Leica Akademie, Lymphoma Association AGM and more

Well, it has been a couple of weeks, now...

Lots has happened, since 6th May.

Firstly, we appear to have a new dog. Well, she's not quite with us yet, as she was born on Good Friday and will be ready to join us when we get back from New England. We have named her Betsy and she's a Jack Russell. Here's a photo of her trying to steal some grub from her mum.. "Ahh..."

She is from a litter of three boys and three girls and looks like a proper little cutie. We have spoken with Pippa about her and she's fine ;-)

Rebecca has set off on her round-the-world trip and, as I write this, she is between China and Japan, having already ticked off the Great Wall and Xian terracotta warriors. She seems to be enjoying herself, on the one occasion when we have spoken with her, but we do get the odd email every other day, so that's OK!

I attended a very good day at the Leica Akademie last Wednesday. The man on the Vespa is the result of that outing. I have to say that Will Cheung was an excellent host and good fun to be with - a really nice guy. Thanks have to go to all at Leica UK for helping to make this happen.

Yesterday was the AGM of the Lymphoma Association. I went to last year's at Reading University; this time it was at Nottingham and as usual it was very informative. There are a lot of new treatments coming through - the GA101 "grandson of Rituximab" looks very interesting (one of the fellow members of the Manchester Support Group has had this treatment and her lymphoma has all but disappeared), as is some of the work that the Germans are doing with a drug called Bendamustine, yet another chemo-therapy based upon mustard gas. I have probably said this before, but what a debt we owe to our Great-Grandfathers... The Association are putting my name forward as a possible "patient member" attending a meeting of NICE in Manchester in August. They are discussing the use of Rituximab and the Association feel that I may have something to contribute. I have said that I am happy to help them in their work in any way, of course. The only way that we are going to get to a better place with this is if we all play a small part.

So, now we are in that "ground rush" period before going on holiday. Only one weekend left (Sunday we have to go and see the puppy again...), and an awful lot to do at work. Just need to keep an eye on that bloody Icelandic volcano...

Oh, and I bought some tickets to go and see Roger Waters "The Wall" this afternoon. Something to look forward to in that "post-holiday-blues" period :-)