We made it. We're still bickering about who sprouted the most grey hairs, but we came out the other side more or less intact.

The last time most of you heard from us, we were on the verge of moving ourselves and our worldly goods the three miles down the road from Knott End to Muncaster Chase. It wasn't exactly the most fun thing we've ever done in our lives, but on the other hand it probably had the edge over root canal surgery. Just.

I'll spare you the unpleasant details (dead-heating with carpet-layers, painters and telephone-installers) and merely say that we left Knott End on Friday, October the 31st and - thanks almost entirely to the heroic efforts of our volunteers and friends - we re-opened for business the following Wednesday, November the 5th. True, anyone who opened a cupboard door unwisely would have vanished under a pile of rubble, but it looked respectable to the casual observer.

Four months later, we're now completely settled (you can even open the cupboards in safety) and absolutely delighted with our new home. Gretchen and Sheila are fully operational again, Ben (the three-legged dog) thinks he owns the place and - best of all - within a fortnight of our arrival - the red squirrels appeared. The trail of nuts down the valley obviously worked…

Please note our new address and PARTICULARLY note that our telephone number has NOT changed - we took it with us when no-one was looking.

We're enclosing a copy of our updated Brochure showing the new location - but we're very easy to find. Head for Muncaster Castle (big red castellated place on the hill above Ravenglass - can't miss it). We're set back from the road on the sharp corner half-way between the main entrance to the Castle and the turn to the Church. Our old sandstone sign is in place at the entrance to the drive. If you overshoot, you can just turn around in the Castle's main car park or down by the Church and have another crack at it.
We're even reachable by public transport now - there's a bus-stop just down the road and Ravenglass station's a 15 minute walk (or three minute drive) away. Accommodation-wise, we're still within easy reach of all our old friends in the valley (in fact we're MORE accessible for most of them) and we've acquired a guesthouse and a B&B within walking distance in the shape of Muncaster Country Guest House and Muncaster Castle (which offers both B&B and self-catering by the day in the Coachman's Quarters).
So, all-in-all, for a move of necessity rather than desire, it's worked out extremely well.

One slightly unexpected side effect of the move is that due our improved accessibility, the demand for Gretchen's clinic days in both Senhouse and London has diminished because people prefer to come to the Centre if they can. We have, therefore, decided that:

• At The Senhouse Centre - starting from NOW, Gretchen will only see clients ONE day a month - the first Tuesday. If demand increases again, we'll reconsider, but at the moment it makes sense to condense two partially filled days into one fully-booked one. Appointments should be made via The Chase in the normal way.
  
  
• In London: Gretchen is withdrawing completely from London after May. She'll see clients on May the 18th and 20th, but after that won't be making the (increasingly fraught) journey down. For anyone in London wishing to continue treatment at St Marks, we can recommend Maurene O'Hagan. We have known Maurene for some time now (she originally came to Gretchen for treatment at Knott End), and asked her to write a short piece about herself. This is what she wrote:
  
  I was recovering from cancer when my car was broadsided in a road accident. Left with chronic pain, I found it subsided after a friend gave me healing touch treatments. I then discovered my own power to direct the energy by working with Dr. William Brugh Joy, author of Joy’s Way and Avalanche. I became a Healing Touch Practitioner through taking classes with Healing Touch International. I am a long time meditator and a qualified teacher of Christian Meditation. I currently live and work in North London doing psychotherapy, healing touch, and gambling counselling."
  
  Maurene can be contacted on: 0208-959-7654.

Publications: Since the last Newsletter, great strides have been made in publishing the results of the Research Project which is being undertaken at the Centre. The American Journal of Public Health published a paper on the musculo-skeletal results in January. Later this year, the European Journal of Oncology will publish a paper on the results with cancer patients, and the British Journal of Public Health is publishing an "all-clients" paper. Copies of all of the above papers are available on request from the Centre.

