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Wasn’t it glorious the last two weekends? We thought that summer would never come in Scotland but we did get a feel for it at least for some days. We decided to take a family trip to Heads of Ayr Farm Park and I have to say I was very impressed with how well this is done. If you have a family, you are going to have a great time as you can feed the goats and the ponies and also see some more exotic animals. The children’s fun park is amazing too with lots of sand and bouncy toys.

What did you do last weekend when the sun was shining?

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The Glasgow Vet School Rodeo takes place once a year at the grounds of the Garscube Estate. It was on last Saturday this year. I had never been before and I did not know what to expect. I found that the choice of Hunter wellies was excellent as the ground was wet in places. There were different things to do and to see…a dog show, tends with traditional food and treats, horse riding, bouncy castles and even a bar for the thirsty crowd! What took us by complete surprise though was the complete fearlessness and confidence of our 2 year old on her horse. It was like she had been doing it all her life! Enjoy the photos and I hope you get inspired to attend next year!

What did you do last weekend?

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Such an exciting spring weekend! The sun was shining for the first time in months and the whole city of Glasgow was sparkling under its rays. It was so nice to be able to get dressed into lighter clothing, in terms of both colours and weight (!), and go out experiencing a feeling of happiness and content. It was also my first day wearing my birthday gift from my absolutely fabulous husband…a new bag printed with flowers and butterflies (the print was designed for princess Grace of Monaco and worn also by princess Diana). Only by Gucci :-) ).

First stop was at the Twisted Sister Hair Bar  for Colin’s haircut by his absolute favourite hairdresser, Courtney. Courtney and her sister Gaynor are both hairdressers and have always worked together. Colin has been following Courtney in every salon she has been (yes there have been a few of them). Finally, their dream has come true and they have opened this beautiful salon that you can see in my photos below. They are so super happy about it and it looks so cool, don’t you agree? There is also a beautician and a nail specialist and they sell my favourite nail polishes called Essie (woohoo!).

After Colin had his trim, we went to Merchant City (I love Merchant City in the sun) for coffee. We sat at the “Central Market” as I was completely taken with the interiors style and warm environment.

I took lots of photos while we were there and as you can see I really enjoyed the sunshine.

So, how was your weekend?

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The Scotchman

 Welcome to SeaWorld :-) We took our little girl over there to watch the fishes on Easter Sunday. It was a lovely day as you can see from the photos, despite the cold wind (brrrr!). Definitely recommended if you want something different and the café has the stunning view that the photo below shows.

Have you ever been to the SeaWorld?

View from the café

 

Inside the fish tank

 

Grrrr!

 

Flasher fish

 

Beauty of the sea world

 

Hello to you too!

 

A fashion show at the bottom of the sea!

Daddy

My father, Theofilos, was born in a tiny village of Corfu called Zygos (in English is the same as Libra). A very poor village full of traditional and nevertheless conservative habitants, my father was born to this lucky family where they could enjoy eating meat once a week (while others could never afford eat meat). A very good student and an athlete, he was sent at the age of 14 years to live in Corfu town alone and after a couple of years in Athens, so he could go to high school. At the same time he used to train to become a professional footballer. My grandparents were so poor that when my father went to Athens he had to work in the mornings at a patisserie and bakery and go to evening school after work. Despite that, he still managed to be one of the best students of his school and be accepted to University of Athens to study Philosophy and Archeology. He was inspired by his landowner’s daughter who managed to persuade him to give up sports for the shake of education! She was the first student to get into law studies in the whole of Greece, what an achievement!

When he got his first job, he was landed on the island of Paxos, a very small but beautiful island south of Corfu island. He absolutely HATED every minute of it! He felt isolated and lonely and could not wait to return to Corfu. One of his colleagues, working in Corfu town at the time, was dating a very smart and beautiful young doctor who had just been employed at Paxos. They decided to mutually ask for job exchange so my father could return to Corfu and his colleague to spend a romantic year or two with his love at Paxos island. When the application was accepted my father was so happy that he decided to send his colleague a box containing 500 packets of condoms as a thank you!

Gatespotting

 

This a new category I have decided to do for this post. My (very optimistic!) plan is to update it every Monday. It will include stories from my life and my family’s life as I was growing up. This is a way for me to keep these alive somewhere so they are not lost together with memory and life events. I want to share this with my family now, my friends, my readers and to summarize with you, you and you. I hope you enjoy it!

