The somewhat odd life of a folk musician

The single life

2012-02-03T09:21:00.000-08:00

I don't think I've ever been single before. Does that sound mad? Well, let me explain ... I married my first boyfriend. From 16, I only ever had one man in my life. So from leaving home, I went straight to living with him (well, his parents actually); I've never lived on my own.

And until now, I'd never been single.

A heron at Fowlmere

So, what has being single brought me? Well, the usual things I guess. A lot more bed space for one, and the freedom to choose my meals, go birdwatching for a whole afternoon, and decide when I go out and when I stay in. I am still not living alone though, I have my beautiful daughter with me, and my son too when he's home from University. But neither of them need me around to feed and sort themselves out, so it's still the single life, even when they are around.

OK, the above are the advantages. What are the disadvantages? Well, no one to discuss important matters with for one. I mean - should I have painted that fourth wall cream instead of green? And no shoulder to cry on that you can then fall into bed with afterwards. Plenty of shoulders, plenty of hugs available, but I'm a little picky about who I flop into bed with.

Is that a disadvantage? Well, I've not been single that long, so right now, no. At the moment I am learning what it's like to have quite a lot of my own company. I did 'enjoy' that status for a while when I wasn't separated, but even so, this is different.

The main difference for me is I am out of the horrendous debt we were in. That was not nice. I don't own a house any more, but I do not lie awake at night worrying and fretting and getting depressed about financial issues. Oh no, plenty of other things to do that about now.

But, it doesn't matter. I actually feel more like myself than I have in a long time. And one thing I have started doing is so small, yet very important to me. I am now a Kiva donor. No, I'm not leaving some minuscule portion of my anatomy to medical research, I am supporting worthy causes throughout the world by making micro-loans. I've loaned a whole $75 so far!

Try it. It doesn't cost a lot, but it makes a huge difference. And if you want, you get your money back too.

Some nights I come home and I think 'oh, what shall I do now?' and I, like AA Milne's old sailor, have so many things that I want to do, I don't know where to begin. Other nights I set to with a determination of purpose - like painting the walls (three green, one cream), or ironing. Yeah, can't get away from ironing.

There's more to this single life, but I'll save some of my anecdotes for another post. Sloe gin and public houses, folk music and moving house. It's amazing how you can socialise...

Best and worst Christmas presents

2012-01-27T00:33:00.000-08:00

The worst was a bug I picked up from somewhere. I'm sure it wasn't mean to be a present, but from about 27th December onwards I was ill - coughing, spluttering, wheezing and eventually so ill I couldn't work. Mind you - if I had rested instead of having to move house and add the wonderful ingredient 'dust' to my poor belaboured lungs, I might not have been ill for quite so long.

It's a month and I'm still not well. But worse things happen at sea, so I was always told when I was a child.

Christmas seems like such a long time ago now! We've cleared away all the decorations, even the sales (which are seemingly interminable) are coming to an end. The credit card bills have arrived, we made it past Blue Monday and now...

Well yes, what now? I moved house, and now live in a lovely place with a great neighbourhood. OK parking is a nightmare, but it could be worse. I only have a shower and no bath (which has drastically reduced my reading hours) and there's quite a bit to do, but it's a new year, a new start. Now I'm better, I should be able to get on and do a few more things. Tonight I am planning to change a tap washer.

And this is where my favourite Christmas present comes in! I have wanted one of these for years, and it is practical and sensible! I have been up ladders and dropped drills, put down a screwdriver and not been able to find it again whilst balancing bits of self-construct furniture... these days are gone! I now have my very own...

I am empowered! I don't lose the screws (though some of mine may be loose), and now I also have a brand new cordless drill, I am intending to have some very productive weekends.

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy, but a tool-belt did.

The music weaver

2011-12-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

Imagine in three dimensions, with texture and pulse

I often visualise sounds as shapes. I'm not sure I can explain it in words, but a certain tone of voice, or the sound of an instrument, will give me a sense of shape - like a flowing, fluid metal in a particular width and form. It's not sinesthesia (though I do sometimes dream where my perceptions confuse in this way, which is most peculiar), but more a way of feeling how the sound connects with me. Perhaps even with my very molecules.

Last night I went with friends to the chilly Fitzwilliam Museum. On a December evening, with the threat promised of snow hidden by the cold rain, we joined perhaps a hundred others in Gallery 3. Up the magnificent staircase, with the beautiful dome above us, the sumptuous surroundings were chill.

Once seated and settled, the crowd (mostly senior, but with an eclectic mix that is so typical of Cambridge), we applauded as the Granta Chorale entered and took their places, ready to regale us with Christmas music. Gaudete, with a smart percussion accompaniment from the conductress, lifted the room with its strident time signature and tight harmonies. A nice start to the evening.

Her hands now free of her small tambourine tabor, the conductress orchestrated the singers as they offered renditions of Christmas music new and old, English, European and American. She took the music as it spun from the singers and - her hands dancing and manipulating the sounds in the air - she wove it's complex patterns and then released it to us, moulded and melded.

If you can imagine someone teasing clouds with their fingers, taking those insubstantial wisps of sound and weaving them into complex and beautiful patterns, then you can perhaps imagine how it seemed to me. The singers provided the thread, and she took each colourful note and created the skein that we wrapped about our senses. Oh yes, one or two cords snagged, but on the whole we were draped in a beautiful blanket of sound.

I looked up to the angels above us - perhaps enjoying their names being sung in praise within their frigid home up in the rooftop. Cold marble, dusty and dry, eyes unseeing and unseeable. Around us the portraits seemed to smile, attentively, joining us as audience for the evening. Even the horseman in his bold red coat seemed to pause, and listen to us through the window of his gilt frame.

For one day, they stopped. Just one day.

Further entertainment was provided with two non-musical interludes - John Betjeman's poem Christmas - performed not just recited. And later in the evening, readings from the letters of servicemen from the 1914 Christmas truce. Tears in my eyes at the beauty of the words, simply said, written so long ago by men who had seen such horror, and yet could share such moments of humanity and move us still.

Join us and sing, Silent Night, in German and English. A single Carol, that had united two warring forces. For just a day. The audience raised it's voice to join the choir, and the conductress turned her skills upon us.

Light and careless almost, the last songs were mirthful and bright. Jingle bells adding that seasonal spice, like cinnamon.

At the end of the evening I had simply attended a rather nice concert, with a good choir, in a beautiful setting. But I had also seen a little bit of magic in a pair of hands.

Soundwaves image- borrowed from http://www.sonicmusicproduction.com/
WWI Photograph - found on the web, no original credit known

Charity begins...

2011-11-29T06:01:00.001-08:00

I just heard on Radio 4 that the BBC appeal at Xmas last year, with St Martin's, raised more money than ever before. And Comic Relief raised record amounts - when we are in the midst of a very difficult economic period (with a further recession predicted).

So are people giving more, even though funds are tighter and the cost of living is rising in excess of most peoples' pay rises (if they are lucky enough to have one)?

I'm not sure. I think people are still giving, but giving more selectively. Third Sector magazine, which reports on the not for profit world, says that anecdotally that 'people are saying that things are getting tougher' (which is really no surprise). The UK's largest fundraising charity this year has reported a fall in voluntary income. So how do we match record figures for appeals like Comic Relief against falling income for many charities?

In recent years we have had some awful international disasters - floods, famine, tsunamis... and the great British public has responded generously and speedily. I personally think that people like to give to something they feel they can make a difference to now. Investing in medical research, conservation or third world development has tremendous long term impact, but it's the emotive 'quick fix' fundraising appeal that is giving people the feeling they want when they give. Our instant gratification society - something will happen, quickly, as a result of their gift:

My £2 a month will feed that dog. My £20 now will provide a tent and clean water for the refugees from the flood. My £5 will buy a goat for a farmer in Africa.

So how does Comic Relief fit in? In this case, I feel it's about the ask being immediate. We are doing it 'once', and 'now', and responding to emotive issues within the context of entertainment and appeals from those who command our respect (well, so I understand celebrity appeal to be, though it's not what floats my boat).

Comic Relief is a 'quick fix' charity ask. The quickness being that it is a very time limited appeal (though fundraising goes on all year, it does have this one day annual highlight), and that the maximum interaction with donors and supporters is focused around a short time period.

So are people giving more, or not giving more? Are people cutting their charitable giving, or not? In recent months charities have seen a decline in direct debit giving, probably a result of financial reviewing as times get harder. Rather than have an automatic gift going out each month to one or more charities, individuals are giving as and when the appeal appeals to them. The 'now'.

The other main reason that some charities may actually be growing in income (the smaller ones are benefiting more than the larger ones), is association. Direct association with a cause will give you dedicated, long-term supporters who will continue to support your cause even during difficult times. Whether the association is through experience (for example, a disease or condition) or a passion (eg conservation or education), the stronger someone feels about something, the more likely they are to continue their support even when it is financially challenging.

So who is giving? Are the rich rallying round in these tough times and supporting charities more? Especially given the tax breaks that high earners get by donating to charity?

Interestingly, it is those with lower incomes who give the most (percentage wise) of what they earn to charities. These people are probably those who watch Comic Relief, and receive appeals from charities through the post on a regular basis.

The other area where charitable giving is getting stronger is through active and challenge fundraising. For example, doing a charity parachute jump, a walk, marathon or mountain climb. The strength of appeal in this area is that the individual gets something for their efforts (realisation of an ambition or meeting a personal challenge) and they can engage supporters around them to contribute without any further expectation from them. It's easy to donate to a friend doing an event - you just sponsor them, give them the money. You don't even have to engage with the charity that is being supported, just with your friend the fundraiser. Given these hard times, I can see the logic for this mode of fundraising to be increasing in popularity. Everyone is a winner (in most cases!).

There are 161,669 charities registered in England. What do you support? Who do you support - a charity in your neighbourhood, or a cause you believe in? Something that you have a long term commitment to, or do you just respond as and when asked?

These are just my thoughts, from both working in the sector and as a donor myself. I would like to know what you think.

Useful links:

Third Sector
Charities Commission
Comic Relief
The Big Give - make your donation to charity worth double
Charity Challenges (one of the many companies)
Chronicle of Philanthropy - what happens in the US usually follows on in the UK

Photograph courtesy of Alzheimer's Research UK

Squirrel!

2011-11-23T05:53:00.001-08:00

The village where I work is not that huge, but there are some lovely houses. And around the houses, gardens, and in the gardens, trees.

In one garden is a huge sycamore - bare but for clusters of seeds at the end of thin twigs. I stood and watched half a dozen squirrels hopping about the lawn, diligently digging around in the leaf litter on a wet green lawn for winter snacks.

I could hear the sound of the seeds falling from the trees - and some of these spinning jennies hit me as I stood quietly watching these industrious little rodents. Cute simply by dint of a fluffy tail and their boldness (but otherwise no more than a pretty tree rat).

Enchanted as I was with this family of Sciuridae, I looked up to see the branches silhouetted against a dull grey sky. And saw that the seeds descending upon me were not victims of natural autumn fall, but rejects from more of the family, balanced acrobatically right above my head.

AFter about five minutes of simply standing watching the squirrels, I decided to move on. A car had pulled up at the side of the road. 'Three squirrels' said one emerging occupant as she looked up at the tree to see what I had been watching. 'Eleven of them'. I added - for that's how many I'd counted on the ground and in the tree.

I may try some photographs tomorrow - they were posing so perfectly. And there's still a few seeds left on the tree.

Crocs in the Fens

2011-11-18T00:14:00.001-08:00

The other night I helped out at a tasting evening at Johnsons of Old Hurst. Through a friend of a friend, I ended up manning a stall selling sloe gin, sloe whiskey, sloe vodka,sloe brandy, cherry brandy and damson brandy. Being a person of timeliness most of the time, I turned up early. Way too early. I fell asleep in the car in the late evening sunshine listening to Radio 4 and watching crows on the fence debating whether a toy tractor in the kids yard was a good place to poop or not.

I didn't snooze for long though, my phone woke me with a start. My friend C1 was not far away in Huntingdon. I had an hour and a half before my new-found colleague from Sloe Motion arrived, so she drove up to join me and we headed to the cafe for a hot chocolate. But there was a large modern barn, with a glass side, next to the cafe. And a sign that said 'to the crocodiles'. Who could resist? Sure enough, there were four crocs in or by the pool. You can see a video of them on Youtube.

The farm was in the middle of a building project, there were builders and farm workers running around everywhere. Though the cafe was actually closed, a nice young lady let us have our hot chocolates and I enquired whether the tasting event was to be held in the cafe that evening. No, she replied, she was preparing to feed all the builders. The tasting evening was taking place in the new build outside - which wasn't finished.

Amazingly enough, they did get the building finished enough to run the event. A horseshoe shaped series of barns linked together with exit into the farm shop (stocked with fresh meat, veg and a whole host of wonderful tasty delicatessen type goodies). My new colleague arrived and C1 waved farewell, wishing me luck.

After a thorough briefing on the making of sloe gin, the farm where it's grown and the history of the drink, I was ready! Thankfully the barn was just about ready too, with a cardboard door to prevent egress without visiting the farm shop.

The farm staff were really friendly and helpful, and I think Sloe Motion were the only third party supplier there. As seven thirty approached, the queue began. And it was a huge queue! Steadily from 7.30 to 9.45 a non-stop stream of general public entered through one end of the barn and tasted their way down sausages, pork pies, multiple cheeses and fruit concoctions to eventually finish their session off with a quick slug of sloe gin (or whisky etc). Of the two hundred or more people who paraded through the tasting alley, I was amazed to bump into two people I knew. Yes, out there in the Fens, nowhere near my usual territory at all. One was the son of my ex next door neighbour, the other a nurse I had previously worked with. They both recognised me (not I them) 'by the earrings', Julie said. Hmm... I am known for my dangly earrings when I remember to wear them.

Generally the evening was a great success with the farm shop doing brisk business and lots of complimentary comments on the various comestibles. As the general public thinned and the tables were bare but for crumbs of their delicacies, we tidied up and chatted. The farmer and his family were very friendly and mostly wore US Western gear. I fit right in with my Arizona cowboy boots!

After I had packed up, I went into the shop and bought some lovely veg and was very kindly given a present of some sausages by the farmer. That was really kind! And, of course, they tasted delicious. They weren't crocodile sausages, but you will be able to buy crocodile meat from him soon.

Photo courtsey of National Geographic

Are celebrities ashamed?

2011-11-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

I have worked in the charity sector for some time and often used this resource 'Look to the Stars' which tells you which charities celebrities support, and which charities are supported by which celebrities. It's useful when you are researching someone to see if they support a charity like yours, or have a particular interest. And also interesting if you just like finding out about celebrities.

Annie Lennox supports more
than 30 different charities

When I looked at education, cancer, environment and child related charities the numbers of celebrity supporters ranged from 85-115. Yes, a big charity with a wide emotive appeal may have more than a hundred celebrities who are prepared to put their name down next to that charity and offer support in whatever way they can. Sometimes it's just a name on a list or attending a function, sometimes it's full fledged fundraising or financial support. Most of the time it falls somewhere in between.

When you look on the site and find out how many celebrities have nailed their colours to the mast of Alzheimer's - you get ten. Just ten. Yet dementia is one of the most pressing issues in the western world. So my question 'are celebrities ashamed?' is a valid one. Are they not willing to put their name to a charity that deals with addressing a challenge that very possibly faces us all? At least 50% of the UK population know or have a relative with dementia, and something like one in three over 65 will die with a dementia related illness over the next thirty years. So why aren't there more high profile individuals who support research and care for dementia? I don't suppose any celebrities will pipe up and respond to my question.

My thoughts are - and these are just my personal thoughts - that they are if not ashamed, perhaps embarrassed. I think most people have a cautious reaction to dementia because the symptoms manifest in behaviour change. Dementia patients are very often fit and healthy - yet their behaviour and cognitive abilities make them 'difficult' to manage in a society where we have a culture that aspires to youth, health, beauty and (I think there is irony here) celebrity.

Sir Terry Pratchett

Yes there are celebrities who support dementia and they will have a tale to tell of close personal involvement and the distress that is unavoidable with this degenerative disease. Sir Terry Pratchett has been very active in his media awareness campaigns about Alzheimer's - understandably as his own health deteriorates with the rare version he has. Glen Campbell has openly told people he has the disease and is doing a last tour 'while he still can'. Actors Tony Robinson and Larry Hagman, entertainer Russell Grant and musician Sir Cliff Richard have lost loved ones to Alzheimer's. But with dementia affecting nearly a million people in the UK alone - surely they aren't the only ones?

But I am not laying the blame for lack of public understanding of dementia at the feet of celebrities or any one part of society. Every single one of us must look into our own hearts. There are very few of us who will not be coming into contact with it over the next thirty years.

Useful links:

Alzheimer's Research UK
Alzheimer's Society
Dementia statistics
Look to the Stars

Photographs - from Look to the Stars website

La Traviata

2011-10-24T14:54:00.000-07:00

My good friends at the University of Essex gave me a fabulous farewell present - two tickets to La Traviata at the London Opera House. Though I left Essex back in July, my tickets were not until October - last Saturday to be precise. And well worth waiting for!

La Traviata means 'the tramp'. Well, ok it translates as 'the fallen woman' but tramp kind of says it all. But in fact she is just a good time girl who is having a ball, makes the fatal mistake of falling in love and discovers she has consumption (tuberculosis). All set for a fun-filled evening?!

Yes! The singing was amazing, the set and costumes sumptuous as expected. And I managed to spot Philip - one of the chorus. Now why was I interested in spotting a member of the chorus? Because by mad chance, I had played bass for a celidh band for his 50th birthday the previous week in Lewisham. Small world, eh? Don't go to the opera for years, then bump into several of the cast of the next opera I am going to see within seven days.

