Hello I’m Faith, I’m 34 and this is my first blog, so this is as new to me as you are to this page!
You can find out more about me and what this blog will be about in the ‘About Me’ section, so please feel free to have a nose there.
So now where do I begin……
So many lovely things have happened recently that I guess I could start with this time last week at the Edinburgh Body & Soul Event?
For those of you that don’t know, I was lucky enough to be an exhibitor at this event, where I was offering taster sessions of Food Intolerance Testing and Vitamin & Mineral Deficiency Testing. I was excited but a little nervous about this event, as I’ve been to many such events but never actually exhibited at one.
I didn’t realise (until a couple of weeks before) that one of my favourite authors would be doing a talk and a workshop at this event, so initially I was a little disappointed I wouldn’t get to take part in this. However, I did get to talk to him over the course of the weekend and he signed a book and CD for me. 
For those of you that have never heard of Dr David Hamilton, he’s written several books now (and has a couple of CD’s), mostly about the power of the mind and the body-mind connection.
I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone I considered famous, and certainly not someone whose books I feel were instrumental in my recovery from ME/CFS, so I did feel a little intimidated speaking to him, but what a nice chap he was! Anyway this was the icing on the cake of a great weekend for me as I got to do back-to-back testing the whole two days, hopefully helping the 25 people I tested address some of their food sensitivities (there’s only so much you can do in a 15 min slot as the full test usually takes 1 to 2 hours).
I do this by using a machine called a Vega Test Expert.
The machine creates a circuit with the client in it. I do a few pre tests to establish a good circuit reading with nothing in it and then I begin adding foods, drinks, pollens, chemicals and other outside influences into the circuit and see how it reacts. The machine also tests for vitamin, mineral, enzyme and hormone deficiencies and imbalances in the same way.
So, one of the other great things to happen this week is that on Thursday night we had out second ‘Let’s Make This World A Better Place’ official meet-up. A small group of us had a lovely veggie / vegan feast at Kalpna Vegetarian restaurant in Edinburgh. 
The food was so lovely and the company great and we nattered about lots of things, from palm oil to plans for the ‘Let’s’ group . I came away with lots of ideas and have already planned and booked in another meetup in July now called ‘A Plastic Free Picnic’ to raise awareness of our use and disposal of plastic for ‘Plastic Free July’. Watch this space for more Meetups over the Edinburgh festival and, of course, the beach clean-up I’m arranging for August.
Talking of beach clean-ups, that’s my last great bit of news for this week. I applied for the ‘Let’s’ group to adopt a local beach and I heard yesterday we’ve been accepted and our beach is Portobello West, Edinburgh. This is great news, as it means, as a community we get to do our bit to combat the huge amount of waste that’s washed up on UK beaches each year; we get to work with ‘Keep Scotland Tidy’ (who have provided us with tabards and advice), the Marine Conservation Society (who are supplying their knowledge, insurance, guidance and who we are giving feedback and information to for their research on what we pick up on the day) and lastly the local Council (who will be supplying litter pickers and removing the waste afterwards for us). I can’t wait to finish organising this and I hope to get as many people as possible involved, not just group members, but anyone willing to help out. This will become a bi-annual event (if not more) and will hopefully help to save wildlife, raise awareness and encourage people to recycle what they can, when they can.
So that’s me for now, hope you’ve enjoyed my first post and I’ve given you something to think about =0)
Living a life less toxic... 