Sunday 22 July 2012

Hooked up with Brian and Laurie in Edinburgh

I thought I may have missed my opportunity to hook up with Brian and Laurie on their latest trip over here from the States. Brian is just so busy working flat out on his  knee design the Bartlett Tendon. For those of you who aren't aware of what a Bartlett Tendon is, it's a universal sporting prosthetic and it can enable an above knee amputee to get back into doing a whole range of sporting activities.

Checkout the below link for more info......
www.leftsideinc.com

I had been out to the coast for a spot of beach riding this morning and when I got home my bike was covered in sand, so I gave it a quick wash down before deciding to go for another blast out locally. When I returned home my dad informed me Brian had been on the phone saying he had some free time if I was able to make it up to Edinburgh, where he had been attending the Human Race Exhibition. The exhibition was a look at the history of sports medicine and Brian's sporting prosthetic design the Bartlett Tendon was featured. This is a huge achievement considering how long the knee has been in production...

City Art Centre and the venue for the Human Race Exhibition
 No probs I thought, Edinburgh is roughly about 112 miles away from us. Obviously my dad has heard so much about Brian from myself and  he was real excited about getting the chance to meet him, so he decided he would come along for the ride. Both Brian and his partner Laurie are huge animal lovers so when I write an email to them I will always keep them up to date on how my dog Mr Hinks is doing and ask about their dog Bear so I thought I may as well take Mr Hinks along so as he could say "Hello" too.

It was really great seeing Brian and Laurie again as it's been quite sometime. We all decided we would go for some pub grub and even took Mr Hinks, he was allowed inside the pub. The pub was named Lebowski's after the famous cult movie  "The Big Lebowski" starring Geoff Bridges.



 Mr Hinks was very well behaved and got lots of attention, not only from Brian and Laurie but also the staff and customers. One lady and gentleman even gave him some crisps they had left over and one of the bar staff brought him a nice cool bowl of water. He then proceeded to help Laurie clear her mixed platter which she had ordered.

Mr Hinks @ the pub
























Ern @ the Pub




























 It was fantastic listening to Brian talk about   his work as he is so passionate , he even drew a little sketch of his future plans for  some new prosthetic designs, this was very interesting, but we won't talk about that as I have been sworn to secrecy  lol.

After our meal we decided to take Mr Hinks for a quick walk and then head to another pub for a drink. We sat outside as it wasn't too bad an evening. Again the bar staff were brilliant offering a dish of water for Hinks and again he got more attention from passer by, one old fellow coming over to pet him and saying "hey isn't that like the dog from Oliver" in a lovely Scottish accent of course.

Sitting Outside the pub, thanks to the nice lad who used Brian's iPhone to capture this shot

 So all in all it's been a brilliant day I've now been up almost 23 hours straight and drove there and back from Edinburgh so now going to hit the sack.

Just like to say a huge thank you to both Brian and Laurie, it's what you do that makes you special...

Images courtesy of Brian  and his iPhone

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