I asked my friend to come with me so that we could have a good old 'girls night' on the town. She was due to arrive for lunch but the vagaries of a closed M11 delayed her arrival. Instead of duck and wild rice for lunch we had a couple of hasty but tasty duck sandwiches.

Anyway, back to the opera. We travelled on the train to Kings Cross, then to Covent Garden. Oh boy, I don't like those lifts at that station! We wandered round the market for a bit and had some supper (take away jacket potatoes) and a drink. Then to the opera house for our dose of culture!

But I'm getting ahead of myself, because on the train journey we met an interesting chap. Sitting in seats parallel to us were two young men, early 30s probably, with accompanying tins of cider and shiny bomber jackets (and a Protestant tie). The one nearest me leaned over and, in a very broad Scots accent, asked if we minded him asking where we were going? Of course not, I replied, the opera. What ensued may not be what you would typically expect. We then had a conversation about modern art, in particular Picasso. This young man and his colleague were on their way to Corby to an art exhibition. Don't go by appearances. The two lads departed at Stevenage and wished us well for our evening. We responded likewise, hoping they remained sober enough to reach their art exhibition.

We arrived at Kings Cross to refill our oyster cards and hit the underground. My friend queued up at the ticket windown and the young man serving her said 'any railcards, like senior citizens?' Standing nearby I could not help but hoot with laughter! My friend is many years off her senior citizens railcard! The ticket seller looked up and, as much as a gent with such lovely dark skin could, went as red as possible with embarassment. I perhaps shouldn't have put this, but it was terribly funny.

We did eventually reach the opera and, though sat high, we still had a reasonably good view and the show was fabulous. We enjoyed a wine in the wonderfully refurbished bar at the interval, and left (shamefully) before the final curtain calls so we could join the throng at the underground station before it became too like a cattle market.

The journey back was speedy and pleasant, with us both tired and relaxed after a full evening's culture. And I don't just mean the opera.

Photograph of the opera from the Guardian review. All copyright remains with the original publisher.

Jerry the knife, Colonel T and Bob

2011-10-11T14:28:00.000-07:00

I met some interesting people in Arizona - and I'll tell you about three of them. Let's start with 'Jerry the knife'. No, that's not his name or his handle or street name or whatever, I just think it made a good title. But Jerry and knives do go together, as you will find out.

I met Jerry (and Colonel T and Bob) at a baseball game. They came with us and Sean, who had got us the tickets thanks to his Sergeant. I didn't get to meet the sergeant to say thanks, but I did see him at a distance and noticed he was one of the few individuals wearing a Pirates hat at a Diamondbacks game (their stadium, playing the Pirates).

Jerry is in his early twenties and looks like a young, beardless, blond Jack Black. He had that same enigmatic half smile, that hints at hidden wisdom (perhaps). After the game, we went to Sean's for a barbecue and I spent quite a bit of time talking with Jerry. He was very soft spoken, wore black and we had in depth talks about environment, food security and respect. A gentle soul, mostly I think. He is a computer nerd, and does some work for people fixing this and that. But the other way he earns money is demonstrating a high quality set of kitchen knives. I can imagine him being very good at it, with his soft spoken way and demonstrating how swiftly and effectively his cordon bleu kitchen weaponry can slice through even the soggiest tomato.

He didn't get a chance to demonstrate his knives to us, though he was quite persistent in bringing the subject up after the BBQ, especially as we gave him a lift back to his apartment. 'The knives are just in the house, I could bring them out quickly and show you...' No thank you Jerry.

He also told us that his brother lived in the next building. His brother is a twin, but likes to wear cowboy hats and walks with a silver topped cane. This caused the local supermarket checkout lady a lot of confusion until she finally twigged that there were two of 'him'.

So that was Jerry the knife - a nice guy, and not the sort of person I am likely to bump into all that often in the normal run of things.

But this BBQ also had Colonel T and Bob - as well as Sean, myself, Sandra (Sean's girlfriend), Les and Nadine. An odd assortment in many ways.

Bob and Colonel T are brothers. They are both in their late sixties I'd say, and both work with Sean doing 'serving'. Serving writs for lawyers - delivering papers to people who really don't want those papers. Bob is a retired fingerprint specialist who still does some consultancy. He was a big guy with a big personality, and a lot of tales to tell. The sort of crime scenes he was called to were probably not the type I wanted to hear detailed descriptions of, but he could certainly write an interesting book about the things he's done. He took my fingerprint and pressed it onto a business card. He always carries his little ink pad with him.

His brother, Colonel T, told us tales of his visit to Italy when he was younger. The family originally came from there, and he had visited a valley that suffered a famous flood in the early 60s. He'd got out of the valley just hours before the disaster. He was also quiet a lot of time, unless he was talking, because he was partially deaf. 'I was an artillery gunner for years, makes you deaf'.

These are not the sort of people I usually meet - and they are interesting and different and talking with them was an enriching experience. I may see some of them again (I have met Jerry once before, so am likely to meet him again), I may never see them again. Either way, they have given me something to write about.

Letters to my brother

2011-10-07T06:13:00.000-07:00

Hi Phil

I still hold out some hope that you are out there and may, on occasion, do a bit of internet searching and find me. But even if you don't, it's still good to talk to you - in the only way I can.

I've just got back from a holiday in Arizona and had a fabulous time. I really enjoyed walking round the various environments - it's such a diverse state! I think you could probably fit GB inside Arizona about six times...

I go out there in particular to visit my friend Nadine, but also it's a place I really like. Lots of interesting birds, wildlife and architecture. (See my visit to Ramsey Canyon, amazing!)

At the moment I'm living just with Mel - it's weird! Number one son is away at Uni again, and husband is living with his partner the other side of Cambridge. So I am learning to be single. Weird feeling - having never actually lived on my own. Well, OK, I'm living with Mel so I'm not 'on my own', but she's nearly 18 and not exactly living in my pocket. It is nice to come home when she's in though.

Do you like the picture I posted? It's our dad's half-brother, Peter, in 1925 on the boat out to Australia. He was just 16 when he was shipped off to Oz. I found out all about him from his granddaughter, who is some kind of cousin to us I guess. Her great grand-mother (Elsa) was our grandmother. I know dad always wanted to know what happened to him, so it's kind of cool to find out now.

I have a new job which is really enjoyable and hugely challenging - I'm learning lots of new stuff and really stretching my brain. But it's very worthwhile and with a subject like dementia, something that's going to affect us all at some point I guess.

But mum's ok, she's not got any signs of dementia any more than the usual forgetfulness that we all experience. The difference between being forgetful and dementia or Alzheimer's has been explained to me really simply: "Forgetting where you put your keys is one thing; putting your keys in the fridge is another." Makes sense, doesn't it?

Sally has health issues of course, she'll be 80 in January after all. One of them is macular degeneration which really affects her eyesight, but there's not a lot that can be done unfortunately. She's managing fine now and in fact has just been on a two week holiday with Daphne down to Cornwall and the South coast.

She's given up the house in Mallorca now - it was too hard for her to manage. But Carlota has said we can go visit any time we want. It would be nice to go back out there, but it won't be the same.

Well, back to work, but - just wanted to catch up.

Friends we've never met

2011-10-06T06:03:00.000-07:00

There's a well known line that a 'stranger is just a friend you've never met'. Well, that's a lovely rule to follow, but not always true of course. And in pre-internet days you'd never have made a friend you'd never met except, perhaps, a pen pal.

But the delights of the internet are that you can make friends, real friends, that you've never met. And sometimes you get to meet them, and sometimes you don't.

I have good friends - friends who came into my life in different ways and some who were here for a reason, a season, and a lifetime.

I have friends I made over the internet such as Cathy (in Ireland) and Nadine (in the US, pictured left) who I have met and who have deeply influenced my life. They've been a terrific support in hard times, great fun in good times, and opened up my life. I now travel to Ireland and the US to visit them and we will be friends come hell or high water!

There are also 'lost' friends you find again on the internet. Facebook is a typical example of how this can happen. An old school friend, a former lover, a long-lost family member... or a friend of a friend that you share interests with.

There are also friends I've made who I've never met. There are people I have learned to admire like WoodlandDave on Twitter. A real nature explorer and education specialist. I've never met him, but I know he's someone I would like. And then there's Linny - we don't just tweet at eachother, we have a dialogue and we 'chat' over twitter and Facebook. I know already I like her. She is a friend, even though we've never met.

The internet is, of course, a potential minefield of danger and duplicity. But if, like me, your basic instinct is trust, it can be a heck of a good place to make new friends. Just don't ever send money, and never arrange to meet anyone you aren't absolutely sure of.

Ramsey Canyon

2011-09-25T16:10:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful place! This nature reserve, just 28 miles from the border with Mexico (don't go after dark! It's not just the bears that'll get you), is a beautiful little canyon that is home to many amazing animals and birds native to Arizona.

My first and most favourite is the hummingbird - and the conservancy put out feeders so you can just sit back and watch those beauties buzz around like feathered bees. Most of them are no more than a few inches long - and their flight patterns almost impossible to follow as they zoom around to sip nectar (whether it's in a flower or a feeder).

The best photographs, consequently, are of them at rest. But I have a whole lot more pictures on my flickr account - just take a look when you get the chance.

However, as soon as we pulled up in the parking lot at the Canyon, the first thing I saw was some hawk zoom into the woods next to us. I got the camera out and took a shot through the trees - it was a Cooper's Hawk I think. Anyway, he posed a good while, so I got some nice pictures.

We entered the Canyon and the scenery was amazing - unlike where I'm staying up near Phoenix (which is desert) this is a lush green environment with beautiful trees and mountains.

As well as the birdlife, we saw lots of squirrels and lizards. As we came out of the canyon, one of the conservancy workers was very excited as he'd just seen a bobcat and a deer. We were also told that early in the morning (on the higher trail which we didn't take) someone had seen a bear and a mountain lion. The bear was likely, the lion not quite so - but it was amazing to think we were so close to these wild creatures. And reassuring to know we were unlikely to bump into them too!

We spent a good few hours in the canyon walking just over a mile - but it was wonderful just to look at the birds and the plants, listening to the gently burbling stream and admiring the handiwork of early settlers who'd built their log cabins and managed to eke out a living in this lush, but difficult environment over a hundred years ago.

If you love wildlife and are going to Arizona or south New Mexico, don't miss out. Ramsey Canyon is a real treasure.

Buddy can you spare a biscuit?

2011-09-24T20:49:00.000-07:00

Halfway to Sierra Vista and we stop over at a well known fried chicken emporium where a dandy white suit and a bowtie are the preferred attire of the founder.

We went in and Nad said 'you have to try a biscuit'. This was following a conversation in the car (road trip!) about cookies, crackers and biscuits.

In this instance, a biscuit was a scone. A savoury scone - but nonetheless light, fluffy, round and about an inch and a half high. But this wasn't a scone, this was a biscuit. And very tasty it was too - unlike the dried up carcass of spiced chicken limb accompanied by 'wedges' (which were, I believe, once parts of a potato).

After completely confusing the gent serving us with my English accent, we ate our meal and looked at the view outside, admiring the amazing scenery. Buddy (he wore a anme badge on his bright red shirt) came out to talk to us. 'Noticed the camera'. Though he may not have served us the best meal in the world, he turned out to be a valuable contributor to our road trip. Buddy told us how he'd 'worked in nearly all the states in the US, fifteen of them' (funny, I thought there were more than that) and how he loved this place the best.

And Buddy told us about Ramsey Canyon, just south of Sierra Vista. He told us how to get there, and how we could see hummingbirds (on that word I was instantly sold, of course) just everywhere.

We visted Ramsey Canyon, part of The Nature Conservancy, the next day and it turned out to be a wonderful place. We spent a whole morning there - I could have spent a week. So thanks Buddy, I'll always be grateful for your tip, if not the stomach ache.

Three strikes and you're ... very confused!

2011-09-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

My first baseball game! Between the Arizona Diamondbacks (D-Backs) and the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was, I am told, one of the worst games that any of my American friends had ever seen! There was very little hitting of the ball, lots of waiting around and they only seemed to score in binary... 0,0,0,1,0...

But the advantage of the game being slow was that Sean could explain every move and game play to me as we went along and I didn't miss a thing. Well, how can you when most of the play is just something that happens between adverts?

Oh, and 'kiss cam', and the mascot race, and the camera zooming around the stadium to encourage people to gasp with amazement as they see themselves live on the huge screen. This inevitably prompted them to displays of dancing, hands over wide open mouth and mad waving.

OK, so back to the game. This was the second game in a series of 3. The D-backs won the first game - but the Pirates were up (and indeed won) this time. D-backs in white, pirates in black and grey. There's the pitcher (which is like a bowler, not a huge jug), and the batters (or batsmen? I'm not sure). There are bases which get loaded (batters on them, not drunk) and a mound that the pitcher stands on. They don't always run, sometimes they get a walk. That's usually because of four bad balls. But if the pitcher throws three stikes, which means the batter misses and the catcher catches, then the batsman is out. And it goes three in, change - team, next three in - change. So it's fast paced as per who is batting.

There are nine innings, unless something happens earlier on which means... ooh I don't know. A home run is hitting the ball right outside the yellow line (forwards only, sideways or behind is out). I didn't see any of them. But lots of long high balls that were caught.

Of course I had to have 'baseball game food'. I had nachos and cheese. My friends had hot dogs and a huge apple covered in toffee and chocolate sprinkles.

Three hours later, and about 5 or six runs later (made up in stages, not home runs), I had seen my first complete ball game.

Summary: take cricket, mix it with rounders and then throw in some random rules = baseball. Oh, and a lot of fun actually too.

For more photos, visit my Flickr account.

San Tan Sunrise

2011-09-19T10:17:00.000-07:00

5am. The air is chill. Crickets sing lazy goodnight an the sky turns amber. Outlines of mountains, trees and seguaro, profiles sharp and clear. Silent cyclist clicks by. Sweet smell of fresh cut grass - so strange in this desert - as the early morning routine upon the golf course takes its path towards the burgeoning heat. I sit and listen, and watch. My head full of words.

Brains

2011-09-12T04:31:00.000-07:00

When starting a new job there's always a lot to take in. Whether it's the organisational structure, a new field, or simply the kind of work you are doing, there's a learning curve to be followed.

My new job is no exception, and I'm learning some fascinating stuff. As well as getting stuck into the marketing side of my job, I'm beginning to understand more about medical research (a good follow on to what I did at Cambridge many years ago) and dementia.

One thing I picked up on pretty quickly is that Alzheimer's is a disease like any other - like cancer or liver disease. It is not a 'natural part of ageing' (though occurs more as people get older) and is not a psychological condition. It's your brain being affected by various things which deteriorate the brain and impair function. You aren't mentally ill - you have a disease. Big difference. See the picture I found on the internet? It shows you a healthy brain, a brain with dementia, and then compares the two. It's a real, physical thing, not a state of mind. Imagine if that was your heart, or liver, or kidneys...

The scary thing is the fact that with our ever-ageing population here in the West, it is going to become more and more prevalent - to the extent that 1 in 3 over 65 are going to have some form of dementia in the next decade or so. I'll be in that profile then. So will many of my friends.

So - scare factor? Well, I guess I am as scared of Alzheimer's as I am of cancer - but the difference is that the symptoms of dementia don't just affect the individual, they affect everyone around them so much more. I have a very good friend who's father has advanced Alzheimer's. The effect on my friend and her siblings, on his wife, on all of them - I could easily call it devastating. But for them it's caring for the person they love, even though he is not really with them any more. And at the moment there is very little that can be done medically to help. In his case, virtually nothing.

But people know about the difficulties of the disease, and mostly seem to understand the symptoms (and are often tempted to make jokes about something that really isn't funny for the family or the person with dementia).

I guess my take on this is that Alzheimer's and dementia has the public face that cancer used to have two generations ago when it was only ever referred to as 'the big C'. People didn't mention cancer, or talk about having it. It was a social taboo because it was so often associated with fatality. There are now lots of treatments for cancer and there has been some terrific work done to combat causes (like smoking!) and reduce risk. But it's still part of our lives and something people can talk about and discuss and help support individuals and families through. The taboo has been dropped. That's one heck of a sea-change in social attitude. But it is happening - slowly the Government are listening (thanks to lobbying organisations and individuals such as the amazing Mr Pratchett) and - let's face it - with statistics like this, it's something that can't be ignored.

So why isn't it like that with dementia? I think it's scare factor, because the disease affects behaviour, not just physical condition. People don't know how to talk to individuals with dementia - I certainly don't have any real experience; just a few friends whose families have a close member with the disease. And there is no 'right way' of handling it I guess - it's up to the individual, the circumstance, the stage of the disease. It's a case of adapting and understanding.

Changing the attitude of society will take generations - but in generations (as with cancer) we could very well make inroads into tackling the causes and symptoms of the disease so that families and individuals with dementia can actually enjoy a better quality of life. The aim is to one day have treatments and cures that will have a real impact. So much has already been done, what could still be achieved is hope for the future for everyone.

Beautiful

2011-09-07T00:11:00.000-07:00

Why would a woman who is my age want to get a tattoo? Mid life crises? Very late onset teenage rebellion?

No, it's very simple. For many years now I have felt so bad about myself - I still refer to myself as OFU - old fat and ugly. After all, the facts is the facts. I've had a terrible few years where my self-esteem was not only low, but constantly undermined from lots of directions. I'd keep struggling on, and make some ground, only to have it pulled from under me like a rug on a polished wood floor.

