Vol 1 No. 16 Dec 2011

Hello to one and all,

Well! It's difficult to know where to begin as it has been a great year of achievements but none to beat that of Joe himself. The award of Scottish GP of the year has been a delight and I think has left Joe almost speechless!! However he recovered in time to say a few words at the award night in Edinburgh both Cork and Kerry featured highly !!! Thank you Colin for the suit.

It's great to have all the boys home for Christmas and able to listen again to my lectures about alcohol and other issues which they pay enourmous heed too.

David is still in Montrose High School for a second year and fingers crossed he might get another year's contract. He is sharing a flat in Dundee with Brodie and Ross.

James has his 4th year exams in January so its nose to the grindstone now that he has recovered from his 21st. He has just one more year after this so hard work is on the horizon for him!

Ronan is in 2nd year in PE in Edinburgh and also has essays due after Christmas. He played against Strathclyde and James in shinty inter-varsity but their styles are different. They both missed the flight home to Ireland in October despite being in the airport where the Slattery family had gathered to celebrate my Dad's 80th birthday, my sister Teresa's 40th and James' and Keith 21st. Fortunately they arrived in time for most of the celebrations. They were also some other 40th and 50th celebrations among the in- laws also so Milltown was hoaching!!!

Ciaran will be off to University hopefully next September. He submitted his UCAS application form this year so will find out soon . He did well in his Highers and Geography and Earth Sciences are what he is aiming for. All the family had a great week skiing up Aonach Mor last weekend which is Ciaran's big passion.

Joseph is now much taller than me and also a lot faster than me! He sits his Standard grades this year so some hard work coming up for him also, along with all his basketball, rugby, athletics and gym.He is super fit and danced the night away at their High School Christmas dance last week.

Ciaran enjoyed the senior High School dance also and its great to see all the youngsters making the most of their High School years. Ciaran has been to series of concerts during the year including the Artic Monkeys in Aberdeen , Foster the People , Naked and Famous in Glasgow, Mumford and Sons here in Fort William. He is enjoying his basketball again this year.

Aoife certainly is enjoying school and she is now half way through her 2nd year. She takes part in the band, hockey, football and life in general. Never a dull moment with Aoife who has her dad's wit.

I too managed to get my degree and thank god is all I can say. It is an achievement I appreciate and better late than never!

I dont think I have anything more to add except to say a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

Liz

PS . Finding time to send Christmas cards just seems to get harder so please accept these wishes to one and all in New Zealand, America, Austrialia, Ireland, Scotland and the rest of the UK. Hope you are all well and enjoying life.

Wed 16 Nov 2011 was a special day in the Tangney calendar.

It was a beautiful autumnal day with cold sunshine.

Liz graduated from the University of the West of Scotland after
many years of distance learning toil . Countless hours of study, multiple modules,essays,assessments etc etc. All finally came together to enable Liz to achieve her goal and a BSc in Nursing Studies.
A truly great achievement given all the other commitments which Liz has which includes keeping our large family under strict control !!

The graduation ceremony was held in the Thomas Coats
Memorial Baptist church in Paisley and was full with hundreds
of smiling graduates. It was very enjoyable and a proud
moment for our Liz and family. Then off to the airport to
see her father Mattie for a few days , we will have our night
out to celebrate late when all the boys are home etc.

Also Liz qualified as a Emergency Nurse Practitioner
this year and able to use her skills in the local Belford A/e Dept.
So a year of great achievement for our ever youthful looking Liz !!

Sat 1st Oct 2011 and James was 21 years old …..it just seems like yesterday when he was born in Inverness at 09.40 which I foolishly thought was 9.20 and his mother soon corrected me with familiar scorn ....Liz remembers every contraction and James caused problems right from the start. A difficult labour and foetal distress but he arrived in style. How could I be so inconsiderate to forget such vital detail ..(20 whole minutes of hard labour) on our little darling James !! Only a tortured mother can remember such detail 21 years later .... Damm it's good to be a man !! James has had an eventful 21 years and packed in a mighty amount of mischief and bad behaviour . It may be hereditary and Liz blames his Tangney genes for all the backchat, misdemeanours, late nights, drunken behaviour, comatose mornings , frequent vomits, repeated mobile phone losses, peeing in the corner of the room, obsessive tidiness, fantastic dress sense and lack of girlfriends ......the list is endless ......

In order for James to feel loved and part of our family we decided to make an effort and travelled to Glasgow for a meal. We are all there except Ciaran who is at a stag party in Glenloy ….he didn't sleep a wink with all the bellowing !! We had a meal in an Indian restaurant and the “madras “brought me out in a big sweat to the kids delight !! We drove home through the horrendous fog.