Love and bubbles,

Katerina xxx

Hello my friends!

Many of my colleagues have been asking how I managed to get registered with the British Dietetic Association and be a registered dietitian in the United Kingdom. So, this is a post that has been created with all of the overseas dietitians in mind who have questions on how to become a registered dietitian in the United Kingdom. I will share my personal story and following this, I will share some of the other ways you can become a registered dietitian. This is a long post, but if you are interested to do this I am sure you will find it being worth it of your time.

I moved to Athens from Corfu in 1998 to study and complete a BSc in Dietetics & Nutritional Science at Harokopio University. It is a four-year degree that includes a clinical placement in different hospitals during the last year of studying. During this time, I got motivated to become fluent in English and sit the exam of Proficiency in English Language by Cambridge University. Following my graduation in 2002, I came to Glasgow as a student to complete the MMedSci in Human Nutrition with specialisation in Clinical Nutrition at the University of Glasgow. I became very interested during that time in protein metabolism and the systemic inflammatory response and worked with my wonderful supervisors in a research project that focused in B vitamin assessment during the systemic inflammatory response in patients with critical illness. During that time I became friendly with the staff of the Intensive Care Unit medics, physios, dietitians, nurses, secretaries, cleaners, etc.

Finishing my masters degree, I returned to Corfu for 2 years where I practiced my profession as a freelance dietitian. I saw mostly weight management and cardiovascular patients, but also patients with dyslipaediamias, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and metabolic syndrome. At the end of these 2 years I received a scholarship (by my wonderful supervisors) to return to Glasgow and work on my PhD where I focused on micronutrient assessment in patients with critical illness. The lovely people I had met in the intensive care unit some years ago where still around and remembered my smiley face. The dietitian of the unit was very kind, indeed kind enough to invite me to the surgical ward rounds and the nutrition support meeting that took place on a weekly basis at the surgical wards of the hospital. The consultants of the wards also liked my friendly attitude and welcomed me to the ward rounds. And I was in heaven as I was so keen and enthusiastic to learn as much as I could about my profession in a new clinical environment.

The beginning was hard. I could hear people talk about complications, operations and management of patients and could not understand much. But what I did was for every word, every situation that I did not know about I would go away and find out about it. So slowly slowly I became more and more able to communicate with the team at a better level. And of course this became highly appreciated. At the same time, I was working hard to finish my PhD.

My personal situation changed also. I decided to stay in Glasgow permanently and that meant that I had to apply for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council (previously Health Professions Council) if I wanted to work as a dietitian. This is the first step. If you become registered with HCPC then you are allowed to practice as a dietitian in the UK and apply for jobs within the National Health System (NHS).  I created a portfolio with 1) all the information they asked in detail and 2) some more information that was not required like my degree of competency in english language, CV, achievements,letter of membership from the Hellenic Dietetic Assosiation, etc. I put everything in a folder with clear categories for the documentation they asked for an international registration and send it off with a £400 worth of cheque that it was required for applying for registration (I know, very pricey but if successful then it is absolutely worth it). My advice about this is first, make sure you include ALL the information the application for registration is asking for, second, get all the clinical experience you can by volunteering to be involved in every clinical situation (ward rounds, meetings, etc.) you are welcomed to (by politely asking the head dietitian if this is ok), and third, make sure you are a nice, honest person that people like to have around (this is not something you can actually make yourself do so just try your best!). From my experience, I believe that my clinical “experience” (called shadowing) despite informal it still counted for the success of my application.