I went swimming last night for the first time in a year. I swim very slowly, but steadily. I have no technique to speak of other than one that suits me. I enjoy it, it makes me feel good and I am in a nice quiet place in my mind when I swim.

And that's when it hit me. My tattoo is the first thing about me that I can say is beautiful. It is a part of me that I am not ashamed of - and even though it is an addition rather than actually me - I am pleased to have something beautiful about me for the first time in my life.

The Deepdale Cowboy

2011-09-04T07:27:00.001-07:00

At a party last night a lady said to me "I know that voice, it's the Deepdale cowboy." Yes, she meant me. So, why the Deepdale cowboy and what was the party like? Two little tales which I am happy to relate.

Some months ago I went on a walk in Norfolk, from Burnham Deepdale. My current blog portrait is from that weekend, so perhaps you can see where the 'cowboy' reference comes from. I did also have my stetson from Arizona with me, in case it rained. So, the Deepdale cowboy it is (or I am)!

At last night's party, where so addressed as the Deepdale cowboy, I was in fact dressed in a pilot's uniform, complete with hat, gold be-ribboned sleeves, shirt and tie. Oh, and high heel boots. What decent pilot wouldn't wear high heeled boots, whilst stumbling about in a field with guitar and wine in hand.

To explain a little further - I was invited, along with some friends, to a nautically themed party. Now maybe being a pilot wasn't exactly very nautical, but as my three friends were dressed as jellyfish, we attended as 'Captain Birdseye and her amazing dancing jellyfish'. In the end I announced that I was in fact Captain Smith of the Titanic and that no one should panic, she's unsinkable.

The jellyfish costumes were see-through umbrellas with bits of bubble wrap and other colourful threads hanging from them, and looked a lot of fun. Other costumes at the party included someone dressed as a lifeboat, a few pirates, quite a few seamen/women, a couple more jellyfish and some folks dressed ready for the beach - complete with inflatables.

To reach our destination we headed, four of us (the jellyfish and the captain) in a Ford KA to deepest darkest Bedfordshire. Along a main road, then a village road, then a side road, and eventually down a dirt track (which tickled the belly of the poor little car) to a huge farm house. We parked in a field where other guests were cavorting - setting up tents, getting out costumes and generally congregating. Once unloaded, which included jellyfish umbrellas, wine and four fold-up chairs, we headed into the grounds around the farm.

By now it was dark, but not cold. There was not a lot of light, but some tea light lanterns led us into the party venue which was the grounds around the house. It was a garden party with a difference. Amongst the trees, on bumpy grassy ground (eveyr now and then I would sink into the earth), were some marquees. One was open sided and had a small stage, food and drink all laid out. As it got darker, you just had to take a guess at what the food was as you ladled it on to your plate.

One marquee was very low and lit like a gypsy boudoir (or as one might be, I imagine), another had sheets of hanging pale blue gossamer like fabric that was the 'undersea adventure', with hanging glass fish and other decorations. From the trees hung nets, shells and very possibly things like sharks and whales - but you really couldn't see.

We set up camp next to the beach. Now you may not be aware of many beaches in the middle of Bedfordshire, but this one was very special. There was water, a sandy shore and, at the far end, a cocktail bar. To acquire a cocktail, one had to either brave the small inflatable boat (which 'Jack' from the Titanic did, but alas - as per the movie - resulted in a very wet and bedraggled individual) or wade out in your bare feet. The bar was stewarded by Batman's arch rival, the Penguin.

Now just in case this wasn't surreal enough for you, the main attraction in the food/drink/music marquee was a rather handsome pirate with gold lamee trousers and an assortment of squeezeboxes. He was a mighty fine player and a good singer, and some sea shanties were duly delivered. I played along on my guitar - with his consent.

So picture this - a cool balmy Bedfordshire evening in the grounds of a farm house, the quacking of annoyed ducks in the distance, a singing pirate accompanied by a playing pilot surrounded by dancing mermaids, sailors and variously otherwise designated nautical individuals. And it being quite dark as well.

If we met people we knew, it was by chance. You couldn't really see who people were until you were right up close, unless you were in one of the better lit marquees. But it was much more fun outside anyway.

We set up camp next to the shore (where one of our jellyfish decided to make some sandcastles) was also next to a huge pile of wood ready for a late night camp fire. As the evening progressed, the fire was lit and people came around to enjoy the glow. Guitar in hand I played some songs and had different people join in at different times. One young lady pirate (bemoaning the loss of her partner, who was dressed as an ice cream), insisted I play some Abba. I gave it my best shot. Which was, alas, rather far off the mark. I had earlier played American Pie and one of our dancers had been the ice cream. Though my folk songs are not exactly campfire material, I managed to belt out a few joiny-inny things and had a terrific time. One day I will buy myself an appropriate songbook to take with me to such events.

When at last our designated jellyfish decided it was time to go, I wandered ahead to escape a very persistent individual who wanted me to sing more (and who had earlier grabbed my bum and scared the life out of me as I was packing up). Only I got lost. I wandered up and down amongst the trees and couldn't work out where the car park was. I was rescued by a nice looking man who, it turned out, was actually the Penguin in mufti. Rather cute, lovely voice, but a tad too young for me.

I regained the car (via some cow poop) to find two out of three jellyfish ready for the off. The other had gone to look for me - trying to find a pilot with a guitar and a fold up chair. Luckily she returned in good time, realising I had been found.

The road home was conversely the dirt track, the side road, the village road, main road and then back to jellyfish number one's house. After a relaxing natter, I slid into the guest bed and pondered what had been a very strange and highly enjoyable evening. A most excellent adventure!

Chats and changes

2011-08-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

After six lovely months at Essex, I am now back in my home town and working near Cambridge again. New job, new house, new car, new life ahead of me.

They say 'life begins at 40', well I guess mine stalled a bit, so I'm going for round two from a slightly older age... ok, no hiding it, I'll be 51 this year. Worried? (I mean me, not you!) Not really, as long as I am reasonably healthy and active and enjoying my job, I guess age is not something that has really made me stop and ponder or worry about my mortality.

However, it's a bit late to start again in other ways, especially if you ain't exactly 'eye candy' (OK, actual definition is OFU - see previous posts for what that means). But never mind. I think finding happiness is about finding yourself more than anything. So, I'm on the hunt! But I won't be navel-gazing or mirror-watching. I'm gonna look out there for who I am and who I can be.

There's things in life I really enjoy - and I want to do more of them. Travel, dance, sing, play, be out there and living life. But that doesn't mean I won't follow my obligations - being a good mother, friend, employee. Yes, the latter is important to me too as, once again, I find myself (by design) in employment with a strong social responsibility. And that is, I know, where I am happiest and most productive. So I am heading for a good life, but not hedonism. Still with me?

I know I need to eat less and exercise more - and one of my 'plans' is to start swimming again. OK, that's not huge, but it means taking time for me. This year has given me many opportunities as well as challenges. I have met some amazing people, done some quite unusual things, and learned (as ever) a huge amount. I never stop learning (I don't always act on what I learn, but I do love new experiences). There's a bit more of a spiritual aspect to my life now, but I still don't buy all that 'god' stuff. Never will either. She's got to show up in person to get me on the team!

Over the past year I have found some new and wonderful friends, as well. And, interestingly, I have learned to 'chat'. No, not the WWI habit of taking lice off eachother (the origination of the word), but simple idle chatter with friends on the phone. Now that may not seem unusual to you - something you do all the time perhaps? But actually not something I was comfortable doing for many years.

I remember a good few years back my friend Jan phoning up and after a short conversation thinking to myself 'now what did she want?'. Well, she didn't actually want anything, just to chat - but I was not a chatter over the phone, it was quite simply a skill I didn't have. She must have felt a bit put off by my response on the phone - but I honestly didn't have the experience of calling just to talk about stuff. Calls had to have a purpose or reason. God - what a bore I must have been! I can imagine some of my contemporary friends raising their eyebrows at this (the calls, not the fact that I am a bore) - I am quite often found nattering away for over an hour on the phone now. See how people change.

Well, we all change, all the time, and sometimes it's slow and unnoticeable, and sometimes it's drastic. Most often it can be a combination - a slow build up to something extreme. Well, maybe and maybe not, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like change. I have gone through some extremely difficult and challenging things in the past few years, but change - painful as it can sometimes be - is also good.

So here I am, ready to face a new era in my life. And though I am on my own, I know I have my kids, my friends and actually lots of strangers and 'friends to be' who will help me, wish me well and be there if and when I need them. Just like I am for others, so I hope they will be for me.

And if I am dissapointed? Well, I'd rather live in optimism and be disappointed than be pessimistic and proven right. Being right ain't all it's cracked up to be. I know.

I guess this post is the first step in accepting the huge changes in my life. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself and - as my son kindly advises me - 'move on'.

Photograph: me playing at Cambridge Folk Festival 2011.

University life

2011-08-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

You know the feeling? Leaving the family home, off you go, world in your suitcase, to a new set of friends and a completely different environment. Everything is strange and new, there’s so much to learn.

Of course, that’s just starting a new job, it must be tough for the students too. After all, I was only moving to Essex for a few months, not three years. And though I’d be working hard, no one was going to be examining me. Mind you, I wouldn’t leave with a degree either.

Taking a maternity cover post at the University of Essex turned out to be one of the best moves I’d made in a long time. Though leaving my family during the week was hard, I was given the chance to strengthen other friendships and explore new opportunities.

I’ve worked in higher education before – but the University of Essex and the University of Cambridge are two very different beasts. As different as the lion rampant and the wyvern.

When I first got the job in Colchester I had a problem; where to live? I was very lucky to be offered a place to stay with friends - people I knew through music. Though we'd known each other a good few years, the friendship was based around music and, to be honest, we didn't really know each other. This six month sojourn turned out to be a great chance to learn just how much we did have in common. And let's face it, if you can have someone live with your family for six months, it certainly helps if you can get on. Which we did, and had some fun times including living through the fun dramas (noise, dust, hunky workmen everywhere) created by building work.

Whilst in Colchester, and living in Ipswich, I made other friends too. Friends of my hosts, plus people I met through music. There is a great open mic in Wivenhoe, and a nice folk venue in Ipswich, plus the folk club in Colchester itself. I got to see and know a few faces regularly and enjoyed playing in a 'new territory'.

I met other people too and had some completely new experiences, including singing 'ohm' in a circle of very interesting and lovely people. It wasn't as mad as it sounds - in fact it was very calming. I also met quite a few interesting people at a moot in Ipswich and, to my delight, won a set of tarot cards in the raffle!

That was the social life around 'home', then there was the work environment too - the wonderful setting of Wivenhoe Park. The University may be a huge 60's concrete world, but it certainly has its good points. Though not a fan of that period of architecture, the idea of the squares (almost plaza like) is good, and there are great resources on site. From laundry to post office, hair dresser to co-op. And, of course, the SU bar and other eateries. The landscape is wonderful - with lakes and the most amazing old oak trees. You may be in an office in a concrete building, but it was but a step to a completely different environment which was full of wildlife and the delightful atmosphere of youth and adventure. I like that environment.

The people I worked with were really nice - so nice that I had tears in my eyes when I said goodbye. Just six months, but long enough to get to know some great people and know that I've made some good friends. Just take a look through my previous posts and you'll find me singing in the pub with one colleague, taking another bunch round the campus to look at birds and visiting Athens with my boss (OK, that was work, but it still counts).

For my leaving do I was given a dinner party - how cool is that?! Not only did we have great food and champagne, but when the 'lightweights' had gone home, Vicki and I went to the pub. I met a very nice young man called Daniel who I chatted away too assuming he was someone Vicki knew. Nope! Was a good laugh - but that whiskey chaser was just one drink too many. I still rolled into work bright and breezy though, it wasn't that much, just too much.

To top it all, my leaving gift was two tickets to the Royal Opera House to see La Traviata - how cool is that!?

I made many friends in the University in different departments as well as my own. I shall miss them and the challenge they face as higher education enters a new funding structure and interesting future.

So now I've left University, but once again with a strong desire to return to education in the future and get some edufication myself one of these there days.

Links:
Essex Music Events
University of Essex
Steamboat Tavern

Birding the campus

2011-07-19T06:37:00.001-07:00

Aren't these guys the cutest ever? Today I led an 'expedition' around campus to look at the birdlife that shares this amazing environment with us. The sun was shining, the air was thick and muggy, and it was a lunchtime. What more could one want?

Well, with a troup of 11 other bird-interested colleagues with me, some birds would have been nice!

There were, as usual, no shortage of jackdaws, ducks and Canada geese, but of almost every other kind of bird (especially of the small variety) there was no sign. Not a robin tweeting, a blackbird singing or even a pigeon cooing! Where were they?

Well, maybe it was the weather, maybe it is the fact that there are people everywhere getting ready for Graduation tomorrow, but even so... the birds on campus are used to people are usually everywhere! I think someone told them: "Bird watchers coming, hide!!"

OK, a dozen people tramping along are not exactly quiet, but we weren't exactly noisy either. However, we did get to look at lots of habitat, and discuss the birds that - ahem - should be present! We know there are green woodpeckers, long tailed tits and even the odd tree creeper around, but none of these exotics graced us with their presence.

We walked on round the campus, looking at the ducks on the lake (and finding two tufted ducks) and eventually ended up in the car park. This is where I daily hear the goldfinches. Silence. Then, at last, one long songster at the top of a bush! We gathered round the cars and looked at the little chap singing his heart out. A bird worth seeing, with his lovely red face and gold striped wings.

We walked on, round to a more wooded area and stood silently beneath the trees. Once again... silence. Then, at last, another chirrup. Two more goldfinches appeared, and I managed to snap one of them with the camera. He was very visible and started to preen in front of us. Not only visible, but a show off too!

It was, if nothing else, a lovely walk in the grounds on a sunny afternoon, but I hope during the re-run next week, we see a few more birds.

The secret tea room

2011-07-15T05:26:00.000-07:00

I've heard of geurilla gardening, but this was the first guerilla tea party I had ever heard of!

I received an invite from the Secret Tea Room and myself, and quite a few others, were given a rendevouz point (outside the Zest cafe on site) and arrival time. At the duly appointed 5.45pm a few individuals started to gather in the square as the light finally warmed the concrete squares that had been so shadowed by the clouds all day. And then I saw someone I know with a box full of plates. I followed!

Into the building - signs saying 'this way, shhh!' appropriately positioned along the route. I followed the box of plates and the signs until reaching a cozy common room. Lights low, soft 20's style music playing on the gramophone (well, ipod really), and coffee tables decked in white, lace, and with tiered cake stands laden with delectables.

One table held the most marvellous looking carrot cake - huge, square, moist, decked with icing and crushed nuts. Another held neat little sandwiches, filled with cucumber, cheese and qunice jelly. The scones were given pride of place with cream and jam as standard bearers, whilst fresh strawberries added a blazen of rich colour to the delicious scene. Pure white fresias, gently drooping on green stems, bowed to the scene.

A teapot bedecked in a colourful knitted cosy, complete with china lady, sat plumply expectant next to the crockery, awaiting the infusion and preparing to delighted the now-gathered company. A blend of special teas, served from the pot with a strainer.

From just 8 months old and squirming to dignified 70s, young and old, men and women, faces from around the world gathered to chat and 'take tea' in the old English manner. A delightful and enchanting evening, where the home-baked food surpassed visual anticipation and the company was varied and stimulating.

I do hope there is another one before I leave this wonderful and surpising place. And I wonder if I can track down the remains of that delicious carrot cake today?

Booksale!

2011-06-24T07:35:00.001-07:00

I know many authors think that selling books second-hand is selling them (the authors) cheap, but it may also have a beneficial effect; introducing readers to new authors (who then go out and buy more by the same person).

Authors aside, we are readers. We (I speak for myself for those people who read this who like reading books, if you don't, please ignore this post. In fact if you don't, you probably aren't reading!) like to read books!

In clearing my house ready for a move, I had two bagfulls of books (having already taken several loads to the local charity shop) and thought I would sell them at work. Then a thought occurred to me - to sell them for charity.

I put a note round at my employers and not only did I advertise the sale, but I had more contributions of books! So at lunchtime today I spent an hour and a half in a meeting room surrounded by books: including the true story of a call girl and XML programming (in Chinese). So plenty of variety!

I am delighted to say that my kind colleagues helped me raise over £100 for Alzheimer's Research UK. Oh, and I picked up a few books for myself.

But the most important part of the exercise was the personal stories I heard, and of how Alzheimer's has touched so many people's lives. The stories were, of course, not happy ones. Suffering is part of the human condition. But wouldn't it be nice if we could, in time, actually remove this one from the list?

I know there are many good causes out there, and I have indeed shown my support for conservation well beyond my employment in that area. However, if you have five minutes and even just five pounds, your support could make a tremendous difference to the long term solution for curing dementia.

Running an Alumni Survey

2011-06-21T06:44:00.001-07:00

You might wonder why this post is here - well, it seems the most accessible for the audience I would like to share it with. So if this seems a little 'off topic' from my usual posts, please forgive me! This is simply my personal, practical experience and in no way reflects my employer's perspective on surveys or the results of said survey.

Background

In April and May 2011 we sent a survey to our alumni from the University. We selected equal amounts of recipients from different age groups and for those we have email contacts from, with no bias as to country. In the UK, we sent a printed survey out to those who we only have postal addresses for.

We firstly tested the robustness of the survey by sending it out to alumni who are staff. They came back with many helpful suggestions on how to improve the survey as well as providing some feedback as well (from a different perspective of course).

The purpose of the survey was to assess our communications methods and messages, events and a little bit on fundraising. We want to make sure we are 'doing the right thing' and to improve where we can.