Volunteer Organizer: After her super-human efforts on our behalf before, during and after the Flower Festival AND our move last year, Liz Smith has left us to resume her teaching career. If I was feeling unduly sensitive, I might think that going all the way to Thailand to do it was a bit over the top… all she had to was call in sick. Nevertheless, we wish her all the luck in the world. I have no idea how we would have survived the last 6 months without her. It leaves us, however, without a Volunteer Organizer yet again. (I know, I know … they're probably trying to tell me something.) Until we can find a worthy successor (ie: someone who, inexplicably, wants to work unsocial hours for very little financial reward …), we're going to need all the volunteer help that we can find for our forthcoming fundraising events, so if you can lend a hand with the following, we'd be more than grateful:

Egremont Car Boot Sale, Market Hall, Egremont: Sunday, April 4th - 9.00am to midday. This is always a very successful event for us. The last twice we've done it we've made £300.00 in three hours - a pretty respectable return on investment. It is, however, quite labour intensive so if you can spare an hour or more we'd love to hear from you. We need people to:- help set up and take down; transport goods to and from Egremont; staff the stalls; serve the refreshments; take the money; sell the raffle and tombola tickets; make the sandwiches for the refreshments and - last but very far from least - bake for the cake stall/refreshments. If you can lend a hand in any capacity, please let me know on the enclosed form. You can also, of course, hire a table (£5.00) from us if you want to clear out the family heirlooms.

Quiz Night, The Bridge Inn, Santon Bridge: Thursday, April the 22nd - 7.30pm for 8.00pm. This event was postponed from September because it got all snarled up with our move. We've now agreed a new date with our (misleadingly) avuncular Quizmaster Anthony Payne and John and Lesley at The Bridge Inn (who are kindly donating the room for the evening). The last time we did this, it was huge fun (except for the riot at the end when our Volunteer Organizer and her team won) and we'd like to round up as many teams as possible to ensure a lively night. There's no limit to the number of people allowed per team, but remember that the more team members there are, the greater the probability of discussions over the answers degenerating into unseemliness. The entry fee is £2.00 per head, with half-time nibblies included. If you want to consume consciousness-altering beverages you'll have to buy them yourselves. An entry form is included on the enclosed sheet. We could do with a little volunteer help on the night, too. It's not very onerous - you mostly get to hang around looking smug and pretending you know all the answers …

Rotary Club of Whitehaven Castle - Sponsored Walk: The Rotarians of Whitehaven Castle have nominated us as their chosen charity this year and on the 15th and 16th of April 16 of them will be walking 25 miles of Hadrian's Wall westwards from Heddon-on-the-Wall. Rotarian Rod Willett and his wife Denise have been staunch friends of the Centre for more years than any of us care to remember and Rod (good lad) is donning his boots to yomp along with the rest of the troops. If you'd like to sponsor him, please complete the necessary bit on the enclosed form.

Here's a strange thing: Iceland (no - not the country - the grocery chain, you fools) rang us up out of the blue in February to say that they were doing a team-building exercise and they wanted to do it to/with us. Was there, they asked, anything we needed that 15 people could do in two days? "Well," we said, "we have this semi-wild garden …" - which is why we now have a wheelchair access (as yet unpaved) into the garden from the drive, a viewing platform overlooking the valley, a natty set of garden furniture, two spiffy animal feeding stations and a raised bed at the front entrance.

This leads me to a couple of "asks". Firstly, does anyone know where we can get a substantial number of flagstones without making a huge hole in our finances? The finished path is going to be 200ft long and 3ft feet wide and when I costed it, the final total made my eyes water. Everyone I've spoken to about flagstones has said they knew where there'd BEEN some, about a nanosecond-and-a-half before I rang, but they were all snapped up by an unnamed builder from an unidentified location who had now vanished from the face of the earth. So, if you can help, or know someone who can help or are the mysterious builder who is apparently sitting on the largest stockpile of flagstones in Cumbrian history … please get in touch with us. We'd like to talk to you.

Plus … we need volunteers to help tend our garden. Our gardener is wonderful and willing, but it's just not a one-man job. We're not turning it into a swanky formal showpiece or anything like that … (we don't think the squirrels would like it for one thing) … but we would like to bring it just a tad more under control. If you'd like to "adopt" a corner to call your own, grow some vegetables, create a herb garden … anything along those lines, please give us a ring. Your Centre needs YOU!

12.3.04/MKB

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