Christmas Photo 2018

Migration and the NHS

With the threat of reduced migration to the UK I see that the NHS is saying that we will not have enough medical staff. Am I the only person that believes that is wrong to base our recruitment policy on "stealing" staff from other countries? Particularly when many of the staff come from developing countries who need the staff to look after their own populations. 
If people wish to move to another country that is up to them, but to base recruitment policies on using migrant labour seems wrong. We should train more people in the UK - and if NHS staff were paid a decent wage then maybe there would not be a retention issue

Letter From America No 3

Another the letters that I wrote when we were living in the US. It certainly brings back memories.

CA95120

phone:408 323 9624

emails: barry_mellish@yahoo.com

julia_mellish@yahoo.com

hercules_rellish@yahoo.co.uk

6 May 2000

      I just thought that I would send out one more general letter before we return home to England on May 27th for the event of the year - Andrew marrying Gaew. We have been fairly active the last few weeks. A couple of weeks before Easter we went to stay at Monterey to see our friends Pat and Laura. I first met Pat through Scouting a couple of years ago and we have become good

friends. We had a most enjoyable weekend, spending several hours in Monterey Aquarium which is the best that I have been to. Helena had to do a school project on Marine Biology and this was the ideal place to carry out her research. Pat has had a cabin built in Utah some ground that he owns. I imagined some rustic style place, when we saw the photos it was somewhat

different - apart from the master bedroom, four bedrooms for his married children, girls and boys dorms for his grandchildren it has a couple of guest

bedrooms and an assortment of lounges and day rooms. It is more like a small hotel than a "cabin"!

      I did another 10 km road race on Palm Sunday. I was quicker than my first effort a few weeks previous so the training is working. It was still very slow and I still have weight to lose. It never gets easier as you

get older!

      We went to the Vigil Mass on Easter Saturday where we witnessed nine people received into the Catholic Church. A couple were baptised - in a "walk in font" which was slightly different to the way I have seen things done in the UK. The service lasted a couple of hours, as it did not seem like it you will gather that it was interesting and enjoyable. Easter day saw Julia

and I going for a short walk in Quicksilver Park where we saw plenty of wildlife including hawks and other game birds. We will be exploring this park some more.

      On Easter Monday we took off for a few days holiday. We drove up the Northern Coast as far as Crescent City (about 380 miles) then across into Orgeon and inland to Crater Lake. We came home down the middle of the

state via the Lava Beds and Burney falls. The highlights were:

      - the wonderful coastline where cliffs and trees seem to tumble into the sea. One minute we were driving along beaches with a big rolling surf, then we were 1500 ft high in the hills.

      - Fort Ross which is an old (early 1800s) fort built by the Russians on the coast from which they used to go Sea Otter hunting and grow crops to send to Alaska which they then owned.

      - The Redwood Forests especially the Avenue of the Giants. This is a 30 mile drive through 300 ft high Redwoods. Some of the forests were so dense that they reminded Helena of the rain forests in Uganda. We went for some hikes in this glorious country.

      - Crater Lake, this in the remains of a volcano. We were 7000 ft up looking down to the lake which was 1000 ft below us, the lake is six miles in diameter and the most fabulous shade of blue. It is mind blowing, we were standing on 15 ft of snow whilst we were enjoying this. They get 50 ft of snow per year and the winter lasts nine months so the park rangers told us!

      - climbing and caving in the lava tubes by the lave beds. These tubes were formed by lava as it made its way to the surface. We spent a good two hours caving which was great fun - Julia did stop after a while to leave Helena and I to carry on.

      - Burney Falls which are relatively small, just 170 ft but very lovely. We also saw two bald eagles nesting, I took some photos but you can barely make them out as the nest was a few hundred yards away across a lake, I wished that I had a really good telephoto lens, never mind.

      The only disappointment was that we could not get to Mount Shasta or to see the volcanic sulphur pools as the roads were still closed due to snow. We saw Mt. Shasta, it dominates the skyline for miles. It would be fun to climb, "only" 12500 ft, but I suspect that apart from in mid-July you would need all the proper snow climbing gear. It really was a great trip in a part of California that is not often visited by us "foreigner". it is far too good to leave to the Americans.

      Currently we have our niece Nicola staying with us for a few days. She was doing an exchange university year in Vancouver in the UK she was at Glasgow University. She is enroute for LA then Mexico to meet up with friends. It would be good to be young again - never mind, we are getting around a fair bit ourselves. We took Nicola to see some of the sights in San Francisco and around San Jose. I hope that she enjoys her trip, I suspect that she is glad of the break as she only finished her finals last week.

