Dave's Progress. Chapter 93: It's a New Dawn, It's a New Day, It's a New-Look Blog.

So, I got a little tired of the look of my blog. It was, after all, very basic and when I looked on other blogs I couldn't help but envy their little gadgets and pictures and twisty-turny moving things. OK, so I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to computers, but I think you might agree that this is something of an improvement on the look of my last blog. I have added a few gadgets together with a new template which has a suitably psychotropic-looking background. I suppose I like the warm colours of this particular template, and being an expert (sort of, in fact, not at all) on the psychology of colour, I know that yellow is an "emotional" colour, inspiring feelings of warm fuzziness, as opposed to say, green or blue, which are supposed to invoke calm, but in my view seem a little cold.
Speaking of computers, though, I must add that on Monday evening the Pathways Group had a night out to a pub in Stoke where there was something called a "social media surgery" held. The group has bought a PC with money from the Bennett Centre's benevolent fund and we wanted to start up our own web-site, hence the trip to the social media surgery to try to find out how to do this. Luckily, while there, we met up with a girl named Claire, who was very non-Luddite like in her handling of computers. In fact, she showed us a web-site which, much like "blogger", allows you to build up your own web-site using a template and inserting links, posts, pictures, etc. So, the Pathways Group is now on the way to starting up its own web-site.
I have to say that I am really enjoying our little group at the moment. It is beginning to evolve in ways that we wouldn't have thought possible and, being user-led, is something of a step forward in the way mental health services practice. However, I have to thank all of the "facilitators" in the group for always giving us a hand in making our ideas for the group a reality. Indeed, our new web-site, when it is up and running, will hopefully convey all the positivity, friendship and camaraderie there is in the group and give out a message of hope to others- that despite long-term or severe mental ill health, and even with the most damaging diagnoses which have the worst prognoses, recovery is possible and things can be achieved. No longer does schizophrenia necessarily mean an inevitable demise into worsening ill health, but a possible, even if slow and sometimes faltering, recovery.
So, it's not just a new-look blog, but a new dawn, a new day and a new life for many of us.
That's all for now from your normal, average delusional and paranoid man.
P.S. This is just a quick "hello" to Cath, who is a long-time member of the Pathways Group and may be logging on soon to this blog for the very first time using our computer. Best Wishes, duck, and may you have many happy hours surfing the net!