The process

We used an integrated survey tool that is part of our web-system called NetCommunity. We use this because it links directly to our database, Raiser's Edge. This had some advantages, but many disadvantages too.

In collecting data by email, we did not want to ask the same questions on the survey that the alumni would have to fill in when registering on the site, so for the email survey we did not collect employment information. For the postal survey, we collected some of that information, but then putting it into the system required manual input.

We had a bit of criticism that the questionnaire didn't pick up lots of new data, but the purpose of the questionnaire was opinion based, not data collection. Make sure you don't ask too much of one survey.

SWOT

Strengths: links direct into Raiser's Edge. Encouraged more individuals to register on line (from the email survey).

Weaknesses: postal survey meant lots of manual data input, and interrogation of the data is extremely basic. Though we could register who completed a survey, to find out what they actually answered we had to input manual attributes. To get anything really meaningful other than 'top line' (see picture) response, you need to export the data into a spreadsheet or some other tool and manipulate to find the real meat of your results (the way we did it, anyway). Very time consuming.

Opportunities: it would have been better to have all the data input in the same way, so mixing methods (email and post) could be improved. In addition, thinking about the level of data you want from a survey then look very carefully at the method you use. Those specialist survey companies charge a lot of money for good reason - they do all the work and can provide you with lots of fabulous data without you having to do all the work.

Threats: asking the wrong questions in the first place. If we haven't asked exactly the right questions, we won't actually learn anything. We may misinterpret data. Data can be skewed: for example we sent the email survey worldwide, but three quarters of responders were from overseas (so their perspective on events in London, for example, would not be fully representative).

Conclusions

The key is in knowing not just what you want to ask, but to what level you want to analyse your responses. Are there key differences in the ages of those you survey, of their location, and by subject perhaps? Set a very clear set of objectives beforehand and understand that different segments will respond differently. We selected equal amounts from each age-group, but unsurprisingly it was the older alumni who were more inclined to answer.

Use the right tool for the job, don't just go with what you have because it is easiest or what is cheapest.

And, finally, make sure you act on anything you have asked within the survey that requires a response; for example if they have offered an internship or a paper, follow up and thank them, engaging as relevant.

Recommended links:

Survey Solutions
How to run a survey
Some interesting info
Alumni surveys, an overview

Some example surveys:

Survey from Cornell
Colorado - Dental Medicine
Robert Gordon University

If you have additional suggestions, please add them to the comments box below.

Eating the campus

2011-06-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

Is this a sign that a the end of term the staff have finally cracked and gone cannibal, dismembering and consuming those poor unfortunate students who have not yet escaped their academic refuge? No, tempting as it may be, today’s ‘eat the campus’ activity was actually a ‘walk and talk’ through the grounds. For now, the students were safe.

About one hour before we were due to start our lunchtime walk, the heavens decided that the dry spring was over and that all the missing rain from April should fall in one day in June. Consequently, it was with trepidation that we prepared to begin our ‘foraging’ trip and find out what plants within the grounds of beautiful Wivenhoe Park were edible. Clutching my book on trees we tramped off through the very damp grass, scaring away the young coots and agitated mother as we trod our path directly through their own foraging party.

We were lucky though, and the rain decided to take a lunchtime break too and only dribbled a bit on us when the wind shook the trees or it felt that we needed hurrying back to our offices.

We commenced our walk (about 12 people from different departments) led by Kate, who had her River Café foraging book to hand. Our first stop was the chestnut trees, followed by a cob nut (wild hazel) that I spotted by the lake. Though surrounded by ducks, we decided (though edible) they didn’t count as plants and were therefore immune from our consideration of their dietary potential.

We wandered up and around the lake, then through some woods and up to Wivenhoe House. We saw nettles (yes, edible), more sweet chestnuts and some beautiful cork oak. I don’t think it’s edible, but they were amazing trees. We managed also to track down the old ice house, now covered in trees and overgrown so that you’d never have known it was originally the house’s outdoor fridge.

We found lots of beech nuts, silver birch (who’s sap you can tap it seems) and plenty of blackberry bushes. There are definitely plans afoot to go blackberrying in due course. There's a by tree here somewhere too, but we didn't make it that far.

As the afternoon got a bit wetter and our walk took us further from the safe confines of our concrete shelters, some folks had to disappear back to their respective desks, whilst we remaining few stalwarts carried on and hunted out the elusive mulberry tree. It’s supposed to be by Kingfisher Lake, but alas we couldn’t spot it. Perhaps if it hadn’t been so wet and our lunchtime break nearly up, we may have explored further to see if we could find it. I haven’t seen a mulberry tree since I was young and used to come back smothered in juice stains from my great aunt’s house in Kent.

We found some elderflower, but plants such as jack by the hedge, wild garlic and mushrooms seemed to be hiding from us. And it was too early for berries, so perhaps an autumn walk will be in order.

It was a lovely way to spend a lunchtime – informative, entertaining and healthy!

Birthdays and Anniversaries: Advice

2011-06-06T02:57:00.000-07:00

Today is my brother's birthday. Happy birthday Phil, wherever you are. I hope you are still with us.

He was kind of cross that we got married on his birthday; I guess we stole his thunder, but it was only for one day really.

Advice: If you are going to plan something on a special day to someone else, check it out with them first. They may be flattered, or flattened.

I do remember our wedding day in Barnet, the wind blowing, the party at Sally's flat, the evening do at the Raglan Hall hotel. Musician friends singing, lots of work friends attending (who if I look at in the photos now I wouldn't have a clue who they are).

Advice: don't invite work friends to your wedding (unless they are also good friends). Invite people you think will still be in your life in ten years time.

Well, it's 30 years since we got married. A lot has happened in that time; we have two wonderful kids, four albums (in the same band) and lots of happy memories. But the last five years haven't been quite so good, and all good things come to an end, as they say.

Advice: count the good things that were, and measure them st the bad things that are. The glass is probably half full, even if it used to be full and a lot got spilled.

Some other anniversaries you may not be aware of today;

1868: Robert Falcon Scott leader of ill-fated south polar expedition, was born

1903: Aram Khachaturian, the Russian composer, was born

1933: The first concrete was poured for the foundations of the Boulder Dam

1944: D-Day, the allied forces launch their major offensice and land on the beaches of Normandy

1966: James Meredith, the first black man to brave the colour bar at the University of Mississippi, was shot

1968: Robert Kennedy was shot

1975: The UK has it's first nationwide referendum over the continued membership of the European Economic Community

2007: The G8 summit in Germany finally recognises that climate change is a 'bit of an issue'

Feel free to add any more intersting dates in comments below.

The Curious Tiger

2011-05-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

I feel the earth beneath my feet, damp and soft. It smells warm and familiar – comforting. My claws sink into the ground and I move quietly through the forest. I am not hungry; only yesterday I ate very well indeed. But today I want to walk through my domain and mark my territory.

I tread softly, for I sense a change. There is a tang in the air – a smell I do not recognise. I stand still and listen, my whiskers twitch forward, my mouth slightly open, my ears attuned to every crackle and creak. Standing still, I am invisible. Small birds and animals fly and scurry round me. They know who I am, and rightly fear me. That which is ahead of me is new, unknown, and I am cautious.

I am also a curious tiger, and instead of avoiding this uncertainty ahead, I move steadily forward. My presence is undetected, I am sure. The heavy forest air brings me scents I know and many that I do not. It is the unknown, which draws me.

I enter a small clearing and smell wood moke scented with the ripeness of burnt flesh, and of many other things I do not recognise. I am intrigued. I move closer and see a small fire in the clearing, but not fleeing through the forest as it may do on dry, dangerous days. It is controlled, restrained. I look carefully about: next to the fire is something I have never seen before. It smells of rotten plants. Next to that, is the monkey.

I call it a monkey for that is what it most closely resembles. It is decked in something that is not fur and does not seem to be a part of it. It smells of plant, and of bitter things that make me open my jaws widely so that I may detect their taint more clearly.

My ungoverned movement has given me away - the monkey has seen me! It stands with a strange stick in its hand as if in defiance. Puny creature! I lift my head – the stick exudes its own unique odour: It smells of wood, of the caves, and it the air about it tastes hard and sharp like the red rocks in the mountains.

The monkey is afraid. It waves the stick hesitantly in my direction and I can taste the odour of fear. This is reassuring; the creature is not so foreign, it fears me. Yet as well as fear there are many other smells and tastes that cling and cloy my senses – that of the creature itself, and many more that surround this strange animal. I decide that its signature is as distasteful as if it has dived into every kind of excrement it could find.

I gently pad a little nearer. The monkey sits down upon a rock, but has not stopped glaring at me, or pointing its stick - as if that might stop my progress! Its pale skin is damp, slick with sweat – in its fear. This is as it should be.

I do not wish to eat the monkey. But I am curious. I have heard of these creatures in the forest before. I have smelled their flesh-burning fires. I have tasted them upon the wind before. Like most, I have avoided them. But this is just one, on its own.

I move closer. The monkey is now shaking, trembling beneath my gaze like a found calf. Its legs have a very fine fur upon them, and each hair stands on end at my approach. Still it points the stick at me. Now I am nearer, I detect something else – further pungency from the stick: it stings my nose and I twitch in disgust. The stick smells hot, and it smells cold. It smells … of death.

I am now near enough to kill easily. But first, to try and understand this creature, I lick its nearest leg with my long rasping tongue. I can taste it completely now: Piss and sweat, strong, natural odours, combined with a myriad of other strange tastes that are sour and rancid. The creature shivers. It does not look nor sound like any monkey I know. I do not think it would be good to eat.

I look into its eyes, trying to fathom exactly what kind of creature this is? It has the tang of carnivore, yet is rank. I do not understand - as I look into its eyes I see nothing – no connection, no life behind its small, frightened white and blue eyes. It is almost like a dead thing. If I look at any other creature, or they look at me, we see that we are one. We know that whether we are predator or prey, we are all part of the same. We all know what we are and where we belong in this world. This creature – this upright, smooth skinned, foul tasting monkey – does not have a place.

With its acid taste lingering in my mouth, I yawn (for effect, I admit), and the creature waves its death stick at me again. At any moment it may fall back off its rock, its thin legs waving skyward – that would amuse me. But it does not. It just keeps watching me with those dead eyes. Bored, I turn my back on the thing – it is not worthy of my time or my interest.

I walk away, swaying my tail in contempt, letting the monkey see my strength and power. of course, it does not understand, it does not realise that I have given it the gift of its own life. that gift is a waste - I am sorry for such a thing that does not belong to the world.

My curiosity is satisfied. I move on, knowing that such creatures will not warrant any further investigation should they ever cross my path again.

(C) Carolyn Sheppard 2006

Dowse and out

2011-05-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

I spent a few days in Mallorca recently and instead of coming home brown, I came home black and blue. Fell off (through) a ladder which wasn’t very clever. I did replace a roof tile and take down and chomp (ready for burning) around 30 dried palm fronds though.

I was only there for a few days, but long enough to make the place habitable for Sally for her last proper sojourn there as resident before she turns the casa over to Orlando’s children. I also managed to spend quite a bit of time watching two hoopoes in the neighbour's yard. Wonderful looking birds! The house, though, is too difficult for Sally to maintain, so it’s good that it is going back to Carlota and Robert now. There’s so much needs doing! Oh - and this was how the garden looked before we had a good tidy.

That’s why I was up a ladder, trying to clear the weeds off the bathroom roof, and that’s where I came a cropper as the ladder slipped its feet and I descended ungracefully and vertically through the rungs.

But black and blue notwithstanding, it wasn’t just Mallorca that prompted me to write this blog post today. I had an interesting couple of days this weekend too.

Firstly, I spent Saturday in Kingston helping out at a summer fair for the Aurora Health Foundation. This is a small local charity that works with people who were abused as children. It’s a valuable service and one that is desperately seeking funds, as are so many of these independent charities today. But they provide services that you can’t get anywhere else – counseling, complementary therapies, all sorts of things that the NHS can’t provide, even if they wanted to.

I spent my time singing mostly – sitting in the corner with my guitar and mumbling my music. I enjoyed the day not because of the singing, but because of the amazing atmosphere of cooperation and fun that there was. Everyone involved in the day was volunteering their services. What a nice bunch of people to meet. I also liked seeing the parakeets that are wild in that part of London. Noisy birds, but oh my, so colourful!

Late Saturday night my phone beeped at me. ‘Are you awake?’ – well I am now! My friends who had been to Glastonbury had been diverted and were near our house, could they stay over as they had to be back in our town in the morning? Well, of course.

So I set them up in my son's room, on his double bed. Meanwhile, an hour later (2am), Penni came by after a late night London gig. She stayed downstairs. So when my daughter came down in the morning, it was with some surprise to see five of us sitting down to breakfast.

The reason my friends were over our way was to visit Therfield Heath and go dowsing. I'd had a play with two dowsing rods and they wiggled wonderfully at the kitchen table! However, on the heath - where we had a very windy and slightly damp picnic - I was not so successful.

In an area on top of a huge water table, ripe with natural energy lines (St Michael's and Mary Ley lines go through our town, as does the Greenwich Meridian and two of the oldest Roman roads in Britain) I detected nothing. My pendulum did not swing except when caught by a gust of chilly wind, and my dowsing rods remained immobile in my frozen hands.

Looks like I'm not a natural dowser. The others in the group were tripping gaily over the ancient tumuli and planting little flags where they felt energy responses in the earth. And I wondered what it was I was missing - like being at a party and the only one sober, or in a room where everyone is speaking a different language.

I enjoyed it though - a different experience. As I wandered back across the heath to go home, there was a heavy metal rock band in a trailer playing to an audience of about three down by the sports club. There were dog walkers and children tumbling down the hills, rolypoly style. Kite fliers enjoyed the wind and the larks were christening the cool air with their melodies. Good thing that red kite I'd seen this morning wasn't around or they'd be dinner!

A long day

2011-05-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

See these guys? You've heard of them. So, why are they in my blog? Well, it all starts with a rather ordinary day. I woke at 7, had a bath, and eventually got number one son out of bed by 10, when we were due to drive daughter to work and him to see his girlfriend in Birmingham.

All the way to Brum was easy. He and I had a nice chat, the traffic was easy. The Sat Nag took us up the M6 and then the M48 - not my preferred route, should have gone off the A46 to our particular destination. No matter, I like arguing with the sat nag.

I dropped Alex off, turned around and headed straight back. It was about 12.45 by then. Sat nag said 'go this way' - I ignored and headed for the A46. Then the A45. Wonderful! Then sat nag took me on to the M1. OK, I can cope with that.

Well, right up until we got to Silverstone I could cope with that. 'Slow, Pedestrians in Road' said the big overhead sign. What?! Well, we slowed just past the turn off for the services. We slowed, then we stopped.

Something was up ahead, and there was no turn off for us to escape. We waited for 10 mins, then 15. Most people turned their cars off then. The sun was beating down. Three lanes of stationary traffic. And not a bean in the other carriageway either. Whatever it was had closed the entire motorway.

30 minutes. An hour. We are out of our cars, wandering up and down, talking to eachother and seeing who was going to be late for what. Some motorbikes cruised down the gaps, irritated by the open car doors. But they didn't get any further when they got to the traffic stop which we could see in the distance. Flashing lights, just below a green bridge.

The beautiful sun beat down on the hot tarmac and hot children, dogs and other motorway creatures were seranaded by the muffled tannoy and achingly annoying permanent 'vroom' of the nearby racetrack.

Amazingly, no one lost their tempers. One story reached us that someone was on the bridge threatening to jump. Another said an accident, someone else said protestors. I don't know. But I do know that for two hours I was parked on Britain's busiest motorway, with several hundred others.

I stood in the fast lane. I chatted with various people, including a huge guy in a green tracksuit from the tour bus ahead. Yes, one of the Harlem Globe Trotters (I think he's third from left on the ground in this pic, but somewhat older and a little heavier now). I wish they'd got out and given us a show! Imagine the news coverage an impromptu show on a motorway would have gotten them. Instead we had kids playing football on the other carriageway, and an old man walking his dog. At one point we saw a cyclist heading full speed down the other carriageway (the wrong way). It was all getting rather surreal.

The Harlem Globetrotter guy was nice, from Washington. A bit worried as they had a show at Wembley at 6pm. Tomorrow was Belgium... Radio and internet reports said 'the M1 will be closed till 3.15. Till 4.15. Till 4.30...' Eventually the highway folks gave up. And for the first time ever we had to do a three point turn on the motorway and drive the wrong way back up the hard shoulder.

I didn't folow the diversion back onto the M1 -that was anightmare. I cut across to Northampton and then home that way.

I eventually got home at 6pm. That's a helluva long day for a simple round trip to Birmingham and back.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-13253791 - yup, it was a jumper! We thought we were having a bad day, hers must have been worse.

Closed!

2011-04-15T00:48:00.001-07:00

The first 'day' of our adventure to Athens was mostly travel and then straight into an event. But the second day was slightly less hectic. Waking at 8.15 I was up and showered when my boss knocked on my door to hand me the phone so I could rearrange a meeting. I'd said 12 April and meant 12. But never mind, we were still able to meet up with our contact at the BGS and duly headed back down into the metro - our favoured means of travel around the city.

Our hotel was extremely nice, and near the metro, as was our original hotel. We'd had to change as we'd been told that not only was it in the red light district (not really a problem) but that there were regular riots and drug dealing in the square. We will do a lol for our employers, but not that (drugs, fights or the other)!