      We are all fit and well, Julia did have a kidney infection - the antibiotics seem to have knocked it on the head. Helena is doing well at school, she is costing us a fortune as she insists on growing so very

few of the clothes that she came over with fit her. Work is going well and I am enjoying it. We hope that if we don't see you at the wedding we do catch up with you when we are in the UK. We will be home from the 28th May (its a night flight on the 27th) until the 10th June.

      We hope that life is treating you as you deserve, all the best.

Mellish Christmas Letter 2018

I guess that it is time to put finger to keyboard and recount the 2018 family adventures. The best Christmas present of 2017 arrived four days after Christmas – Georgia Rose Reynard Mellish, a sister to Henry.

With Granny!

Proud parents, Lawrie and Emma

As some of you know from posts on Facebook and my Blog I was not suitable for an Alzheimer’s drug trial due to not having the propensity for developing excess Beta-Amyloid in the brain. The research company Re:cognition contacted me to ask if I would be willing to go for genetic testing. There is a link between the APOE4 gene and Alzheimer’s and they want to monitor people who have this gene to see if they develop Alzheimer’s. So I had a DNA and later got the results.
Basically we all have the APOE gene and there are three versions of this APOE2, APOE3 and APOE4 (I do not know what happened to APOE1!!). If you have a single copy of APOE4 the genetic risk of getting Alzheimer’s increases by 25%, if you have two copies it increases by 55%). Understand that with genetic risk factors it does not mean that you will get the disease and if your genetic risk is 0% you can still get it - it is just one of the factors that can cause it.
Anyway the result of my test shows that I have the APOE3 gene (not the APOE4) so that genetic risk is 0% in my case. It also means that my children cannot get the APOE4 gene from me - so they cannot have two copies of the gene as you can only get one copy (max) from each of your parents.
So that is good news, it doesn't mean that I cannot get Alzheimer’s but the chances are considerably reduced. I can of course get another form of dementia - but so far so good!

In March the family gathered together to celebrate the 40^th birthdays of Andrew and Gaew. They treated us to a great family meal and we all gathered for Sunday lunch at our place the following day

Back row Andrew and David
Lawrie
Hélèna, Emma and Sam holding Georgia
Julia, Henry, Gaew and GOM (Grumpy Old Man Barry)

.

Back stage visit to Twickers, a 70th birthday present to me
from Billie my God-Daughter

In May my 70^thbirthday celebrations continued with my “Supercar” driving day, the present from the children. It was great fun although getting out of the GT40 was not easy!

Early June saw us having Tea on the Thames – a 70^thbirthday present from friends of ours.

Later in June saw Julia and I jetting off to Bali – it was our 70^thbirthday present to ourselves. It was a long flight – about 17 hours in the air but a great place to visit. We had a fabulous time although the weather was playing up – rain despite it being the “dry season”.

Our own plunge pool

Dining in our private cocoon

Present from our first hotel

Stunning scenery

View from the breakfast table

Fabulous places to visit

Life could be tough

The next few months were somewhat dominated by a very painful varicose ulcer on Julia’s leg. She was in considerable pain which necessitated a morphine patch – the pain went but she then felt nauseous all the time. Sometimes you just cannot win! Thanks to the Tissue Viability Nurse the ulcer healed, but Julia is waiting to hear from the hospital as she needs laser surgery on her left leg. This somewhat restricted our trips to the lodge in Devon as Julia was unable to sit in a car for four hours plus.

In October Julia celebrated her “coming of an age”! The family all came down for a birthday lunch. Andrew and Gaew took us both out on the day of her birthday and late in October we spent a few days in Norfolk with her twin sister and husband. 

 

Henry helping to blow out the candle

Friends joined us after the family meal

Andrew and Gaew treated us to dinner on the great day itself

Almost inevitably there was the passing of some friends and relatives. Particularly poignant was the death of Angela, wife of my college friend Pat. They were due to come to England this year, they live in Australia, but sadly never made it. Angela was at college with Julia so we had been friends for fifty years. 

Alec, husband of my cousin Maureen sadly died in October. We could not attend his funeral as we were away on holiday. I am so glad that we were able to spend a couple of days with them both just before last Christmas. We shared a bottle of champagne and had a great time laughing and talking, a good way to remember a lovely man. 

We hope that you had a good 2018 without too many aches and pains. Wishing you all the best for 2019 along with good health, prosperity, and happiness

Happy Christmas

Love, Hugs and Prayers

Barry and Julia