Sailing the Seas

I have not blogged in quite some time, therefore as to not overload you with letters upon letters, words upon words, and paragraphs upon paragraphs, I'm going to write snippets of the events I would like to share with you until you're all up-to-date.

Going back to around Friday 15th May 2015 my mum invited me along to an event with Mindfulness Belfast held in the Crescent Art Centre, Belfast. It was a Zen and Poetry Workshop which was held by Paul Haller, a Belfast man who left in the early 1970s, and after some travelling in the East he engaged with and developed a Buddhist practice. I had never been to anything like this before, so it was a whole new experience. I was intrigued to find out more about it, as I like learning about different cultures. When I was eight years old my family and I travelled to Thailand to visit my Grandad who moved from England to live there. I remember visiting the temples located up in the green hills of Chiang Mai. It was a beautiful, peaceful place, with gold detailing on the buildings and statues of Buddhas too. My mum and I joined the workshop in the afternoon when special guest Naomi Shihab Nye who is an American poet lead the poetry workshop. Naomi shared some of her poems with us, and told us stories from her life too. Ever since I was old enough to read I loved poems, I had a large bright orange book full of poems for children with cartoon illustrations. I would read the poems over and over again, and I use to trace the illustrations too as I loved art.

I have finally finished my first year of college! I submitted my last assignment for my course last Friday, which is a BTEC Level 3 in Business Management. I was allowed extra time to complete all my assignments, but now I can finally say I've finished year one out of the two year course (hence why I've not blogged in a very longtime).

This summer is the first summer since 2011 that I will not be spending it in hospital! It feels so good that I will be finally having a hospital free summer (yay). Next week I will be sailing for the first time ever across the seven seas (well, not exactly the seven seas, but to Scotland, which I'm extremely excited about). I have treated myself to some new clothes (obviously they were necessary for the sailing trip). I bought myself some nautical themed pyjamas (very essential when going sailing of course); a nautical themed backpack (also very essential when going on a sailing trip), and a few other bits and pieces.


Danielle X