Sorry to hear that Dougie has passed away and I would just like to take this opportunity to offer my condolences to his family and friends who may be reading this at such a difficult time. I had absolutely no idea about what was happening with Dougie until I went to give my own daily post in Saturday's current conditions thread over on the main weather forum and discovered that Gavin D. (it can be easy to forgot that there is more than one member called Gavin, so I wouldn't want to get Gavin D. mixed up in any way with Gavin P. who does all of those wonderful videos on YouTube and who has also been a major contributor on this thread) upon starting that thread, had named it in Dougie's honour.
It's not very often that I post anything outside of the main weather forum and until now, the only thread within this particular forum which I had posted in was the recent thread about the Windows 10 Creators Update. It is also only been fairly recently that I have been posting on the current conditions thread on a regular basis, and I general haven't really paid much attention to who has actually started those thread. Generally, I will look for a particular thread and if I have something to report in one of the regular threads before that thread has even been started, I will then start that thread myself as I have done with the last two Precipitation Watch threads.
However, I also look to see if that thread is already there or not before doing so but because I haven't been paying enough attention to who was starting these threads, I wasn't aware of the role which Dougie had when it came to the current conditions threads. Now that I know about what has been happening, I have been spending the last day or so catching up with this thread. In amongst what I have read, I can see the struggles which Dougie went through during the latter part of his life. Dougie seemed to have a lot of determination to get through even the most difficult situations in life in as positive a manner as possible and when he was giving his own accounts on this thread about what was happening, I just wish that I had known about this thread and been able to lend my own support, as I'm sure that he would have greatly appreciated that.
I have taking heed of the idea to continue to name the current conditions thread in his honour from now on, and I believe that this is a very good idea. I think that it a very sad thing that for every single one of us here on Earth, there will come a time when our time will be up on this planet and sadly those who believe in God (yes, I'm aware that not everyone believes in God) will know that God is the only one who ultimately has the power to decide when our time is up here on planet Earth.
Clearly, God has decided that this was Dougie's time to go. However, the fact that he put up such a brave fight should be a great inspiration for all of us who are left behind on this planet. We may not necessarily have experienced the struggles which Dougie has been through, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we won't do so later on down the line. These struggles will always be different for each individual so if it isn't cancer, it may well be something else such as another terminal but even with that, I am hopeful that if I come to face my own such struggles in later life a number of years down the line, I will have learned enough from threads such as this one to ensure that I can then, also face those battles in a similar manner.
What this teaches us is that our health is precious. This means that even though I may be in good health just now, that is not something that I can take for granted. It is important to we do our best to maintain that good health so that we can live as good a quality of life in the meantime which in turn, helps to ensure that those really bad times such as what Dougie has experienced can at least be minimised and delayed for as long as possible. That is something which I am learning the hard way because in terms of my weight, I actually have the opposite problem where I have been too lazy and taking in too many calories which means that I need to get off my big fat ass and actually try to lose some weight because if I don't I could easily find that my own end isn't actually that way into the future.
On that note, you may well notice that if you have ever watched any of Gavin P.'s videos, you will see that on his Windows 10 Desktop at the bottom of that screen, he actually has the Fitbit app installed on his system and the reason I know that is because I have also used a Fitbit device in the past to monitor my own step counts as part of my own overall health regime. This shows that Gavin P. is someone who takes his own health very seriously and hopefully, I can also learn from that.
Anyway, this thread is all about the late Dougie Eadie and I hope that he will now have found his inner peace in God's Kingdom.
R.I.P Dougie
The north of Edinburgh, usually always missing out on snow events which occur not just within the rest of Scotland or the UK, but also within the rest of Edinburgh.