Although I was supposed to be in Dundee on annual leave today, I thought it would be appropriate to travel north in Inverness for the day to capture some scenes at Birchwood Highland’s Annual garden party. The event takes place every year and allows staff and residents from all areas of the Birchwood community to come together. Held at the Recovery centre in Inverness city centre, service users from Invergordon and Lochaber travel to the site to join each other for a day of t

This morning I headed up by car to Embo, which is around 60 minutes’ drive north of Inverness. Here I was visiting a few of the service users from the Inverness area who were holidaying in caravans on the coast. I met the residents and filmed their day out trip to Dornoch and Dunrobbin castle, It showed they really enjoyed getting out of the city and away for a short break to feel refreshed and relaxed

Today the plan was to film a session of the regular in house training Birchwood Highland puts on offer to its support workers. Although when I arrived at Inshes Church I was told not to film because the speaker felt uncomfortable with the idea, a little frustrating as I was then stuck at the training, it would have been a good idea If I could have informed the speaker prior to arriving. Nether the less I took part in the training and found it to be ever engaging and interesti

This afternoon I went back to Invergordon to take film a collection of service users join a community theatre/singing production. The activity forms part of the art club in which some of the residents join others from across the wider Easter Ross area to get together to produce different dramatic and expressive art, dance and film projects. It was a lot of fun to see everyone involved in such an event; I can really see some of the service users benefiting from such a friendly

I travelled down to For William on the bus this morning to visit the Lochaber team. Today they were taking their home grown plants, flowers and vegetables, along with some home baking and gifts down to the town centre for a table top sale. I went along to speak again with the service users and support workers and film their annual sale. The stall was very busy throughout the late morning and early afternoon with lots of the produce being picked up. It was great to see somethi

This afternoon I got the train through to Invergordon again, although this time I travelled alone. Along with one of the support workers, I was there to film one of the weekly activities the centre tries to organise. Although I was supposed to film an activity called the forestry work, which normally entails service users carrying out gardening and local landscaping. It had been called off. In the hope of not letting the service users down, the centre organized a walk in the

This afternoon I travelled back to the Inverness based recovery centre to Interview Annabel Mowat, Annabel is the deputy Chief Executive and heads up the Recovery centre itself. In this interview I wanted to highlight her authority and so framed the interview to look more clinical then that of the service and support users and workers. I wanted the interview to be in her office with strong lighting. I’m really pleased with the way the interview looks and Annabel was able to a

Yesterday I went along to visit a service user who is part of the Inverness support. The individual was very pleased to let me into his own home along with one of the Inverness Support workers to talk about his time with Birchwood. After offering me a cup of tea and a biscuit, I set up the camera, lighting and audio equipment and then began a very informal chat about some the support the individual had been provided with over the years and discussed life in his own residency

This morning I went back to the Inverness recovery centre where I filmed this week’s breakfast club. The idea is similar to the lunch club in the sense that everyone is given a task, be it to get the shopping, to prepare the food or to clean the dishes at the end and come together and enjoy a different home cooked breakfast every week. Today it was a summer berry crumble. The emphasis is clearly on healthy eating and to build a stronger inward community. In the afternoon Inte

Today I spent the day in the Inverness Recovery centre. In the morning I went along to meet a few more of the residents and support workers. I then went about filming the preparation of the get together BBQ Lunch this concept is the idea of all the residents coming together to buy, prepare, cook and enjoy different lunches together to bond and build a sense of community every week. I filmed some of the residents preparing kebabs for the BBQ and then filmed everyone enjoying t