Yes, I'm so happy, 2013!

[ashley]

It was great to meet Fermi and Will, and they came with some amazing seeds including Russian pulsatillas from Olga, a Kazakh tulip, narcissus, brunsvigea and Australian calostemma - the two latter pre-germinated for good measure
Thanks again both of you.  We hope you found your way to Gougane Barra today by the off-map road , and enjoy Glengarriff and Garinish over the next few days.

Thank you too Olga for your very kind gift    Please let me know if there's anything from here that I can send you in return.

Lovely pictures Angie; I first went there as a young boy with my grandparents and have such happy memories of the place. 
When next you visit Cork and Kerry I hope we can meet.

[angie]

Ashley I would love to visit. I just love Ireland. This time we will have to come for longer. So many little roads that we had to go down and see where we would end up. Never got to half the places that we wanted to.

Such a friendly and beautiful place. Hubby really liked Glengariff. Can you guess why  I loved the scenery from there.

Angie 
ps sorry it wasn't a nice picture of a lovely flower 

[Brian Ellis]

Here is a real bit of triumph over adversity, enough to gladden your heart.

[Tim Ingram]

I don't know what to say Brian - that is deeply inspiring. What they need now is Simon Rattle to conduct them.

[Michael J Campbell]

It was my birthday yesterday and  my son dragged me to this little restaurant by the River Corrib in Galway city  for lunch and then to the beach at salthill where the temperature was 23c.   The hills in the background of the last picture of the beach is the Burren. Some people have a hard life.

[Maggi Young]

Hmmmm,  lunch out, blue skies, 23 degrees  and a lovely beach with a view - what's not to enjoy, eh? !!! Bet you could do with few happy returns of that day!

[David Nicholson]

a late very happy birthday Michael

[angie]

Hmmmm,  lunch out, blue skies, 23 degrees  and a lovely beach with a view - what's not to enjoy, eh? !!! Bet you could do with few happy returns of that day!

I am with Maggi whats not to enjoy  Happy belated birthday wishes.

Angie 

[Brian Ellis]

Another flashmob, it never happens when I go shopping!

http://biggeekdad.com/2013/05/grocery-store-opera/

The lady with the fish is somewhat surreal!

[Gail]

Delightful!

[Maggi Young]

I moaned in March about our three year old Great Niece  who had tumours on both her kidneys and in her lung - but who was showing tremendous strength in the face of treatment, bless her.

Thanks for the comments and messages about little Christina.  We all feel so helpless in this situation when we would do anything to relieve her of this illness yet we are completely powerless.

The chemo is shrinking the tumours - that's fantastic news so far - but there is a long road to travel yet - literally and metaphorically - for other treatments she will have to travel to Glasgow . More direct stress for her and her parents. Her Father will go with her, of course - leaving her Mum to worry at home with her little sister- about whom we are now also  anxious, since Christina may have had the tumours since birth.
So much for our little Toot to go through.

Christina went again on Sunday with her family to hospital in Glasgow . She
had another scan yesterday and today it is planned to remove one kidney
and as much of the tumour on the "better" kidney as possible.  This all
sounds terrible but it is tempered somewhat by the fact that the
chemotherapy she has been through these last few months has shrunk the
tumours considerably -  in fact the one on her lung is no longer visible.
The surgeon is hopeful that he will be able to retain enough of the second
kidney to allow a reasonable function but it all depends what he finds  in
the actual operation.
So we are all on tenterhooks at the moment.   It may be that the second
kidney will not be able to be saved after all and then she will have to
endure full dialysis as well as the  radiation which it seems she must
already expect. An awful lot of intervention for such a little person to
withstand.

We are told that she would have to wait at least two years after operation
to be eligible for kidney transplant, if that is needed.  That would
presuppose some other wee soul has been lost, so that's not something we can
face right now.

Tuesday afternoon 25th June :  Christina is still in surgery  in Glasgow but the surgeon sent out a message that he has managed to remove all the tumour from the second kidney - Good News!
I know there is still a long way to go, but this is great news so far.

Horrendous scenario all round.  Makes our troubles seem really feeble.

[ashley]

I'm so sorry to hear this Maggi, and wish little Christina and her family all the very best.
Indeed it is hard to be a helpless bystander.  Although young children may not fully understand what's happening to them, with their great courage and love of life they can inspire and fortify all who love them. 
 

[Maggi Young]

Thank you Ashley.
So comforting that forumists are sending their good wishes to Christina.
We are so proud of how her parents are coping with all this.

There is still a long way to go for Christina to endure more treatment but at least she still has one kidney which we must hope will function well enough.
This at least seems like a triumph today!

[Gail]

Very best wishes Maggi to Christina and all her family - I do agree that such things make all other worries seem feeble.

[Maggi Young]

We are very happy indeed!
Christina is home from Glasgow after the removal of one kidney and the excision of the tumour from the second kidney and the test results suggest that  there is no cancer in the lymph nodes and that only ten percent of the better kidney has been lost in the removal of its tumour.  She is doing remarkably well  when you consider how much she has already been through. Good news is that she will not have to have any radiotherapy (which would have meant more time in Glasgow for all the family and a daily "knockout" for wee Christina to enable the radiotherapy treatment).
Yes, she still has about 16 treatments of chemotherapy still to come but she can have that here in Aberdeen and, we hope, spend most of the time at home.
After what seemed a horrible setback yesterday, when a junior doctor told her parents that all was not well, the opposite of what the Glasgow surgeon had said and which caused a deep depression all round and we all wondered what on earth was going on - the Aberdeen oncologist has reassured us that all is indeed going  well, and this has been confirmed  by the world expert in this cancer (a very clever woman from Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, I'm told) who has reviewed all the test data from Glasgow that has already been reported on from the Welsh Centre where such work is done.
Goodness knows how this frightening false report came from - perhaps the results for some poor child who is not so lucky as Christina  - no matter - it should not have happened.
Thank goodness that there is now real light at the end of this tunnel...

Extraordinary how many  medical people are involved in the case around the country - the doctors are as widely spread as the kind messages you have given for our precious great-niece.

From Christina and her parents- thanks for your kindness. I'm so pleased to be able to give this happy news.