Take a Minute blog - Week 35, 19 July 2011

This is my last blog.  My children and I have been the lucky recipients of a fabulous opportunity over the past year and we are very grateful to NHS Brighton and Hove (the PCT) for choosing us.  As a direct result of winning the PCT’s competition, I have run a free badminton club for adults and met lots of new people. As a result of that successful group, we met Jamie, a personal trainer who donated his expertise for free over that ten week course.  I was able to find funding from Age UK Fit as a Fiddle this year to pay him to do the same in our eight week badminton course for older people.  I am much more active now and so are my children and several other people .

My children have been introduced to lots of new healthy vegetables such as beetroot that they would not have tried before. Having a juicer has made us experiment lots more and be creative and we no longer buy expensive drinks containing lots of sugar. Beetroot and apple is a real favourite whereas anything involving celery juice was a bit of a no no!  The boys are also experimenting more with food – whether I am becoming more daring, or they are developing their tastes or I am ok about them saying no I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a combination of all three.

If anyone had told me a year ago that not only would my children be swimming in a year’s time but that they would be swimming underwater with goggles and one of them would be doing butterfly down the entire length of the big pool, I would never have believed it.  The legacy of this competition is that both my children have learnt to swim – and learnt proper techniques that will stand them in good stead for the rest of their lives.

My thanks go to Liz at the PCT who has supported and encouraged me every step of the way.  All that remains is for me to say goodbye, and good health.