The metro stations were wonderfully clean, bright, almost advert free and efficient. In some stations the excavations had exposed ancient works, so instead of being covered up they were made a feature of the station (see picture above). We found our station for our meeting and headed off. Down leafy roads, into a nice residential area. 'What number are we going to?' asks boss. I show her the email, and she says '84'. Off we went up this little alley. Past no. 8 ... past 18... past 34... until we could see the other end of the street where it ended in a junction. 'Let me see that email again'. I handed it over - '8A'. Oh dear, we'd passed our destination probably a quarter of a mile back. Well, it was a warm morning, not bad weather for a nice walk.

After our meeting we decided to head into town and see a few things before making our way airportwards (no, I know that's not a word, but it works doesn't it?). Having had no breakfast, our first priority was lunch. We took the metro again into the centre and as soon as we walked out of the station, were surrounded by ancient things including some restoration works stacked up that made it look a bit like a DIY store garden display. The city was bright in the sunshine, the streets buzzing with people and we wandered on towards what we hoped was the centre.

We found a lovely pedestrian area that underlooked by the mountain (OK, I'm being liberal with the English language, but it's the best word I can think of for now). There were cafes, street sellers and plenty of gypsy beggars. We eventually selected a restaurant where the waiter did not leap out at us and try and drag us into their lair. As we walked past one set of waiters, we declined their offer and a comment was dropped in Greek. It was quite obviously a compliment (perhaps not a very tactful one) directed at my colleague. She was oblivious but I turned slowly and looked at the waiter who, probably assuming I had understood (well I understood the sentiment if not the language) looked away quickly.

The thing about being OFU is that people ignore you and that means you can observe. It's a bit like being invisible, except that people don't walk into you. This can be especially entertaining when you are out with someone who is younger, pretty and thin. My boss stood out in Greece - she is tall, pale and attractive. She turned heads regularly. What amused me was her not noticing - car drivers, passers by, waiters... they most certainly liked to look, potentially to the detriment of their own safety!

We had a good lunch and came up with a cracking plan for some events later in the year. One thing I've learned about my boss, I don't think she stops working - ever! As the weather was warm and our business part of the day over, she changed out of her business clothes into a dress.

After our meal we wandered down to the entrance to the nearest ancient monument which I thought looked like the Acropolis (in fact I had said it was the Acropolis - d'oh!). The waiter who had previously commented in Greek said, in English as she passed, 'Oh, nice dress'. She completely missed the comment. 'I was expecting something bigger' my colleague said as we looked at the brilliant marble structure nestling in the rich green of pine trees and well-watered grass. It was, in fact, the Agora (left) another ancient structure. Well, now we were even - I scored minus one for misidentifying the Agora, she scored minus one for reading 84 instead of 8A! (Actually, as I got the date of the meeting wrong, I was probably on minus two.)

We wandered over to the guard who was on the phone. 'Closed'. He said, brusquely. Oh. 3pm? That was rather early! Never mind, time for the Acropolis. We meandered on down the street to the next metro station, to discover (on asking a friendly policeman) that we were at the bottom of the road that leads to the Acropolis. Our walk commenced, in the warm sunshine, past a flea-market and on up into the foothills below the Acropolis. After a wonderful walk past many interesting sights, we reached the gate to the Acropolis. 'Closed'. Just our luck! One afternoon in Athens and we manage to miss the opening times of it's greatest attraction. Instead we climbed up onto a rock with superb views over the city and of the Acropolis above (these are on my Facebook page). I took a picture of my boss on the rock as she looked so relaxed and summery. In fact it could be that we hadn't talked work for about half an hour, so maybe she was unwinding.

One amusing thing we noticed on the way up, and back down, from the Acropolis was the dead dogs everywhere. They weren't really dead - they were just sleeping. But there must have been a good 15 or more of them, some lying in the shade, some flaked out in the sun. They looked a bit like the aftermath of a cull.

Being in a foreign city means I have to buy something for my family - in this case I bought a little snow globe of the Acropolis. We had joked about there being a snow globe tourist trinket - because the last thing we could imagine was snow! Being a collector of playing cards (this is my claim to 'sad'), I also purchased some cards. They were not exactly the usual pretty views or ancient sights, they were in fact called 'Greek Lovers' and (once I'd opened the packet) I realised bordering on pornographic! We headed back down into the town, then back to the hotel to pick up our bags and head off to the airport. On the way we stopped for some strawberries - huge piles of them displayed like mini strawberry mountains on stalls in the market square. Our journey back to the metro though took us via a slightly less touristy street. We didn't go far along it before turning back into tourist land. Closed shops, sad looking people, rubbish in the streets and the shops that were open selling house remnants. It wasn't the most appealing of areas, but it was the real face of the city, the darker side that every place has.

At the hotel we sat for a while before beginning our homeward journey. I passed the unopened playing card pack to my colleague - she was looking and laughing and completely unaware that the senior concierge was looking over her shoulder, at her and at the cards, with his eyebrows rather animatedly heading skywards. I was in fits of laughter because he then walked on, shaking his head at me in a friendly way and she had not noticed. The other thing I've learned about my boss: she is good fun to be out and about with, both for work and when off duty.

On the plane home she worked for three and a half hours solid. I slept and dreamed and did a bit of demon wrestling. A productive and informative and educational trip. I really want to go back again one day.

Facepage and Webbook

2011-04-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

That's how tired I was by Wednesday evening when talking with my boss. Facepage and webbook - they sound kind of convincing, don't they? Mind you, she was not at all convinced that there is a dinosaur called Barry (baryonyx walkeri actually). I have no idea how we ended up talking about dinosaurs - it was late and we were on the bus from North terminal to South. Which was a bit mad really. Our flight was from South terminal Gatwick, but we had been emailed by Squeezyjet that it was changed to North. So we parked at North. And were then told it was South. So we took the Gatwick hornby train set to South and did catch our flight to Athens. But on the way back our flight was delayed, so it landed at North and we were unloaded and put on a bus to South. So we got off at South, picked up our luggage, and got the train back to North. And then, driving out, went past South again. The amount of times we'd gone between the two terminals for just two flights ... felt like we'd travelled halfway to Greece.

We'd pulled two rather long days by this time so our conversation was starting to sound a little surreal, and still with a two hour car journey ahead. No worries, though - in the mood for Abba (but none available) we were kept awake instead with loud French rap music. Of course, what else? But having taken you to and from Athens in just a couple of paragraphs, perhaps I should fill in the bit in the middle which was a business trip for a networking event in Athens. The University I work for has networking events all over the place - there was one last month in Hong Kong which my colleague went to and next month I get to go to Southend too! But this time it was Athens, to the land of fabulous ancient architecture and, as it happens, my first sight of a modern European shanty town. The financial situation in Greece is difficult as we know, but I guess it's diferent when you see it with your own eyes, in Europe (not some far away African country as we are used, and immunised - not immune - to). That was a very small part of our trip though. The purpose of our trip was the social event with our alumni.

We arrived in Athens after waking at 4.30am to leave at 5 and catch a 9am flight. So we started our day tired - but also didn't have a lot of rest time as we had to time shift two hours forward on arrival. No problem: metro from airport to hotel, enough time for a change of clothes and then off to the venue by taxi. Unfortunately lots of registered delegates did not turn up, but fortunately lots of those who hadn't, did. But this did mean the hand-writing of many badges with long and complicated Greek names. Thankfully we had a colleague with us, Maria, who is native Greek. Otherwise I think I could have proably totally screwed up the spelling of so many Greek names as to have invented a new language. The event went well and thankfully did not finish too late. There was nice food and drink and lots of good talk and socialising - exactly what we wanted. After the event we went back to the hotel (boss, myself and Maria) and had our debrief camped on Maria's bed with tin trays full of take-away leftovers from the buffet. An odd 'hotel picnic'. Plenty of laughter though, that always helps round things off nicely. I slept like a log and awoke fresh and ready for action at 8.00am. First thing I had to do was call and re-arrange a meeting that I had got completely the wrong day for. But it was ok. Day two of our mini-Greek odyssey began. And that, I think, will be another chapter.

Picture: even the Metro stations have ancient monuments in them - this is one that is showcased in the station where they dug up a Roman watercourse.

18 women, 3 dogs, 2 Irish songs and a dozen lawyers

2011-04-06T01:01:00.000-07:00

What a busy week! Last weekend I went on a walking trip with 18 women and 3 dogs (and the only bitch had four feet, honest). We went to Burnham Deepdale on the Norfolk coast and, as luck would have it, the weather was lovely! We strung out along the coastal path as we walked but I kept getting left behind. Totally my own fault, I'd keep stopping to look at avocets, oystercatchers, ducks and geese.

I didn't know a lot of the people walking, but I was with two friends and maybe have made a couple more - unless my bad singing put them off in the garden on the Saturday night. It was a great fun weekend though - good company, good food (we cooked en-masse in the kitchen) and great countryside. I do like the Norfolk coast.

Sunday evening was Mother's Day and I was taken out by my daughter for a lovely meal. Accompanied by my mother, and my adopted daughter (not really, but she's like another daughter) plus other friends, it was a lovely evening. An exhausting weekend! But my busy-ness did not stop there.

On Monday night I went to the local open mic session in Wivenhoe and I played a couple of songs. The audience seemed to like them (it was early on, so not a lot of people there at that time). Later on I played again, only this time with my office colleague, Matt. I played, he sang - two Irish songs with lots of enthusiasm. Other colleagues came along to watch (I was astounded, usually work mates say 'yeah, I'll be there' and have a string of excuses in the morning why they didn't turn up) and videoed the performance. Available on Youtube of course (7 Drunken Nights, Rocky Road to Dublin) .

So how do we get to a dozen lawyers? Back to work! On Wednesday night I ran my first event for my new employer: a networking session for lawyers at the Inner Temple in London. On the whole it went well but I think the sunny weather persuaded a few folks to hit the sunshine rather than the smoking room (as our venue was called). My biggest mistake of the whole evening was a simple one I should have seen coming. I wore the wrong boots! Before we'd even started my feet were smarting. Oh well, hopefully that was the worst that happened.

I met an extremely interesting and lovely lawyer called Mark who, as well as having got up to some 'high jinks' at University, has also been Knighted by the Pope. I had never heard of that before. He told me how he had a green suit made, a hat with ostrich feathers and got to wear a sword! Fabulous - I hope he sends me the photo. He also mentioned that the papal crew told him that most folks knighted by his holiness only last about six months, so was he sure he wanted to buy the green suit? Admittedly, I guess most of the be-knighted (that doesn't quite work lingusitically, does it?) are probably beyond dotage, unlike Mark.

So - an active and enjoyable week. Oh, and I played badminton on Thursday at work too. You know, just in case I don't do enough in my days...

Dreams and food

2011-03-30T05:45:00.001-07:00

Well I did dream last night, but I have no clue what about, so you don't get a recounting here today. I have been told that there is nothing more uninteresting than telling someone else your dreams (in a way so negative as to put me off ever mentioning them to that person again) but I like hearing about dreams. I like the way they weave reality with fantasy, and also a little bit of prophecy.

My friend Chris posted this on Facebook, a link to an interesting little story about dreams: The Timekeeper at the Way Out of a Dream which I enjoyed and hope you do too. Now, on to food...

The picture on the right features my very first paella! Made from a low fat recipe, it includes all sorts of lovely ingredients such as squid, chicken, bacon, prawns, peppers, peas and of course rice. I used a risotto rice which worked really well.

I volunteer to cook sometimes for the family (musician friends) who are kindly hosting my presence during the week whilst I am working far from home. I had never tried a proper paella before, but with the help of John (who just happens to be a chef), I think I did ok this time. He did some chopping for me and prepared the mussels. Before last night I'd only ever eaten one mussel, so I was hoping I liked them.

The family ate the meal and no one has complained of feeling ill today, so I think it was a success. I will try something different next week.

Along the Devil's Dyke

2011-03-28T09:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I went with 12 others for a walk along the Devil's Dyke. It's a lovely old earthwork, one of the best preserved in the UK. The weather was mild and a bit misty (the sun came out after the walk was over). I didn't take any photos but I wish I had - the views over the fens were wonderful. I saw larks and some partridge, but not a lot of wildlife. I think 24 tramping boots probably put paid to any chances of that. You can see some really nice pictures here:

http://www.burwell.co.uk/content/devilsdyke.asp

The company was good. We didn't set a killing pace, just ambled along really, changing who we talked to as we went along. I spent some time talking to a lawyer who travels 2 hours each way into and out of London every day. Not sure I'd like that commute. She keeps chickens and is automating their pen. A real mixture of high-tech and ... well, chickens! After the walk we had a convoy of six cars taking us to a restaurant called the Missing Sock.

The food was lovely, and a reasonable price and there was a dog in the garden to play with, ponies and rabbits! An interesting and unusual sort of restaurant, one which has live music (I will try and get to play there sometime I think) and a host of characters who run the place. I can highly recommend it. I went into the garden and threw the ball for the dog, and whilst feeding the rabbits a young lady came out (at a birthday lunch with her granny) and said 'I didn't come here to be sexually harassed.' - Oh my, what on earth happened? The young lady looked around 17, but was in fact 15. 'He asked me for my facebook' she said, shocked. Because, after all, the guy was 22!! I suggested she take it as a compliment and agreed that on no account should she give him her facebook. Ah, how times have changed. In my day 'sexual harassment' (if we'd had the term) would have been someone pinching yer bum.

The reason we were all there was for a friend's birthday. 14 of us sat down to dinner in a huge circle - it was a bit like King Arthur's round table.

That was a nice way to spend the first half of a Sunday. (The rest of it was household stuff, but the walk and meal fortified me for that.)

Letter to my brother

2011-03-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

Hi Phil

Well, writing to you here seems a mad thing to do, but it's about the only way I can think of putting a message out there that you may get.

It's been a very difficult few years, and in the near future we will be selling the house in Royston. I don't know exactly where I'll be - at present I'm working in Colchester and spending the week staying with friends in Ipswich, but this job only lasts till the end of September.

So I'm going to have to job search again in the summer and who knows where I'll find work! It gets harder every time - and of course I am getting older. But hey, experience you know... well, it does count in some jobs, and in others I've been interviewed by folks so much younger than me I feel positively ancient.

Finding this job was lucky - I didn't really think about going back into higher education but when I saw this job, maternity cover at the University of Essex, I liked the description. And I love the job too; nice people, nice location and a great organisation. I'm getting used to the idea of having a job for a short time instead of a career move. It's ok really. I did a year at FFI and I'll be here for about seven months. That's long enough to make a difference. I might even look again at maternity cover work next time, because it is interesting to step into someone's shoes - knowing they are going to want them back again! Must remember to wash my feet more regularly...

Sally came round for late lunch yesterday. She's going to be 80 in January, can you believe it? She is starting, after all this time, to look like an old lady. Considering her age, she's been defiant to say the least. She's given up the Casa now, we go and clear out her stuff next month. Robbie and Carlota will take it over - there's lots of work to be done. It's still not on mains water or sewerage.

There's big stuff happening in my life and I worry that once we've moved, you won't know where to find us. We've been in Royston for more than 22 years now; it will be strange to leave (if I actually do - it is so dependent on work). Alex is at Uni, Mel at college and hoping for Uni next year.

I have to think sometimes who you know and who you don't - but I know you will remember Carol. She still lives in Royston and we regularly play Scrabble.

I hope you are well Phil, it would be nice to hear from you again one day.

Spring is in the air

2011-03-07T06:02:00.000-08:00

The sun may take its time and the cars may still have frosting some mornings, but according to the ducks on campus spring is definitely here! The drakes are getting terribly excitable and the ducks increasingly irritated. It is amusing to watch though. There are more boys than girls - seems to be a typical problem.

The other morning I walked from the main campus up to the Constable Building. On the way back I took the scenic route via the (rather muddy) lake paths. To my delight I saw six tufted ducks. The main lake is a haven for the 'bully boys' of the water world - seagulls. They compete with the ubiquitous ducks and the hesitant but resillient coots and moorhens. The tufties are cute but I was completely 'made up' when I saw ten water birds I didn't recognise. Low in body, sharp in beak, they looked a bit like mergansers (but I kthink they are more of a sea bird). Making a hasty field note in my work notepad, I hurried back to the office to look them up. Goosanders. Hey, I was close!

The daffodils are starting to thrust their little yellow heads out of their green sheaths, pink cherry blossom is squeezing out its coloured tips and the birds are twittering even more energetically than usual. The ripe sun is streaming through my window and making my computer screen almost impossible to read.

Spring is here. I like it.

Back to food

2011-03-04T08:45:00.001-08:00

Did you know it's Fairtrade Fortnight? I found out at work, because the students were promoting Fairtrade sweatshirts and had a stand with food on showing that - for example - in one cookie ingredients came from five different countries.

Check out http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get_involved/fairtrade_fortnight/default.aspx - find out about Fair Trade food and why, more than ever, we should look at what we eat not just for the goodness (or, as in most of my favourite foods, badness) but for the environmental and social effect the whole chain of events has.

The Jump

2011-03-03T02:00:00.000-08:00

I dreamed about a post-apocalyptic world. This is not surprising as I watched 2012 the other day - but that was all the lead up to the latest take on a global disaster. Not asteroids, not climate change, not even alien invasion - 2012 was about sun spots heating up the earth's core. Oh, and that did cause a little bit of climate change.

So what was my vision of the aftermath? Well, the floor kept shifting, a bit like partly cooked pastry. There were rooms where we had sheltered, with old blankets and a strange colour to the atmosphere. And when the ground began to shake - we had to jump.

This jump in my dream struck me because it was so physical. Not the jump so much as the falling back down. We jumped straight up many feet - probably as high as a house. And I knew that the fall back down was straight down, onto the earth. But I also knew that the fall would be fine if I just relaxed.

The sensation of falling was very physical, I was extremely 'present' in this action in my dream. And after the feeling of falling, as I was relaxed, hitting the ground was fine. A gentle touch down.