James had " Subway Crawl" on Wed 5 Oct and a big crowd are gathered with a £10 charity shop outfit the order of the day . As you can see from the photograph below the charity shops must have been low in stock and glad to see the boys coming through the door to get rid of the crap stock !! It was a wild day and lucky nobody was arrested .....I will say no more and the facebooking afterwards was frenetic !! The less I know the better !!

Here is a selection of some of the students whom James paid in cash to attend his subcrawl party....there would be hundreds more but he ran out of cash !The two girls near the front with the funny faces have now had botox to keep their faces pretty as ...
Can you spot James ???

Sat 19 Feb Great excitement as tickets go on sale for the Mumford and Sons concert in Fort William. Every body wants to see this award winning group who unexpectedly tour the Highlands. So with the usual taxi ie dad Ciaran queues up at 8.15 am at the BA for tickets. A huge queue at 8am as tickets go on sale at 10am. Only two tickets per person .Ciaran gets lucky with ticket number 270 and 271 and only 300 available. He had a great night up at the front and really enjoyed the concert.

Aug and Ciaran gets his Higher results , he did very well with 2 A's 2 B's and 1 C . So after 6th year will hopefully go to university to study Geography ? Environmental Science ?Geology? We await UCAS.

Thurs 14 Sept. What a week of activity !!

The news broke on Thurs with a phone call from the Royal College of Practitioners and the media frenzy began….the Press and Journal, Oban Times and Lochaber News. Yes , I am sure you find it hard to believe that Joe has won a national award !! Mama Mia !! There must be an administrative error !! To be honest I was at first shocked and almost speechless , I emphasise the word “almost” as it takes more than that to make me actually speechless ..as you can well imagine !!
In the weeks that followed I was completely overwhelmed by personal congratulations from our patients,staff, GPcolleagues, family,countless cards, phone calls, Facebook, emails and even Twitter. My surgeries are still running later and later with all the chat!!
All the attention and spotlight is exhausting but I have to grin and bear it as it will soon wear off I hope !! The kids are enjoying all the glory and at school plenty of banter ….the less I know the better.

The award has brought great joy to so many people and Fort William celebrates.

We had the big night out Fri Nov 11th in Edinburgh. The Royal College of GPs Gala night was a black tie event and about 200 guests attended. All the college top brass and and lots of professors etc. It was in the Hub which is a converted old church near the castle. The event began at 6.30 with drinks and I was on last so had to sweat it out all evening until 10.30pm. I have never had as much water on a night out in my entire life !! I was close to water intoxication by 9pm and the room began to swirl at an ever increasing speed as the water went straight to my head !! Eventually after what seemed like a lifetime of waiting I was called up to the stage. Then a big trophy ...not as big as the Sam Maguire I regret to say but Sam is hard to match in fairness !! So photos then a brief thank you speech with subtitles in case the accent was not understood !! It went well and I managed to get a few laughs out of the crowd. Then a ceilidh to unwind and a few beers.

SAT 8 Jan 2011. Joseph is chosen to represent the North of Scotland U-15 in the Bupa great Edinburgh x Country run. Many top athletes from around the world were there and it was televised. The journey down to Edinburgh was difficult due to snow on the roads , dirty windscreen , multiple sunstrikes which were blinding and we had to stop several times.We arrived at 11am and it was absolutely freezing with a bone chilling wind ,poor Joseph staggered out of the car feeling sick , then the race began 30min later, he was pale and frozen and the race was a blistering pace.He did not have spikes either and it was snow everywhere, he finished second ….but at the wrong end.!!! We did not know what lay ahead of us when we stopped for chips in Callender at 8pm. Then 10 min later we were in blizzard conditions on a windy narrow road.

The visibility was about 10 feet and impossible to see the sides of the road due to the whiteout conditions. The hills on the road were difficult as we had to have some speed to get up the hill with the wheels spinning non stop .I thought we were all going to die as there are several steep drops on this road!! Then a skid on a bend into the crash barrier , double wham and we were lucky the car was still drivable.Then the engine cut out , all power gone , I thought we blew the engine , complete darkness but it came back on ....boy were we relieved.We crawled all the way to Crianlarich , a journey from hell …reached Glencoe and no snow !!
That journey is not to be repeated ever and I am not in the better of it yet !!

In July the Invergarry Highland Games Joseph wins mens 200m and Junior Hill race . Also 2nd in 400m,1500m, 100m. Joseph won £34 in prize money before tax!! Not a bad days work.

Sat 26 Nov Joseph runs in the North of Scotland U-17 Cross Country in Forres. Isla was second , Callum 3rd ,Joseph 7 th, Craig 10 th They won second overall team prize. A big achievement for the Lochaber team bringing home 5 medals. They are coached by Jim and Colin (photo on the left)