garden needed to be watered so we took the easy route and ordered an Indian takeaway for dinner.  

Busy week coming up (visit to Fortingall Art Festival, Emily's Hen Do, dinner with friends, Alan's pal Andrew coming to stay, major garage clear out and our 34th wedding anniversary) so spent the evening trying to get organised for all of that!  

Can look forward to it all now that Alan's back to his smiley self :-))