I had not been drinking. I slept reasonably well, and the difficult dream world was challenging, but not frightening. I have no idea what it means, but I do now know that falling in dreams doesn't always have to end with waking up or hitting the ground dead.

This lovely picture was borrowed from: http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/ocean_dreams.html

Food security

2011-02-14T09:08:00.000-08:00

OK, what is food security – a lock on the fridge door? Oh, if only it were that simple. Because keeping food safe is not what food security is about – it’s about the very real potential that this planet will not have enough food to feed all the people that live on it.

It's not just about population numbers, it's about where most of the food we produce is being consumed. Although overall global food production is sufficient to meet the needs of the world’s 6 billion people, about 1 billion do not consume daily minimal requirements for protein and calories. And if everyone in the world ate food at the same rate that we do in the developed west, we would need six planets to feed us all.

The problem isn’t just the ‘greedy west’ (although it may be cited as a contributary cause); the point is, we are eating the wrong things and producing them in a way that is unsustainable.

Without getting too scientific and technical, I can explain briefly just why we need to eat less meat, less processed foods and reduce our reliance on mass production.

Firstly – meat! Did you know that pigs eat more fish than any other animal? Not a good idea when our seas are under threat. Do you realise it takes ten times more ‘energy’ to produce one unit of meat than it does one unit of vegetables? That means you could feed ten people instead of just one by reducing meat intake. PETA has a rather good article on this.

“According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off U.S. roads.”

Secondly – processed food. This is direct experience, not something I learned out of a book or on the internet. I used to travel to work with a guy from MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Farming and Fisheries as was). He would tell me not to eat lettuce, because its shape made a great ‘bowl’ for capturing all the chemicals in the rain and the pesticides used on them. He advised me to always cut at least two centimetres off the top of carrots, because that’s where all the chemicals collected. And, finally, how they had discovered that flour packed on wooden pallets had absorbed the wood preservative chemicals through the paper wrappings. We eat tons of chemicals - whether we want to or not.

Finally, mass production. To make meat cheap, it gets mass produced. And that involves some pretty inhumane practices, but more than that it involves unbalancing nature in a damaging way. There’s lots on this subject, but here’s just a taste of why monoculture (just one crop) has dangers and having all our animals together also increases public health risks.

So what is the answer? Can we revert to subsistence farming, can we convert the world’s production to organic farming? And can we change the eating habits of the whole of the western world? Oh my there’s a challenge, but actually, we do have to try.

The world is slowly becoming more and more aware that we are facing a real threat to our wildlife and habitats that will seriously deplete our biodiversity. But we are still largely ignorant of the role played by food production.

Do you know your favourite chocolate spread is full of palm oil? Do you know that the cheap bacon you buy in the supermarket means that certain species of fish are becoming extinct? It’s hard to expect everyone to suddenly become knowledgeable about how food is produced and the effect of various production techniques on the environment, but some very simple dietary habit changes could make the world of difference.

I’d love to give you the ‘answer’ right here – what to buy, what to grow, what to eat. But the truth is the responsibility is yours. Two very simple steps are to eat less meat and look for sustainability and eco-friendly logos on the food you buy.

This is a subject that should conern us all - whether we approach it from a species preservation aspect or personal health. It's important for us, the planet, and the future for every living thing.

Recommended reading:

The Meat Crisis
Crop diversity
Biodiversity, Ecosystems and Food Security
End of the Line
CABI Blog - dangers of high yeild crops
Fruit and Nut forests of Central Asia

Photo credit: Inhabitat

Valentine's day

2011-02-14T04:03:00.001-08:00

To affinity, and beyond!

2011-02-12T13:19:00.000-08:00

When I worked at the University of Cambridge, I used to run the University's 'affinity programmes'. A witty colleague once said to me 'to affinity and beyond' - which (as Toy Story was out at the time) was very amusing. The affinity programmes I ran were successful and profitable. It was a good time - a job I enjoyed and a period in my life that saw lots of changes.

But here I am, more than ten years on, and I'm going back into the world of higher education! I'm excited, indeed, but I'm also nervous. Not because of the job - the job looks great and the people I've met so far have been lovely. I know it's an environment I will enjoy - lots of people around, lots of communication and a chance to make a difference. Corny as it sounds, I like doing that in my jobs.

So why am I nervous? Because it's a change in my life that is wider than just my job. I am going to have to move to Colchester during the week - which will mean living 'on my own' (well probably in some hired room) for the first time in my life.

In other words, I have to 'grow up' at last. OK, it's only Monday to Friday - but it is a change, and a big change for me. Living away from home, planning and working and living with a whole different set of criteria for 'performance'.

I visited my new workplace today - there is a terrific gym. Perhaps I should join - instead of spending evenings mooching or playing on the computer, I could go to the gym daily. Get rid of some of this excess fat. Or perhaps I could write more... or perhaps... It's about motivation, isn't it?

I am motivated to do a good job, I am motivated to earn money for my family, I am motivated to get out there and do something. I just find the whole thing rather overwhelming.

What's the point of this post? Not a lot. I just needed to write my emotions out a bit. I am scared, nervous, excited and anticipating a real change in life. I guess it's quite simply one of the oldest fears in the book - change.

Wish me luck!

The Mountain and the Climber

2011-02-11T03:51:00.000-08:00

He sat with his friend and said ‘I like that mountain, it looks amazing. I’m going to go up it today’. His friend agreed that it was a nice mountain, but that he should take care and make proper preparations. Mountains, though immobile and ageless, could still be unpredictable.

Oh no, the mountaineer said, I am just going to look at it today. But when he got to the mountain, he found it intriguing. He wanted to scale its heights. The mountain called to him and he could not resist.

The start of the climb, the path was smooth and the slope gentle, the harder bits easy enough to negotiate with his experience. He knew mountains.

His friend wondered why he was gone so long, but was not concerned. The weather at home became windy, then it started to rain hard. He was worried that a storm was on its way. He decided to call the mountaineer and warn him. But the mountaineer had his phone turned off.

Halfway up the mountain the going got tougher. But he persevered, this was a lovely mountain and he wanted to reach the top and see the view. As he climbed further and further the slopes became steeper. He had no rope or crampons, but his hands were strong.

But then the weather changed, suddenly – unexpectedly. He was smothered in fog; a wet, dank fog that sank into his light clothes and chilled him to the bone. He started to shiver, but he continued. He could get above the fog, still see that view. His feet, clad only in light shoes, were blistered, but still he continued. That view was in reach.

The friend wondered now what had happened to the mountaineer. He thought. Should he send out a search party? Should he go looking himself? Whilst he pondered, the mountaineer was still climbing. But now it was snowing.

Cold and weak, he realised at last that the summit of the mountain was probably too high to reach, but still he persevered. He clambered over an icy boulder and slipped. He tumbled down a hundred feet. Battered and bruised he picked himself up. To climb on, or turn around? He was nearly at the top – and the view still held promises.

He thought about what his friend would say – how he would admonish him for not being properly equipped and for taking on such an adventure. Even more so he would be cross that he had not turned around at the first sign of trouble. And while he thought he continued to climb. He was annoyed. How dare his friend tell him how to climb? He’d been doing it for years! He knew that the view would be worth it – a view in a million to be sure.

The friend knew that nothing he could have said would have made a difference. Even though on frequent occasions he had reminded the mountaineer to check the weather first, he knew that the mountaineer was driven and if the impulse took him, he would not listen to his friend. The friend began to feel resentful. His wise advice had been ignored. If the mountaineer was in trouble, it was his own fault.

Nearing the top, the mountaineer was excited. The view… the view… he panted as the cold air froze the very sweat on his skin. With the summit in sight the mountain shifted. A few loose rocks, some icy shale. The mountaineer fell. He slid and tumbled down and down. He was cut and bruised by unfeeling rocks, he was scraped and scratched by brambles and bushes. He found no purchase on his descent, until he reached a bleak outcrop above a precipice where his torn body finally came to rest. He looked up at the sky above him, and to the tantalising summit above.

He sat up, realised that he could not walk and that he needed help. He fished his mobile phone from his pocket. It was, amazingly, still working. He tried to call his friend, but there was no answer. He pondered – should he call emergency rescue? There he was, injured on the mountain, but in no small part it was his fault. Well, his and the mountain’s.

Deep within the mountain, its soul chuckled. For mountains see, feel, breathe and move. Mountains are not just the rock and soil, they are the air and wind, the clouds and sky. And mountaineers cannot truly conquer them, and the mountain knows this.

The man sits on the mountain, injured and bleeding and needing rescue. And rescue will come – for it will be noticed that he has not returned. His ill-conceived venture will be acknowledged and someone will come for him eventually.

Meanwhile he is cold and bleeding. But it’s alright, he doesn’t’ die. And he still has the top of that mountain to see one day.

Do you think the view will be worth it?

Photocredit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lampywilf/456535194/

A year in fundraising

2011-01-11T01:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve worked in fundraising before – but for higher education. I am a nature lover and I’ve worked in conservation before, but as a volunteer on a nature reserve. So imagine what a wonderful opportunity it was for me to combine my marketing, communications and fundraising skills with my passion, conservation.

I joined Fauna & Flora International (FFI) in February 2010, taking a maternity cover post for the Major Donor Manager. By strange coincidence Liz (who has been with FFI for several years) and I worked together in the past, but I was assured by my interviewers that it was my presentation that won me the job. Before meeting the folks at FFI I researched the organisation and was very impressed and inspired. That most certainly influenced my performance at interview and I had no trouble talking about how I could contribute.

One of the first things I did was join FFI as a member. With very little cross-over time before Liz left (to produce her second beautiful bouncing baby girl), I was thrown in at the deep end (what other end is there?). I quickly became involved in producing reports for donors, getting to grips with the database and in planning for a major event – our spring Conservation Circle dinner with guest speaker, Stephen Fry. A man as charming in person as you may imagine. And he spoke with real feeling about the rhino relocation project and his own interest in conservation.

But it wasn’t all about posh frocks - meeting millionaires, celebrities and royalty. There was plenty of groundwork to do, and I enjoyed seeing the fruits of our labours. From researching potential individuals to approach to working with existing donors, there’s always plenty of paperwork to go with the fun stuff. What really engaged me about the job was the learning. Every report I wrote I learned more about the work of FFI. I was privileged to meet and work with the individuals who had hands-on influence in making change happen. In meeting donors, I met a cadre of individuals who, no matter what their background, all shared this common passion for conservation and the work of FFI.

From celebrities to bankers, from my next-door-neighbour (a retired Canon) to donors in far flung places, I was given a wonderful opportunity to engage with people who love and support what we do here at FFI.

In other words, fundraising isn’t just about putting out your hand and asking for money. It’s about understanding people, listening to what they want and making sure you are on the same wavelength, and if you aren’t, finding the right person who is. For me it’s about believing in what you are doing.

I have had a fabulous year at FFI where I have met some incredible people and developed my own knowledge far beyond my expectations. I have discovered new interests and learned new skills. But most importantly of all, I have discovered FFI and the amazing work that the committed people both within and external to the organisation do around the world.

www.fauna-flora.org/

Photo credits: Wildlife at Work Day; the Brooks's Club, London (featuring Carolyn, Rob, Catherine and Kelly with guanaco in the background) and school children engaging in active conservation education (photo by Helene Barnes). Photos (C) FFI

People Day

2010-11-21T07:31:00.000-08:00

It's a plane. Hung by it's tail from the ceiling. It's art. Is it? Tate Gallery confuses me. Turner and Constable I get, even Lucian Freud and Picasso, but a dead jet? Dead confusing! But that was only part of my day. Delight at the original Flatflord Mill, intrigue at the changing syltes of Tuner, and cold disinterest at a 10 ft canvas painted a single shade of blue. Art? Of course, just not for me.

I'm being a bit previous though... because my unplanned visit to the Tate was about the third along in the things I wanted to share with you.

First off I had two reasons for being in Lonond:an interview and an event, both for the latter half of the day. But time was on my side so I headed off at midday to take things at my leisure. Formally suited and booted, I made a big mistake. I wore my new boots. The mile walk from home to the station informed me rapidly of my misjudgement.

Slow train to Kings Cross, read my bit - exciting (if old) adventure novel. Goold old Colin Forbes! At Kings Cross I stood and waited for a Circle Line train. My boots reminded me to sit down. To my left was a young man, his short blond hair sculpted in the manner of a Longleat maze. He wore a bright white bomber jacket and a beard that Scooby Do may ahve mistaken for his master's.

He was noticeable. He came over to me and asked about trains to Tower Hill. Two give-aways that he wasn't local - one, his accent and two, he had spoken to a fellow passenger on the underground! I explained the workings of the Circle Line and prevented his boarding a train for Plaistow. I also admired his hair. "Only four quid! Took two hours." He was a bright, cheery young man. We continued to talk (whilst other passengers backed away, made insecure at this unusual behaviour - communication!). He was down from Hull (originally from Goole), visiting his mum as a birthday surprise. No luggage, he'd buy what he needed. He briefly mentioned football - but I dismissed any Northern stereotypes from my brain. He said he liked racing. Horses? I asked, no - dogs. Greyhounds? No - whippets. I didn't know they raced whippets (was unaware of this at the time: safe to click, honest). "I race them against the gyppos" he explained. "Won £600 off one dog, that's how come I'm here. Now I can buy mum a present." He also explained that he came by train as he was banned from driving. Here we are - Tower Hill! Your mum will be pleased. And your eight brothers and three sisters and numerous nephews and nieces.

Opposite me then, after my companion had disembarked, were two men. One was so neat and prim as to make Lionel Blair look scruffy. Perfectly manicured hands, sitting neat with legs together and pointed shoes level; perfectly coiffured grey curls and - yes - mascara. He was talking with his travelling companion, at rest his mouth a slightly pursed smile as if he had a secret.

His companion confused me. Perhaps 30, huge, long black dreadlocks, do-rag and a leather biker (but an expensive one) jacket. Very well turned out, smooth milk chocolate hands, fine skin - fingers didn't look rough. I could not fathom the pairing, but as St James's Park was nigh, I had to abandon my musings.

Too early for my interview, I hunted for somewhere to sit and prepare. I walked in the general direction of my destination and chanced upon a huge crowd of Firemen on their way to the Houses of Parliament. Outside, the firemen were gathered waiting for an audience with the Prime Minister, drums, whilstles and chants filling the slowly chilling air as the sun slipped behind the skyline.Opposite was an ancient medieval building called the Jewel House (left). I crept into the small coffee shop of this ancient building and inside were four firemen, sipping hot drinks and talking. "not outside, lads?" I enquired. They had got cold waiting for the PM. He would come out to them, rather than have all those people go inside the Houses of Parliament (and all the associated security). I ordered a hot chocolate. Here to see a Minister? they asked; no, for an interview I replied, not politics. Wishing me luck, they departed for their media circus to be drowned in the echoes of Big Ben and cameramen.

I read my CV again (the one I sent in application), read the job description again and prepared some questions and examples that I could use in the interview then went in search of the venue. Success! But more than an hour early. I wandered on and, serendipitously, found teh Tate Gallery just a few hundred yards on.

I don't get the planes. My eyes enjoyed the galleries, my feet didn't though. A sore-footed hour later I returned to the Pizza Express. Table for one please - but I am expecting someone. As the place was nearly empty, my words were heard. A man in the corner stood and called my name. I was early - he was early - and he was also about six foot six!

I think I interviewed well. I hope so. Did I know the consultant he mentioned? Oh goodness yes - and I was very tactful. I described the consultant as professional, knowledgeable and 'somewhat insular in some of his views'. Giles, my interviewer, agreed. I will hear after two weeks whether I have a second interview or not. We shall see.

My next rendezvous was with my friend Lin from Holland, over for the annual social event of the Romantic Novellists Association. I was delighted to be invited by her to accompany her, and I did. We met up (along with another of her UK friends, Kate) at her hotel and then headed for the Institute of Mechanical Engineers which was the event venue.

"Wine, madam?" Yes please! Strangely I didn't stay with Lin for long - I was soon chatting with Fiona and her friend Alan. "My mum used to make hats just like yours for the Beverly Sisters" I commented. (Note: she may have even made these hats"). Ah! Common ground. She knew them, and from our conversation, probably knew my mother and father. Show biz folks, you see.
Alan was very tall, her neighbour (not her husband) and he spoke with a soft, lilting Galway accent *sigh*. I talked to more people, drank more wine (though it was a cash bar, I didn't seem to buy any drinks). I met Charlotte and Sophie and one man (one out of perhaps the whole five men there) said "How lovely to see you!" gave me a big hug and kiss. To my sadness I didn't see him again that night. I had no clue who he was (but a little digging about on websites has revealed his identity to me - no, I have definitely never met him before!). After many nibbles and lots of interesting chats, polite clapping at meaningless (to me) speeches, I found myself once again with Lin plus Fiona and Alan. Lin had to leave but Fiona provided more drinks for myself and Lin's friend Kate.

Time came for us to go and Fiona asked where we were going. Kate was off in a different direction to me, and I was headed back to Kings Cross. "We can share a taxi" said Fiona and the four of us (Fiona, Kate, Alan and I) squeezed into a black cab and headed for Kings Cross. We had a real laugh in the taxi, chatting about I don't know what. I was in such a good mood. I was dropped off at about 10.30 in good time for trains home. As I walked towards the platform, our family friends were standing at the coffee bar. "Do you want a drink?" Nicole said. Yes please... hot chocolate.

They had been to see Bill Bailey as a birthday treat for Nicole and had a great evening. We chatted away on the train and I gave Guido his birthday present. His birthday had been weeks before, but I'd bought a lovely book for him at the Tate Gallery and the opportunity was too fortuitous to miss.

