July update

Sorry, again, for not keeping up with the updates, especially about the surgery. Things have been mending, slowly. I am now able to eat pretty much the same things as before the surgery and have a bit more mobility. The joint is still a bit stiff but definitely feels better than it was. I saw the specialist again yesterday for a 3 month post-surgery follow-up appointment. Next appointment is in 6 months' time, i.e. early January 2016. He is happy with the progress.

Other things in progress have been my travel plans for the latter half of this year. I haven't had any trips since the synchrotron trip in April, which is rather unusual but has been very helpful in terms of allowing me to get into a routine for training to run a marathon. It's the same one that Raewyn and I have walked the last three years, in Brisbane, raising money for Gospel for Asia's 'Bridge of Hope' programme. At the start of the year I wasn't too sure if I was going to be able to do it, and now, 4 weeks out, I'm still not sure but have so far managed to keep up with my training plan pretty well. There have been a series of various aches and pains - knee, mostly - but I found an encouraging article that reassured me this was fairly normal. I just have to be careful not to overdo it. So far I have built up to a 28 km run; next weekend I will aim to run 32 km as the longest training run I will do, then taper off ready for the big day. If you'd like to make a pledge to sponsor me in this - maybe a certain amount per km - please let me know!

So the marathon is the first trip coming up; from Brisbane I go to Melbourne for three back-to-back synchrotron experiments. Then I come home for a week, and head to Berkeley (California) for more experiments. After that, I'm home for a week and then head to Europe for two conferences (in Madrid and Berlin) and to visit colleagues in London.

After the Europe trip I am home for two weeks before embarking on what is likely to be the trip of a lifetime. Last year, Raewyn and I raised $8000 between us for the Bridge of Hope marathon walk, and have been given the opportunity to visit a Bridge of Hope centre and other Gospel for Asia projects. Initially this was to be in Nepal, so we looked into options for doing a trek in the Himalayas while we were there. In between signing up for a trek and booking our flights, and finalising our travel insurance, the big earthquake in Nepal hit. So that put our plans in limbo. We have just had word from the trekking company a couple of weeks ago that they have had people on the ground checking all the trails, and all their treks in the next season will be going ahead. However, we've also heard from GFA that the Nepal ministry can't host us, so we have accepted their offer to be hosted in India instead. The entire trip will be just under 4 weeks. Unfortunately we will miss out on our church retreat this year, but our schedules are quite limited. We have to try and go for some weekend tramps in the snow over winter to prepare for the conditions in Nepal - I'm not sure when we're going to fit that in, but will be praying for fine weather.

That's probably enough for now. I really need to update this more often!