I did it - honest! (a post with evidential value)

 

VIRTUAL KILTWALK, REAL KILT, REAL WALKING

Many thanks to all those who've donated to my Virtual Kiltwalk page (or those who are still thinking about it...), with the top up from the Hunter Foundation that's well over £400 raised for Advocard.  I did the promised walk today, but since it was a solo effort, unobserved, you might harbour some doubts as to whether I actually bothered to whether I actually bothered making the effort to justify your parting with your hard-earned!  So I thought I'd try to provide a bit of evidence, and show some of the highlights of the Water of Leith Walkway, should you ever feel tempted to trudge that way.

A 5 step guide to walking the Walkway :

1.  Get a 44 out to Balerno

2.  Do some stretches to make it look to passing onlookers like you know what you're doing

3.  Take obligatory selfie with signpost marking the start.

4.  Start walking 

5.  Keep on walking until you get to the end...

The startline signpost tells lies.  How else to explain this one over 20 minutes down the road?  Is this to deter the uncommitted walker?

The first few miles are devoid of recognisable landmarks.  Mostly woodland with the odd break for the back end of spam belt housing outposts.  So the first really photogenic point on the route is almost an hour down the road - the recently completed murals in the Colinton Tunnel.  

The work of local artist Chris Rutterford, aided by sundry schoolkids and the local community, is a multi coloured marvel of words and images and visual stories.  If you're in Edinburgh and you haven't been to see it yet - why not.  This is just a brief excerpt of what's filling the 140m of wallspace.

For the rest of the walk there are plenty of familiar points to show where I've been so I took a few more along the way.  Starting with The Water of Leith Visitor Centre at Slateford.  No time to stop today, but it's a handy loo and sustenance stop if you're going for more of a saunter than a hike.

Twenty minutes more and I'm on my way through Saughton Park.

Followed rapidly by one of the city's most iconic sporting venues...

And then on to a far less recognisable gladiatorial arena...

Featuring the new mini-Murrayfield where I hope I'll be watching Edinburgh Rugby do their thing in X weeks/months time - ?

A little further and frst of the Anthony Gormley men embedded in the river - I'll be giving the Stockbridge one a miss, but the other two pop up a bit later.

Then the most tiring bit of the day - there's a couple of climbs to get up to pass by the scenic prettiness of the Dean Village.

Almost at Stockbridge, so why not a quickie of St Bernard's Well?

I promised another couple of those Gormleys.  Here's the one near Powderhall.

And then on to the same at Bonnington

And that means I'm nearly there.  It didn't feel like it, but coming out on to the sight of The Shore certainly did.

And then I was there, at the Victoria Swing Bridge, a tragedy of it's former self these days.  But the view's still pretty good.

And that was that.  Three hours and seventeen minutes of boot plodding interspersed with fleeting moments of stop-snap-go to take the above pictures.  

Of course the naturally suspicious among you (Hello George - where's my banana?) might justifiably query if those timestamps really show I've done the groundwork.  Might he not have used a bike between stops?  Or even drifted from one checkpoint to another on four wheels?  I accept you suspicion and counter with a screenshot of my step count/pattern, and a map of my walk.  You'll just have accept that I'm not smart enough to fake those.  That sounds credible, doesn't it?

Finally...  If anyone reading would still like to donate then please click on this link.

Thanks again.

Walking for the 'new normal'?

 

ADVOCACY'S NEW NORMAL?

Next Sunday I'll be doing my virtual Kiltwalk, a solo effort at a bit of fundraising since, for obvious reasons, the fully organised version for the tartan masses isn't going to happen in this weird year that is 2020.  Once again my chosen charity is Advocard, for whom I've been a volunteer for five years.  I've written about Advocard before, so you can click on this link if you want a reminder of what the service provides.  

In my most recent post I touched on how the service has changed in the new circumstances we find ourselves in, and today I'm pondering if we haven't stumbled into an approach that might actually turn out to be an improvement - perhaps not for all cases but for a substantial part of the work we undertake.  

Whatever 2021 holds we can already see it's going to be very different from 2019.  The pandemic and resultant lockdown have seen new ways of working popping up, and people sometimes realising that these enforced changes have sometimes proved to be an improvement on what we had before.  Home working isn't for everyone, and carries plenty of risks from the effects of social isolation and consequent issues for mental health, but for some it turns out to be perfect.  And it can bring other benefits, like reducing the wasted time and pollution that daily commuting brings.  Lockdown was a reminder that taking serious steps to reduce global warming isn't always as hard as the naysayers would have us believe.  

And so it is in advocacy.  Pre-April I'd come into the office to read up about the person I was to see, spend up to an hour with the service user, occasionally going through to the back office if there was some question I needed answering.  Then I'd type up my notes, maybe write an email or letter if required.  That's if the person turned up.  It's in the nature of the people we work with that they won't always be organised enough to remember appointments, or their priorities change, or, or, or...  There were a lot of no-shows.  Not so bad for me who, only lives a 10 minute walk away, less so for volunteers who've spent an hour on the bus to be there!

We'd also go to appointments in people's houses, if they were unable to travel to us.  And then, for H&S reasons, we'd have to find 2 volunteers to go together.  Or we'd go out to accompany the person to an appointment, be it with doctor, psychiatrist, social worker, lawyer, benefits assessor, and so on - it's a long list.  And a lot of volunteer time used up.

But now?  While our professional workers still see people face to face when necessary, so far us volunteers have been coming into the office to undertake our advocacy over the phone.  I did wonder how well this would work out, but after a month I'm a convert.  It won't work for every case, but it's already proving successful in a high percentage of the contacts being made.

Instead of having to come in at random times to meet people when they were available, or to not meet them and have to go away again, I now do one afternoon a week, for (up to) three hours.  The office is quiet, just myself and the coordinator.  There might be something I've already been involved in to follow up on, but most of the past month has been spent helping to clear the backlog of people who we haven't had the resources to contact in recent months.  I get 3 or 4 people to choose from, we discuss who seems to be the highest priority, and after a bit of background reading I start phoning.  If someone isn't in I can leave a message and move on to the next.  Phone calls rarely go much beyond 30 minutes, albeit I've had nothing particularly complex to deal with so far.  If there's something I need to know then the professional is sitting in the same room so I can usually get an immediate answer, and there's less time wasted.  After the call I can immediately write up my notes, and move on to the next call.  I might get through 2, 3 or 4 people in the short time I'm there, something that would have meant 2, 3 or 4 trips to the office in the past.  Last week I ended up writing a letter of complaint about noisy neighbours, and another trying to get someone rehoused.  In each case on behalf of people stressed out by their inability to cope with recalcitrant officialdom.

It makes better use of our time.  The volunteer coordinator is far less stressed as he only has one volunteer in at a time, and isn't having to check that our visitors are supplied with tea and coffee!   Our timetables are easier to manage to for all concerned, and more people are getting the benefit of the service.  One downside is that I don't get to see any of the other volunteers, but it's interesting to here that at lest one of them feels the same about our improved productivity.

No, it isn't going to work for everyone.  Maybe we could try out some video calls too?  And there will be those whose mental state, or the complexity of their problems, mean a face to face is essential.  But if the past four weeks have been a good indicator then I find myself welcoming the 'new normal'.  And hope that if this is reflected more widely in society, people being a lot less resistant to change in future.  Not least in the recognising the possibilities that an independent Scotland will bring....

So next Sunday that's what I'm walking for, suitably bekilted, ready for whatever the weather may drop on me, and looking to complete the distance in less than 210 minutes, whatever my knees and feet might be telling me.  And if you'd feel generously inclined to sponsor me you can do so here.