The best bit was that when we arrived home I got a lift back from the station. My feet, which had been trying desperately to get my attention all evening, were most relieved.

A people day - when everyone I spoke to from the lad on the train to the blind lady looking for the bus stop to the people at the social right up to my friends on the train home - had been in a positive mood. Or was it just me?

Photo credits: Jaguar picture from the Tate http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flight-international/2010/06/harrier-and-jaguar-at-londons.html

Jewel House - can't find, sorry!

Black cab: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8663355@N04/2354951901

A lovely day out

2010-11-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I took my son back to Uni in Wales and stayed overnight, planning a leisurely journey back. It was very leisurely indeed! A five or so hour journey took me all day because I went the 'scenic route' as my father would have called it.

First stop was the town of Lampeter which I had a little wander round - but it started to rain so I hit the road. Trusting the sat nav (which has never taken me the same route twice as yet) I headed for home and my first, unscheduled, stop was Raglan Castle. I just saw the sign and thought 'why not?' and drove up to this magnificent edifice. I took lots and lots of photos, but strangely my camera went on strike and only saved a few.

I had a quiet wander round the castle - by now it was not raining and the autumn sun lit the colours of the trees and cast long shadows on the castle walls.

Further on I drove, enjoying the autumn leaves. The sat nav decided for some reason to take me back via Gloucester (having arrived via Bath) and - realising where I was (I do hate the disconnection with route that these automatons engender, but I was travelling alone so it made sense) I thought a quick diversion to Minchinhampton would be in order. And - travelling through the centre of Gloucester and out the other side, I once again visited the little town near where my family lived many generations ago.

I had visited the town with my family some 40 years ago, but had no memories of it save the grave of some relatives which I had in my mind because of a photograph my father took. I knew what to look for and found the church. Exploration brought me quickly to their tomb - my ancient relatives who lie beneath now crumbling marble. Sad to see how it has deteriorated, but I may be able to salvage the words on the tomb from the earlier photograph for they are nearly completely obliterated by time now. They are the ones surrounded by the little iron fence.

There's more information on the town here - Minchinhampton - it's very picturesque. I wandered around the town enjoying the old buildings and the feel of the place. I then headed off home, along roads lit by autumn sun and then enjoying a red sunset. A day with no pressure, no time limit, just A to B at my own pace. A very nice day indeed.

Two performances

2010-10-12T13:06:00.000-07:00

And I learn that I can't tiptoe in cowboy boots across a wooden floor.

Sunday night I was the support act at Hitchin Folk Club, to the amazing Mr Dave Swarbrick. Swarb (as he is affectionately known by those who know him and those who don't) played amazing violin - no mean feat given his physical condition. He entertained with stories about the history of many of the tunes and chatted a little in between numbers, but mostly he just played with incredible dexterity.

I'm not a great one for violin on its own, and I must admit that I lost the thread of some of the tunes, and also found that violin without accompaniment does not fully sate my personal tastes, but it was still a good night.

My performance was obviously ok - for the first time ever I got whistles of appreciation! I sang a new song which I finished with. I'd only written it on Friday, but the audience seemed to like it. Maybe it's not always the quality of the song, but the quality of the performance. I certainly put my heart into it.

I sang a few songs of my own, and a couple of covers. Interestingly enough I had a discussion with the audience (I talk to the audience quite a bit) that I never thought I'd have in a folk club: 'do you want Snow Patrol or Eric Clapton?'. A vote was had and the show of hands was in favour of Eric. I sang 'Wonderful Tonight' but insisted that, as my music partner was absent, that the audience sing the guitar riff. It atually worked wonderfully - with a soft 'hm hm hm hm hmmmm, hu hm hm hm hmmm hm hm hm...' adding a lovely cadence to the song. Must try that again sometime.

After I had introduced Swarb I tried to creep back to my seat across the back of the hall... that's when I learned about my boots and the floor.

That was the Sunday night. On Monday, I had a very different performance to make. A poetic recital. I don't think I've read poetry out loud since I was at school, but considering it a 'performance' was fine, and I think I read it OK. It was the first time I've ever had any 'duty' whatsoever to perform at a funeral.

The funeral was of a family friend, Pamela Page Smith, who died aged 87 last month. I've known her my entire life, but then again - as is often the case - I discovered yesterday that I didn't really know her at all.

I learned a lot about her life; she used to be a BBC Concert Painist as well as a music teacher. Being a friend of my mother's, I guess we had a different kind of relationship, but in the late 1970's my mother and I did live with her and her husband for a short while. She put us up when we were 'between houses' shortly after my father died.

The interesting thing at the funeral was that many, many people subsequently mentioned when they lived with her and Erwin, her husband (departed 1993). Though she had no children, it seems their house was always open to visitors.

She left me her guitar (a nice classical) and mandolin. The mandolin is a lovely round-backed one, which used to belong to Erwin. He played violin and mandolin, she played piano (and a bit of guitar). What a musical, amazing pair they were in their day. I've never actually owned a mandolin before - believe it or not. I think it's time I learned to do more than strum a few chords. This one has a lovely tone.

So I have memories of them - musical memories. I often think of her at the piano and it was lovely to hear one of her pupils play at the wake afterwards. What a legacy she has left - thousands of people learning to play the piano. That's quite something.

Philip Dwight Sheppard

2010-09-21T00:38:00.000-07:00

Hi Phil

It's sort of hard to write you a letter when I don't know where you are - so this is my 'into the ether' letter to you.

There are times in your life when you love your brother, and times when siblings fight like cat and dog. When young we did have our fall-outs (I still remember the plasticine airplanes with pins in the end, and I'm sure you remember me hitting you over the head with a cricket bat), but mostly - it's having a friend who has shared some of your earliest memories.

We are still living in the same place, so you know where we are. I know you were last in Cornwall, and we did try to find you a couple of times, but without success. I guess I want to talk to you now because when old friends pass away, it does make you nostalgic.

Pam passed away last month at 87! Not bad going, eh? She didn't have a great time the last few years, but Sally regularly went to visit her and stayed in that huge house in Temple Fortune. Pam was born in that house - I know she wanted to die there, but they took her to hospital with a stroke and then after two weeks pneumonia got her. Yet another one who went into that particular hospital in London and never came out. I seem to have quite a collection of friends/relatives who make that their last stop.

She was born in that house, and never moved out though I'm sure lots of people would have rather seen her in a care-environment than struggling with those stairs and that kitchen in her less-mobile years. There is still the huge piano, I guess her cousin, Evelyn, will have to work out what to do with that! It must be in the will somewhere. It was a Bechstein, a lovely huge great thing.

She did play almost up to the end - but when she couldn't play properly any more it upset her so much she stopped.

Quite a few of our senior friends and family have passed away since we last talked - and it's been odd not to have you at the funeral. Angela went into hospital for a heart op (which she didn't come out from)a few years back and on the trolley going into theatre she said 'I could make a nice cocktail dress out of this' whilst looking at her hospital gown. That was SO Angela!

But this isn't a letter about telling you all the folks who have died (there have been plenty, but that's not surprising at our age, the next generation up are slowly filing out).

The kids are growing - in fact I can't call them kids any more. Alex is 19 and off to Uni. He's going to Lampeter where Phoebe went. And Mel is 16, studying for her A Levels at 6th form college.

Life is, as ever, full of changes. Shave the Monkey are doing another reunion next year (just two gigs in February), I'm playing with my music partner in Tu still, and hoping to get together with another guy to add bass to his rockier gigs at some point. If only I can find the time!

Well, time to start work now so I'll add more to this later. Maybe one day - you will actually read this. In which case, hey Phil, I miss you.

Situational Awareness

2010-09-17T05:11:00.000-07:00

On the train the other day I sat next to a man who had a huge iPad out, preparing slides for some talk he was giving. He was talking to his companion opposite and said 'I hope it won't be more than 40 slides'.

40 slides?!! OMG... death by PowerPoint! And, sad to say, as I sneaked a look out the corner of my eye, I could see all his slides filled with text.

You can picture it, I hope. A room full of people watching the screen, trying desperately to read blocks of text and totally missing whatever he was saying. And the best bit?

Oh the best bit was when I noticed the title of one slide... 'Situational awareness'.

If you have a chance, watch this YouTube, and you'll know exactly how to murder your audience with nothing more than a set of slides...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck

Cartoon borrowed from http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/call-me-cassandra/death-by-powerpoint With acknowledgment to Alex Gregory of The New Yorker.

A writing exercise

2010-09-16T14:52:00.001-07:00

Here's my contribution following this evening's Royston Writers' Circle task. I was given a character description (the female lead below, with some pretty specific characteristics) and a setting (village fete). I didn't quite stick to the script, but I did get both in. Here goes!

The Bitch, the Pitch

Chantelle rolled out of bed to the sound of Chris Evans on Radio 2. "Bloody hell..." she muttered to herself. She hadn't used the radio setting on the alarm since Rudy had left!

She fumbled with the snooze button and buried her head under the pillow. In what seemed like just seconds, the radio perked into life again, playing some ancient 80s type trash. Just because Rudy had been into retro didn’t mean she’d have to put up with this shit anymore! Pulling herself upright in bed she twirled the radio dial… Capital. Oh well, better than that annoying twerp who’d first woken her.

She looked about the room: matching cool pastel shades, matching runner and cushions. Time for a change! At lunchtime she’d run over to that new shop in Regents Street just a short dash from the office.

After careful consideration she dressed herself in a Stella McCartney suit – her favourite outfit for impressing new clients. But then she paused, looking at the fabulous effect in the mirror, she realised that she’d worn this combo before when first pitching for the account. Oh no... with a groan and a cup of rooibosh tea in one hand, she returned to the wardrobe to make a new selection.

After 20 minutes on her hair, another 15 on her makeup and the wasted time changing outfits, she knew she was going to be late. Thank goodness it was only a ten minute cycle ride to the office. Ah – but today she wouldn’t have the time to change and do her hair again if she cycled and she didn’t want to go by tube – she always felt so grubby when she travelled on the underground. Tangled in this dilemma, she only just remembered to unplug her iPhone from its charger and throw it into her Louis Vuitton bag before racing out of the flat.

Without ruining the effect, she breezed into the office at ten past nine, a pleasant blush on her cheeks from the brisk walk. Mind you, her Jimmy’s had killed!

“Hi Chantelle,” Natalie on Reception welcomed her. “It’s ok, they aren’t here yet.” Chantelle blew a grateful kiss and tripped to the lift. A quick visit to the ladies, make sure all looks good stiil, and then to her office.

At 9.20 she turned on her laptop and waited impatiently as it slowly went through its own morning routine.

“Good morning Chantelle.” The firm voice behind her was not unexpected. She turned round with a radiant smile.

“Good morning Ben. All ready for the big meet?” Hah! She’d got in first, score one! A mental high five with herself would have been appropriate, but she didn’t have the time.
“Yes. They are here. Are you ready?”

“Of course.” She said, grabbing a file and a memory stick from her desk. Everything had been ready since 7pm last night.

She followed Ben into the boardroom, thinking – but not saying – that those socks just did not go with his suit or shoes. He opened the glass door and, in a show of gallantry, waved her in first.

She put on her best client smile and walked in. Already seated round the table were her new clients. Her heart skipped a little beat as her eyes met those of the handsome politician before her gaze slid over the rest of the entourage. She sat down and Ben began the pitch.

He was good, Ben, if a little sharp. Sometimes his attempts at humour shot wide, but his overview of the agency and their PR successes with some rather ‘difficult’ situations, as he tactfully put it, was impressive.

The politician shuffled in his seat, his side-kick almost squirming, as he waited for Ben to stop grandstanding and let them get to the matter in hand.

“And now let me introduce you to Chantelle, she’ll be...”
“Thank you.” Mr Politician said quickly. She felt a slight tautness in her throat and swallowed any option to speak.

“We want you because you are good at these things.” Said Jones, the right hand puppet. “And this is a very delicate, sensitive issue...”

The politician glared just hard enough for Jones to go quiet and turned to Ben and Chantelle.
“Let me explain,” he began quietly with menace and authority making his voice the most compelling she had ever heard. Her heart beat a little faster.

“I was caught screwing the deputy head-mistress of my daughter’s school behind the bike shed at the annual school fete. Now – tell me just how you are going to turn these photos..” and he threw an envelope onto the table with ‘The Sun’ postmark clearly on the front, “into a positive PR story?”

Bear in mind this story was written straight, in about 25 minutes, and I haven't edited here. I got a laugh but I also got the mock complaint that I am an 'actress' and I guess a lot of the fun of the story was in the telling. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story, short and silly as it was.

Falling for Henry

2010-09-14T13:20:00.000-07:00

Red hair, good looking, athletic, young, doesn't say a lot and loves to be hugged. Who wouldn't fall for Henry? Well both Carol and I did on our weekend visit to Eastbourne where we met him.

Around 30 years ago Carol and I first met at Carnation Foods, in East Finchley. We were both in the marketing department for petfoods - specifically Go Cat and Go Dog (as well as some other dodgy stuff like marrow meal and a liquid slop for sick cats). We had a high time in those days, when corporate responsibility probably extended as far as 'how much wine should there be with the directors' lunch today?'.

So - thanks to certain on line social media - five of us got together again to relive old days and just find out how old we'd all grown. Carol and I, who have remained friends throughout the intervening years, drove down to Eastbourne on Saturday morning. We went the 'scenic route' which included as many road works as we could possibly find!

Three and a half hours later, in drizzling rain, we reached the seaside. Well, we reached the brand new harbour complex where Mike (my old boss) and his wife Linda now live. With Henry.

Norman, who we also used to work for, had already arrived when we turned up at Mike and Linda's. Norm has the dubious honor of being responsible for two out of the five times I really lost my temper in my life! He's mellowed, shall we say? I guess so have I.

We had a pleasant lunch and caught up a little on 'old times'. My! The things that the bosses did that we didn't know about! And it's funny how they've forgotten the dart board and rowing machine in the store cupboard and the lunchtime Scrabble games.

Mike showed us the sights of Eastbourne - taking us to Pevensey Castle, the old church at West Ham, the pier, and then driving us over to Beachy Head. However, the drizzle which was by now solid cloud, meant we couldn't even see the side of the road, let alone any views. Henry came with us. The love affair began...

We went back to the house and had a lovely lunch, and awaited the arrival of Mark, the other team member who had managed to attend this extraordinary meeting of the Pet Foods Division, Carnation Foods, 1979-81. Mark duly arrived an hour late, which is not that late for him we are told. We caught up on some stories about Nick (you weren't there, but we found out lots!), Chris, Reg and Keith and started, bizarrely, a body count. The more stories we told, the more people we knew who were now dead. By the end of a delicious curry cooked by Linda, we were up to around 78.

The evening continued with some wine, a trip to the station (to return Norman to London) and a bit of music. Many, many years ago Mike, Bryan and I had played in a band together: 'Mike Mucous and the Membranes'. We sang a little, played a little, but mostly we talked.

At around 1am we headed for bed. Carol and I shared a room and talked a bit longer, of all things about our fathers. But in the morning - the sun came streaming through the window and there was no way either of us could sleep in.

At 7.30am Sunday morning we were both wide awake. By 8am we were up, dressed and heading out the door with Henry. We didn't know the area at all, but Henry did. He took us straight to the beach, then along the harbour, all round the marina and then back to the house. We had no need to worry, he knew exactly where to go. I think that's where he fell for Carol - when I went back to the side road to deposit the duly delivered bag of litter, he stayed by her side until I reappeared.

We didn't exactly kidnap Henry, he came with us willingly enough (one sight of the lead and he was ours!) but when we got back to the house, Linda and Mike had gone to the beach ('where's Henry?' the usual walkers kept asking them?). We set out again to meet them coming back.

The weather this morning was fine and warm, a beautiful blue sky creating the most amazing backdrop to the beach and the scenery. Mike and Linda took us out for a drive - first into Eastbourne where we parked Carol's car (explanation later) and then on, in theirs, to Beachy Head.

This time the views were spectacular! And, of course, with approximately one suicide per week, we upped our body count considerably (by now we were counting friends of friends, and would have even accepted third party referrals if we could only get above 100!).

Beachy Head is beautiful - why do people choose this place to end their lives? I guess it's not just all the media coverage and the history it has of suicides, but also the fact that it is a beautiful place to make your exit.

After the trip to Beachy Head we drove to see the Wilmington Long Man. He's a bit like the Cerne Abbas Giant, but without certain distinctive features.

After that we were dropped back in Eastbourne and went to visit Carol's relative, Robert. He lives (at the weekends) in a beautiful apartment in a 1930's Art Nouveau block at the posh end of town. In his 70's he is very active and still working. He's a researcher on British government and Empire documents. I'd never met the man before but we spent a lovely two hours with him.

Heading home we went the 'other way' and saved a whole hour on the journey back! I really appreciated Carol driving - and enjoyed arguing with the SatNav (as I always do). It was a lovely weekend, full of talk and good food and good company. The lovely Henry, though, stole both our hearts.

To see more photos, visit my Facebook page

Bad dreams

2010-09-08T05:46:00.000-07:00

Mostly my dreams are just colourful - but last night they involved terrorists, murder (I can still clearly see the side of a child's head split on a bullet exit) and earthquakes.

I started out with another person to get a drink (I was thirsty in reality, later got up and had some water). I knew it would be alright for us to go out as we weren't in uniform.

We came to the shop which was by the border. The shop shook and trembled, foods falling off shelves - we could see this through the huge glass sides. The other person in my dream was no longer there, but I was surrounded by a border terrorist group. They would not let me go. The leader of the group said I could not go as I had seen their faces. They were young, not more than teenagers really.