So the response of my application arrived 10 days later and it was totally positive, meaning I became registered unconditionally (woohoo!). With the letter of registration, I received my registration number with the HCPC and I could register for a full membership with the British Dietetic Association. Applying for jobs in the National Health Systems brought a different complexity of issues. The jobs are advertised in bands (exactly….what is that?) and I had to understand at which level I should apply and which level was beyond my clinical experience. So to make things simple: Band 5 (basic) – no clinical experience, graduate dietitian. Band 5 specialist (specialist rotational) – at least 18 months of clinical experience, includes usually yearly posts in different specialisations. Band 6 specialist (specialist dietitian) – from what I remember at least 5 years of clinical experience in relevant posts, you become a specialist dietitian in a specific post. Band 7 – lead dietitian in specific specialisation (eg. lead surgical dietitian, lead cardiovascular dietitian, etc. or otherwise the manager leads of each specialisation team). I would say that most of the time people would be interested in the band 5 basic positions but that depends lots on your experience and the hospitals you apply for. I applied for at least 4 jobs (which rated from basic band 5 to band 6) before I got my first job (which was a band 5 specialist rotational) so it is about not giving up and making sure you tick all the boxes of this application also. Apart fro being competent, being a nice person that people would love to have in their team is absolutely crucial for your success. The process of getting a job if you are offered an interview after applying, is about people seeing who you are, what you can do for them and how you are going to fit in with the team. It is very different from the Greek system where it is how many years of experience you have and how many points you have gathered despite the fact that you may be a seriously unlikable person (for example!). So again, character is a massive asset although it will never save you if you are not up to scratch with your knowledge. It will give you the job though, if it is you against someone else with similar skills and experience! And bad character can actually destroy your chances of getting the job also even if you have the experience to support it (because who wants to work with a person who is not nice?).

Getting this job was not easy, and landing in a new working environment was hard in the beginning but I tried to adjust as fast as possible. There were two challenging areas because of the differences between a greek hospital and the NHS: 1) how to document your practice in a clinical setting and 2) differences between how dietitians work in the NHS compared to how greek dietitians have been trained to work with a patient. These are things you can only gain experience on and it is hard to explain outside the workplace.

The one thing that I would like to stress though is how welcomed I was in my job from all my colleagues and that there was never a hint by anyone that I may be different because I was Greek and not British. All my colleagues (and believe me I have now worked with many many people, from different disciplines also) have always embraced me as one of their own and this has been for me a great lesson of equality and diversity. I want to thank them all for being the people they are and for the life lessons they have given me.

I feel that working in the U.K. has made me  a better person only because of the wonderful people I have met and their beautiful characters. As a Greek Girl I wish us Greeks learn to be better people first for ourselves, then for our loved ones and lastly for the rest of the society we share.

Please feel free to ask me any clarifications you may need about the processes above. I will be very happy to help :-)

Final photo

The weather has been so mild this weekend! Milder even than summer usually is in Glasgow. A walk in the Botanic Gardens, before our usual coffee and ice cream at Nardini’s (see previous post here), was absolutely essential. The trees and flowers are so confused by the mild weather that are beginning to bud. So weird! I just hope that there will not be a future frost killing it all before its time :-(

You can see what a blogger has to do though to get a picture taken! And right now she is watching Puss in Boots (which by the way is fab!) so I can write this post! Oh the joys of motherhood…:-)

How has your weekend been?

Mummy wants to have her photo taken!

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My dearest friends…the time has come! We are officially in 2013! Woohoo! I feel so excited and I am not really sure why. I just feel so positive about the days coming ahead, I am full of excitement and I am dancing along to the songs on the radio. It is so great feeling content and grateful with everything you have, everything that life has offered you until now and also the relief that comes with the realisation that your choices brought you to the path you were dreaming of.

During the new year, I will be starting in a new job, enjoying a happy family, spending fun time with lots of dear friends and continue learning French with passion. I also want to start dancing more, take piano lessons and do some amateur drama. And I certainly do not have the time to do them. But life is about dreaming and having pure excitement about things like that. And I refuse to give up dreaming…as there is always time to do that! :-)

So Happy New Year everybody out there and remember to be true to yourselves!

Hello my friends! Nardini’s is one of my family’s favourite places for coffee, ice-cream and sweet treats in Glasgow. Situated on Byres Road, in West End, it carries the feeling of traditional presented in a modern way. My daughter absolutely loves it too and has croissants there every weekend with her daddy. The staff is so friendly that last weekend, although the shop was closed for refurbishment, they opened the doors so their little costumer could have her croissant as usual. She cannot wait to go back next weekend!

I also have to say that the ice-cream is absolutely devine with flavours that you would not be able to find anywhere else. They even do an Irn-Bru flavour as a tribute to their Scottish environment. I think my favourite is Honeycomb Explosion! You can check out the café here.

What is your favourite place for ice-cream and coffee in Glasgow?

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