Running into the future

National Botanic Garden of Wales, May 2013

Looking back over the last couple of weeks, my diary is a desert; looking forward, it's a bit more interesting. I didn't have much to write about last time, and there's not much more this time, although I have been away on a two-day course intended to help me deliver the Structured Education for people with Type 1 Diabetes that we offer.

It was a good course, and I learned a few things, practised a few techniques, and gained confidence from the fact that I knew as much as anyone else about the subject. We were all Diabetes Specialist Dietitians and Nurses, as were the course facilitators. We all went out to dinner between the two days, and they managed to make it a learning experience by highlighting the difficulties of carbohydrate counting and insulin dosage and timing to those who'd never thought about it previously.

The team back home seem very easy-going about incorporating change into our course, and said before I went that they are looking forward to hearing about anything I think can improve our offering. I haven't yet observed our course so I don't know exactly what's in it and how things are done, but I'm looking forward to it now.

On the way I stopped off in London to surprise Lola II on her birthday, in collusion with Mr M. It is the first time that I have ever managed to avoid giving away a surprise; even Mr A managed not to spill the beans, so Lola II didn't suspect anything at all. When I tapped her on the shoulder she was so surprised that she said she couldn't quite understand what she was seeing - someone who looked a lot like me, but couldn't possibly be, because we were on the third floor of the Science Museum in London.

The Science Museum occasionally opens late in the evening with all sorts of activities - for adults rather than families on this occasion, and it was amazing to see throngs of people swarming around swigging from bottles of cider, taking part in a variety of science-related fun. The event that intrigued me the most was the advertised 'Silent Disco', where the music is conveyed via headphones. It wasn't quite as strange as I was expecting, because it was in a roped-off area in one of the main halls so there was quite a lot of ambient noise as well as the noise made by the dancers singing along. We didn't try it ourselves - there was a long queue for the headphones.

That's about it for past activities; I try to avoid relating what is in the future, in case it doesn't happen after all, and in case it isn't worth writing about. But this is my 50th year, and this milestone has prompted me to make more plans than usual for things I both have and haven't tried before.

Many of my contemporaries are obviously reaching the same milestone, and it is interesting to see what some of them are doing, from a parachute jump to a trip to New York to a tea party to a first ski trip in Lapland. On my actual birthday I will be at home, but Mr A and I should be going to Cambridge Folk Festival shortly afterwards. In the meantime, I am planning to work up to running 5 kilometres using a set of 'Couch to 5k' podcasts from the NHS Choices website. I have also booked a ski trip for the end of March, which is making me unfeasibly excited. It is a trip for lone travellers (Mr A is not coming) and intended to help intermediate level skiers improve, and I'm looking forward to it a great deal.