Letters and Memories

Our process of sorting continued apace today: draws full of letters and documents to sift through and sort, including several boxes of letters that Judy and I had exchanged during the first two years of our knowing each other. Back then we had no email and we had no access to the Internet. Instead, for two years our main form of communication was by hand- written letter.


They evoke such a different pattern of memories compared with the bright computerised documents we deal with now... the formation of letters and words in turn encapsulating the feelings and spirit of the time at which they were written.


My first letter to Judy was sent from the small post office on the island of Colonsay on Friday June 11th 1998... the postmistress had shaken her head when I said it was to be sent to America and then carefully weighed it out on a small old fashioned set of scales that had seen much better days. 






And I can remember the moment as if were yesterday... a bright spirited collie had followed be down to the post office and then followed me back to the hotel.

Nicholas

Tonight was the last of the events celebrating NIcholas' retirement and the transition for the Oxshott Medical Practice...it was a wonderful dinner party hosted by the women physicians who work at the surgery.


These three doctors, Richard Draper, Nicholas and Jackie Pickin were in partnership for 25 years, the longest GP partnership in Surrey's history...




I thought this post would be about this, about how proud I am of Nicholas' medical career, his clinical excellence, his capacity to listen to patients with grace and sensitivity, his unending patience in getting to the core of someone's anxiety or fear...and, in part it is...but more than that, it is about this.


Nicholas began his journey to be a doctor 37 years ago and at that moment in his life, he was deeply conflicted about whether to pursue medicine or to explore the less obvious, perhaps more precarious world, of artistic expression and creativity.


He is on a new path now, his life is opening before him and he is embracing it with joy....moving to the light and a deeply authentic expression of his talents on this earth.

Judy