Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Wild Encounters is located just outside Newcastle West. They have a range of birds, reptiles, meerkats and farm animals. Also, a tanuki, which was both cool and very timely given how popular Animal Crossing currently is in our house. There was plenty to keep us entetained in terms of talks, a hands-on petting of the rabbits and guinea pigs, and ferret racing in which Venla and her team mate Polly took first place!

Ulster Museum is composed of three levels: history, nature and art. There is loads of interesting stuff including a piece on The Troubles, the formation of continents since the creation of the Earth, and two discovery rooms with lots of hands-on items for children. It’s also located in the Botanical Gardens so you can have a walk around those as well. And it’s all free.

DUNeS recently hosted a visit from Dogs for the Disabled who are a charity that provide assistance dogs. They are similar to Guide Dogs but help with physical mobility issues like walking, retrieving dropped items, raising the alarm if something is wrong and a range of other tasks.

They also provide therapy dogs which in this case is a well trained dog that acts as a companion (the dog has no additional training in psychodynamic theory).

They are a registered charity and currently fundraising to build a new HQ so if that is a cause you would like to support, check out the Dogs for the Disabled website.

DUHAC held its AGM last week. Congratulations to everyone who made the committee and thank you to those outgoing for all of their hard work. We also got a team photo for Chariots of Tired with Juno helping Jack make a virtual appearance.

One of the prizes for the DUHAC 24-hour was a gift card for Base Pizza. To balance all the time I’ve spent running recently, we had Venla-focused day yesterday with junior parkrun, the Minecraft movie, and then pizza.

Big news, team. I’ve already taken my bike outside this year.

The graveyard was not a metaphor for getting older. Instead, it was a lovely walk around Glendalough. It was beautiful and, importantly, there wer much fewer biting insects than in June.

Last weekend, Trinity hosted the Neurodiversity Intervarsity Conference conference.

UCD are doing some great work with body doubling, which is where you pair up with someone to help you focus. There is some great work going on with inclusive design at TCD, as well. And a talk neurodivergent bodies looking at the way neurodivergent individuals interact with their environment. Adam Harris gave the keynote speech and it is always a pleasure to hear him talk.

The other thing that has kept my blog relatively quiet over January is that Elina had surgery. It was a success but recovery hasn’t been as smooth as we hoped so it has been a busy time caring for both Elina and Venla and still attend to work, studying and my own wellbeing.

I’m delighted to have her back home with us. She is the centre of my world and I love her so much.

Her health insurance covered her to recover on a private ward. Check out how nice it is:

This is a good place to recover. It’s quiet enough that you can get some rest. Food comes with vegetables. And staff don’t tell you off if you have a panic attack. Everyone deserves this level of care.

One of the main reasons there is nothing on my blog this month is that I have my head burried in writing a research paper. Even though I’m not at the writing stage yet. The paper is on mental health in ultra-endurance athletes and I’m currently on the data analysis stage. Watch this space. But not too closely because it’s a slow process.