Sometime in the coming week it will be exactly a decade since I moved into the manse after almost five months in temporary accommodation.  Unusually, I don't have a record of the exact day, but I have a vague sense that it was probably 22nd or 23rd, so today's 'near enough for colliery work' as the saying used to go.

I recently discovered that some of my neighbours are leaving to move to the south coast, and that I am now about the fourth longest served resident in this close.  That in itself is quite strange and quite sobering.

So much has happened in those ten years, so many people have come through my door, slept in my spare room, eaten at my kitchen table, watched my TV and much, much more.  I recently reflected that sometimes I am quite amazed that my house guests seem so very much at home when they stay here - and that's a good thing.

Last weekend I had a missionary stay one night and a placement student and her family the next... it is, as the missionary said, 'a busy manse'.

I love my home very much.  I still delight in the views across the city and in the 'magic' hills that appear or disappear according to the weather.  I love that peeople feel relaxed when they come here and I love that when I have the place to myself it is cosy and secure. I love that the kitties are able to wander safely amost anywhere, and that my neighbours can't count to 'one cat' any better than I can!

Ten years on, I can look back with much happiness and contentment, that we chose a good manse, and that it has been - and continues to be - a well-used manse.

Today was my annual check up at the breast clinic.  Always a slightly anxious time - it doesn't matter what common sense tells you, there is always the faint possibility that something will be wrong, and I have a feeling that anxiety is catching... I walk in fine and am nervous by the time my name is called!

Anyway, good news, I am now nine years a NED and have only one more year of follow up to go.  Cue happy dance!

Back in 2011, when I had my surgery, the standard follow up for this part of Scotland was a decade.  Things have changed a lot, and now it is only high risk patients who are offered long term follow-up.  Many, maybe most, of the people I know who were diagnosed after me have been discharged - their risk is lower than mine.  I sometimes get told off for being 'fatalistic' or 'negative' but the reality is I have beaten and continue to beat, the odds for my starting point; even using the latest data, I am in a shrinking minority.  I am truly grateful to be here, and to be well - but I cannot ever forget the lower risk women who are no longer here.

Annual post check-up nag, then... do the screening, do the self-examinations, report lumps, bumps, bleeding, dodgy moles, persistent coughs, unexpected weight loss and so on.  Cancer treatment isn't fun - but it's better than the alternative.

Still NEDdy after all these years!!

Yesterday, after years of wishing to, I finally took the Glasgow Central Tour and it was really brilliant - the best £13 I have spent in many a long day.  I certainly gave me lots to consider - social history, industrial archeology, hiddenness, revelation and muchmore.

This post is really a bit of an advert - if you are in Glasgow, have legs that can walk for an hour or so (alas it's unsuitable for anyone who isn't mobile) it's well worth it.

Also good when the only person able to recite the motto 'nemo me impune lacessit' in Scots is me!!

As part of my last major declutter, I discarded my 'banner making' books, thinking I no longer had use of them.

Recently, I regtretted that, thinking they had ideas I might wish to adapt for current use.

For various reasons, the boxes of books from the last cull have sat undistrubed in my kitchen for a few months - and yesterday I realised that there was a chance the books were still there - and in the very first box, there they were.

Well, it made me smile and express a little 'hmmm'

Yesterday I walked to Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, a place that is familiar and is full of 'go to' exhibits.

Deliberately, I set out to see the museum afresh, accepting a floor plan from the steward, then, after a quick lunch from the coffee shop off the main hall, I enjoyed an organ recital, lots of familiar tunes that linked to other times, places and people.  Then, having consulted the floor plan, I chose a couple of rooms to visit before wandering around some of my favourites, such as the statue 'Motherless' (above, seen from the rear).

This depiction of grief is poignant and beautiful, but coming at it from behind offered new things to ponder.  I love the attention to detail in the fringe of the blanket, in the battens in the back of the chair.  It also made me think how often, in life, we don't encounter things neatly and face-on, rather we find ourselves coming at them from an angle, having to wait to discover what is actually there.  From the rear, this could easily be mistaken for a man reading a book, or even dozing; it's only as you draw closer and move alongside or around it that full revelation becomes possible.

It also struck me how easily we - or I at least - can settle into such familiar patterns of looking that we/I no longer see beyond what we/I expect.  Deliberately approaching from a new angle, and trying to set aside pre-existing ideas, can be really valuable.

I discovered something new to me in the art gallery - of which more another time - for now though, I will try to remain alert to the way I encounter and view things, especially those I think I know well.