After a near three year hiatus I’ve decided to start blogging again. A lot’s happened between then and now, and some of those gaps I’ll try to fill in future posts. There was never a formal decision to stop blogging, it was just time constraints as I put my life back together post divorce (I’ve hidden away some of the posts dealing with this period as nothing good will come from raking over them).
This blog was originally intended to document my journey with Chronic Kidney Disease, so that seems a good place to start. I’ve now reached end stage and I’m working with the renal replacement team on what comes next. Next month I will be meeting the surgeon to discuss having a fistula created to facilitate dialysis, but I’ll elaborate on this in a future post. From a health perspective I’m generally well, or as well as can be expected given my prognosis. Fitness wise things are not quite so great, having managed to get down to 100kg, my weight has crept back up to 110kg over the last couple of years. I still try to keep active, but it’s a challenge balancing everything. I’m determined to get things back on track over the next few months.
From a personal relationship perspective things are good. I’ve been with my partner over three years now, we’ve just come back from a fantastic weekend away in Somerset where we were looked at engagement rings. Our relationship isn’t without its challenges, we both have lots of commitments, busy careers, our own health issues etc, but what’s great is that we really value the time we spend together, whether it’s trips to interesting places (Canterbury, East Anglia, Istanbul, Valencia, Wells etc), visiting our respective families or just chilled weekends doing dog walks and trying out recipes.
My relationship with my son remains strong, there have been some ups and downs, but he’s doing good. He’s changed schools this academic year which has recently boosted his engagement (the old school had a big reputation it sadly failed to live up to) and after a couple of years away he returned to his old rugby club last season and is really getting back into it. The situation with my daughter has been a bit more bumpy, we’ve gone through phases where our relationship gets better only for it to take a set back, but I remain immensely proud of her, despite her own challenges which disrupted her studies she did really well in her GCSEs, she’s now at college, has a steady boyfriend and is working part time.
Professionally things are solid, my position as a development team lead was made permanent and there’s a good team dynamic going on. I’ve got some pretty demanding projects in-flight which brings a certain level of stress, but they’re growing me as a leader as well as developing my technical skills.
Outside of work I don’t get as much time as I’d like for extra-curricular activities; I did write, record and release the first episode of an audio drama on Youtube a couple of years ago, but the second episode has been pending ever since. More recently I purchased an action camera so I can record some of the cool places my partner and I visit, so I’m going to try my hand editing and uploading some of that footage in the near future. I’ve no desire to be a professional ‘content creator’, I already have a busy career, but I do like the idea of sharing the stories and places I find interesting.
At the time of my last post I’d recently moved into my new flat and renovations were underway, barring a few snags they are pretty much all done now. I’ve almost entirely renovated the place and I’ve done a lot of the work myself, with some help from my partner and my parents. It’s been tough but learning new or enhanced DIY skills has been really rewarding; not forgetting that being ‘handy’ has saved me a lot of money I can put to other things.
Anyway, I think that’s enough for today.
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