They were camped out between the pillars of broken buildings. They were just heating up needles ready for torture when I woke from that part of the dream.

I had my water, went back to sleep. Then my dream included the child being shot - in a darkened room. Trying to escape from the terrorists and someone else, an older man, being shot in the chest, but this time a small wound as the gun was against his chest in a fight.

So, given that I like to analyse dreams sometimes, what might this mean? I don't know. I think it is not very nice. It's now nearly 2pm and I still can't shift the images from my mind.

Cornered!

2010-08-27T04:41:00.000-07:00

Having not played much music recently, this week was a blast - two opportuinties to play and enjoy myself!

The first was on Monday night at a pub in Waltham Abbey. The acoustic evening is run by a nice guy called Keith and I surprised him by turning up to play - for the first time in about six months. I was on my own as my music partner now works in London and can't do weekday gigs, but I didn't mind.

But, there I was, in a rough (almost London) pub, on my own. OK, I know Keith, and a couple of other musicians to smile and wave at - but that was about it. However, the last time I had played I had briefly chatted to one of the bar's locals. A gentleman we shall call 'Mr F'. I remembered him from last time - a tough guy, probably about 60, with grey hair and a criminal record (he'd told me before that he'd been inside). He was a man no one messed with - he has a reputation.

He remembered me, and was the most charming, polite and careful companion for the evening. He didn't want me to sit on my own, asked me to join him at the bar along with Bear (who was a very tall and quite large guy). We chatted quite a bit, about different types of music and the like, very amiably.

Keith sang his songs, then one of the others got up with a cut finger so he karaoke-d his way through some pub standards. Another lad got up and sang my favourite 'Hey There Deliliah' as well as some other good standards. So, noisy, pubby type music - but when I got up to sing, I did my usual quiet folksy stuff. They listened. Keith said to me 'you want someone to hear you, whisper'. He was right.

At the end of the evening Mr F saw me out to the car, carried some of my gear for me and gave me a polite and friendly peck on the cheek goodnight. We'd had some interesting conversations where I'd learned a bit more about his life. He was a man who had lived violently - where survival was directly related to strength. But the interesting thing was I saw something different, I saw a man who looked back on his life and wished that he could have done it differently. Maybe I am wrong, but even if the hard nuts of Waltham Abbey are afraid of him, I felt completely safe.

Last night (Thursday) I played at the Corner House in Cambridge following a quick plea over Facebook. When I got there the pub was quiet, but soon two other performers arrived too (Meg and Mark). Oh, and about five other people in the pub including the barman, the sound engineer and his girlfriend. We three musicians chatted easily, all different but it was very amiable.

I was due to go on first at 8.30 but there was still hardly anyone there. Mark suggested that we wait a bit longer as he had some friends coming - which we did and they duly arrived. So I managed to perform my half hour spot to a slightly fuller room than I first feared. I nattered with Tim and Cheryl, two of Mark's friends, and then more of his friends came too - and earlier he'd moaned how no one came to see him. 'Can't be a prophet in your own land' I said, when he told us how he played to packed houses in Manchester and Liverpool.

My performance was, again, very folky - but I actually got them singing choruses! It was a lovely atmosphere, friendly and - due to the lack of huge numbers - quite intimate. After my performance Meg went on - she has a lovely voice and writes fun, quirky songs. After Meg was Mark and I thoroughly enjoyed his performance. He engaged the audience with engaging casual chat, and sang some really nice songs.

So, all three of us were singer/songwriters with guitar. But the combination of the three styles was actually complementary - working excellently together. The audience were appreciative and the evening relaxed and pleasant.

I couldn't find Meg's myspace page, but you can hear Mark here: http://www.myspace.com/markellissolo

The Corner House is a nice venue - with a mix of clientele and nice food (I'm told) and a good place to play or listen to a variety of music. I certainly enjoyed my evening there.

(PS: photo is not taken at either of these two venues, but I didn't have any appropriate ones)

I'm not a burglar

2010-08-23T04:42:00.000-07:00

I do have strange dreams - picture this, I'm in my dressing gown in a house in New York. I've broken into the house as I need somewhere to stay with two other people (one of whom is a friend's daughter, and is about 10 years old instead of her actual 15). And my cat Toby (who has in fact been dead around 15 years).

I'm in the kitchen looking for something to eat when the owners of the house come in. "I'm not a burglar, this is a banana". I say, holding up the banana. The owners have children, four boys I can tell from their family photographs, but they are older and the children left home.

The family are understanding, and wait while I go and get things packed so we can leave. We need to find a vet though. The cat needs to be treated.

The whole story is very vivid and I can picture the people, the cat, the banana... I guess it's no wonder I wake up so tired!

Trains and stations

2010-08-11T00:24:00.000-07:00

This morning I was reading a book on the train. I was on a chapter called 'attention' and I thought how the many things I'd noticed about the trains and my journey go unremarked except in my skull. There's no need to share my observations, but there's no harm in paying attention.

Today I was on the 'Buddah' train. This particular train, when idle, makes a soft bell-like noise similar to that of a wooden mallet being gently tapped against the side of a brass prayer bowl. It's quite a restful noise compared to the rest of the squeaks, groans and grinding noises it also makes.

I was on a singing train the other day. In London, the underground train made a squealing noise as it hurtled down the tracks that was light and musical as opposed to harsh and irritating. I christened it the 'singing train' in my mind. You don't talk to people on the underground (well, sometimes I do and I am always amused by the look of panic on their faces). But on this journey, I remember, I was talking to a family from Hungary who had enjoyed a tremendous day in London. They were glowing with fun and delight and the daughter, who was about 15, enjoyed translating for her happy parents and siblings. So, sometimes talking on the underground does work; but I still enjoy freaking out the regulars occasionally by offering a small mote of conversation.

Each morning when I get on the commuter train to Cambridge there is a woman I have known for 14 years. She steadfastly ignores me - has form the first friendly smile I gave her when I knew she was on the same commuter run as me. I don't know why. Perhaps I committed some grave offence, perhaps she'd just like her mornings quiet, and to herself please. Either way that's ok with me, I enjoy the opportunity to read in the bright morning sunshine, lulled by the rocking (and sometimes belling) of the train.

When we get to Cambridge there's a struggle to get past the bikes stacked at the doors, some folding some not. Then there's the sheep-like trail as we head from the platform to the exit, funnelling through the 'dip' (exit gates) dutifully and emerging into a crowded main hall. It's not a big hall, and not always crowded, but most mornings it's a throng of people headed into London or to Kings Lynn, or arriving at Cambridge.

Then I walk up Station Road towards my place of work. And the faces coming towards me are a mix of excitement (off for a day out?) and panic (my train leaves any moment...) and intense concentration (I am a commuter, don't bug me!). Sometimes I notice odd things about people.

For example, the impossibly muscular calves on that woman walking ahead of me - and her nice black skirt and... total lack of hips. Long blonde hair, feminine walk, but in a hurry. She stayed ahead of me. And the cyclists who think that riding on the narrow pavement is safer than the road. Well, it's not safer for the pedestrians. The confused tourists who don't understand the bus stops (actually, they change so often no one understands the bus stops any more). The tall, incredibly student looking guy who, when he turns around, is probably at least 40.

Cambridge is stuffed with youth and life. There are hordes of language students chattering away in various tongues, all 'cool' with eachother and their temporary displacement. There are business people in suits (and some really bad mixes of stripes!) and the wonderful eclectix mix that is Cambridge - from floppy hats to sandals, kaftans to kilts. You will, if you stand at Cambridge Station long enough, see just about every kind of person it is possible to imagine.

So my day starts out with a visual and auditory feast. Perhaps that's why I like to delve into my book. But more often than not I'll be distracted by the view as we trundle along - watching the fields turn from green to gold, from gold to brown, and eventually to white (when the winter comes). Being a commuter is not so bad.

Tiger Day

2010-08-05T05:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the 12th birthday of a captive tiger called Amba. She was born in captivity, probably the descendant of circus animals. She shares her enclosure with a male tiger called Rana. They are the most amazing, beautiful and impressive creatures ever!

The reason we (my colleague and I) were there was for Shepreth's 'Tiger Day' - a day spent celebrating these amazing animals (and Amba's birthday) but, most importantly, raising funds for work with tigers in the wild.

Shepreth rehomed the tigers from Paradise Wildlife Park, several years ago, and though locals were somewhat dubious at having these huge predators in the neighbourhood at first, they have proved to be a great attraction. And seeing them - who can but be moved to want to preserve this wonderful great cat in it's native home? The nice thing about Shepreth is they are not only a visitor attraction, but they are active in conservation work in the field too.

FFI work with tigers in Sumatra and Becca, from Shepreth, had spent five weeks out there recently. She didn't see any wild tigers, even though she was with our top tiger team (the rangers do an amazing job out there, protecting the tigers from poachers and protecting their habitat from illeagal logging and agricultural encroachment). Rob, however, my colleague who went out for a week earlier in March, saw one more or less on his first day!

I think I'd like to see a tiger in the wild - provided there was suitable distance or protection; those teeth are huge! Whilst the environmental enrichment (hide the tiger food) programme was underway in their enclosure, the tigers were briefly locked into their night dens. We were situated right next to one of the dens and could look through the window at the tiger. He would often come up to the window and look out at us, just inches away (reinforced glass, of course).

There were a number of events, most of which we didn't get to see as we were on our stand (actually a little table under a kindly loaned gazebo - it rained and rained!), and I got to meet wildlife vet John Lewis who was a very interesting guy to talk to indeed. I first saw him on Monkey World on TV many years ago - but his main interest now is big cats. He's invented a field anaethstics kit (probably a much better technical name for it than that) and soon he's going out to work in Russia.

I asked him if he'd ended up doing wildlife veterinary work by accident or on purpose - he said as he'd started out in zoos, it was a natural progression. He also mentioned how many children die because of rabies, and how veterinary care of domestic/working dogs could so reduce this. Simple things we can do that could change the world. We didn't talk for long, but he covered a lot of ground in a short space of time.

We had a successful day, lots of visitors, a very happy child who won our toy tiger, and some really good contacts. We talked to one of the keepers who'd been out in Africa and found a human foot in a wellington boot the morning after some lions visited. He doesn't like lions so much... but the little mountain lion at the park purrs as soon as she sees him (or is it the green uniform = food response?).

It was a different day to working in the office - spending the day next to tigers, talking to people about our charity, and watching kids look in awe at these beautiful cats. Oh, and at the end of the day, there was a kerfuffle over at one of the monkey enclosures. Some bright spark had put his posh mobile phone out really close to get a good photo (over the barrier) and smart monkey thought 'oy! I'll ave some o that' and grabbed said fruity mobile phone (which did not taste as delectable as the fruit which gives it name) and chewed it up.

The phone-owner was furious (but insured), the phone was retrieved (broken), but more to the point, the monkey was ok (the batteries are poisonous).

All in all, a successful and pleasant day, despite the rain.

Click here to see some great tiger pictures

Click here to sponsor Becca on her 'Tiger Swim'

Top photo of tiger eyes (C) Fauna & Flora International

Broken dreams

2010-07-28T00:17:00.000-07:00

To 'break a dream' is when someone says something to you that makes you recall a forgotten dream. This happened to me this morning, but only regarding part of a dream.

Let me tell you a bit about the dream first of all. There was a man with no shirt on, half his body sun-tanned, laying on a wall by the river. He fell into the river where he was already swimming. The two versions of him became one, and then he turned into a mer-man. He swam down the river, obviously confused at the transformation. He was curled by the bank.

I was looking down into the water, from a height. The wall above the river was maybe 20 feet high. But then I was also in a small rented flat with two metal beds, one atop the other. Behind the bed were sweets and other rubbish on the wooden floor that the renter had not cleaned up properly. I know, because I pulled out the bed to look, then put it back again afterwards. Outside the window, a big wide double doors window, was a path and then immediately a lake. A nice view from the bedroom, but no privacy. Children walked by and we thought that it was a shame you couldn't cordon off your piece of path to the lake.

I went into the sweetshop to buy some sweets. It was old fashioned - wooden display units at child height.

But the bed was towering high - and I was swinging on the metal edge, knees folded over, encouraged by someone - a women (a pop star even) who watched me as the edge of the bed became a towering structure from which I could swing out over the river. I swung deeply forward over the river, and back again. And the most amazing thing about the dream is not the detail or the colour - but the sensation of swinging. That heart swooping rush you get when swinging on a rope, or a trapeze (though I've never done that) or dived off a high board. That adrenalin high that is part fear, part excitement.

The sensation was very physical, and I realised after the first copule of swoops that I could actually enjoy the rush.

Now to the breaking of my dream... what I had forgotten (with all above details still fresh and visual in my mind) was that I was also learning Polish in this dream. Sat in a cafe with a young man, who was - I think - going to teach me to speak the language.

And this morning, my friend sent me a text saying I was 'not Polish enough' (I won't explain) and so I remembered that part of the dream.

All this must have taken long, interminable seconds between the alarm going off and me waking. But the sensation, the physical sensation of swinging, was very powerful indeed. I enjoyed the dream - the colour, the variety, the incongrouous nature of all the different parts. And the sudden remembering of one part of it, that had slipped my mind until an innocent text arrived.

What did you dream? Can you remember? Have you had very physical (clean answers only please!) or emotional dreams? Do please post a comment, I'd be interested to know. You can post a comment anonymously, you don't have to belong to Blogger to join in.

Photograph courtesy of http://www.onebooktwovillages.org/whs/pages/image23009.html

The Curious Tiger

2010-07-11T12:25:00.001-07:00

(C) Carolyn Sheppard.

I feel the earth beneath my feet, damp and soft. It smells warm and familiar – comforting. My claws sink into the ground and I move quietly through the forest. I am not hungry; only yesterday I ate very well indeed. But today I want to walk through my domain and mark my territory.

I tread softly, for I sense a change. There is a tang in the air – a smell I do not recognise. I stand still and listen, my whiskers twitch forward, my mouth slightly open, my ears attuned to every crackle and creak. Standing still, I am invisible. Small birds and animals fly and scurry round me. They know who I am, and rightly fear me. That which is ahead of me is new, unknown, and I am cautious.

I am also a curious tiger, and instead of avoiding this uncertainty ahead, I move steadily forward. My presence is undetected, I am sure. The heavy forest air brings me scents I know and many that I do not. It is the unknown, which draws me.

I enter a small clearing and smell wood moke scented with the ripeness of burnt flesh, and of many other things I do not recognise. I am intrigued. I move closer and see a small fire in the clearing, but not fleeing through the forest as it may do on dry, dangerous days. It is controlled, restrained. I look carefully about: next to the fire is something I have never seen before. It smells of rotten plants. Next to that, is the monkey.

I call it a monkey for that is what it most closely resembles. It is decked in something that is not fur and does not seem to be a part of it. It smells of plant, and of bitter things that make me open my jaws widely so that I may detect their taint more clearly.

My ungoverned movement has given me away - the monkey has seen me! It stands with a strange stick in its hand as if in defiance. Puny creature! I lift my head – the stick exudes its own unique odour: It smells of wood, of the caves, and it the air about it tastes hard and sharp like the red rocks in the mountains.

The monkey is afraid. It waves the stick hesitantly in my direction and I can taste the odour of fear. This is reassuring; the creature is not so foreign, it fears me. Yet as well as fear there are many other smells and tastes that cling and cloy my senses – that of the creature itself, and many more that surround this strange animal. I decide that its signature is as distasteful as if it has dived into every kind of excrement it could find.

I gently pad a little nearer. The monkey sits down upon a rock, but has not stopped glaring at me, or pointing its stick - as if that might stop my progress! Its pale skin is damp, slick with sweat – in its fear. This is as it should be.

I do not wish to eat the monkey. But I am curious. I have heard of these creatures in the forest before. I have smelled their flesh-burning fires. I have tasted them upon the wind before. Like most, I have avoided them. But this is just one, on its own.

I move closer. The monkey is now shaking, trembling beneath my gaze like a found calf. Its legs have a very fine fur upon them, and each hair stands on end at my approach. Still it points the stick at me. Now I am nearer, I detect something else – further pungency from the stick: it stings my nose and I twitch in disgust. The stick smells hot, and it smells cold. It smells … of death.

I am now near enough to kill easily. But first, to try and understand this creature, I lick its nearest leg with my long rasping tongue. I can taste it completely now: Piss and sweat, strong, natural odours, combined with a myriad of other strange tastes that are sour and rancid. The creature shivers. It does not look nor sound like any monkey I know. I do not think it would be good to eat.

I look into its eyes, trying to fathom exactly what kind of creature this is? It has the tang of carnivore, yet is rank. I do not understand - as I look into its eyes I see nothing – no connection, no life behind its small, frightened white and blue eyes. It is almost like a dead thing. If I look at any other creature, or they look at me, we see that we are one. We know that whether we are predator or prey, we are all part of the same. We all know what we are and where we belong in this world. This creature – this upright, smooth skinned, foul tasting monkey – does not have a place.

With its acid taste lingering in my mouth, I yawn (for effect, I admit), and the creature waves its death stick at me again. At any moment it may fall back off its rock, its thin legs waving skyward – that would amuse me. But it does not. It just keeps watching me with those dead eyes. Bored, I turn my back on the thing – it is not worthy of my time or my interest.

I walk away, swaying my tail in contempt, letting the monkey see my strength and power. of course, it does not understand, it does not realise that I have given it the gift of its own life. that gift is a waste - I am sorry for such a thing that does not belong to the world.

My curiosity is satisfied. I move on, knowing that such creatures will not warrant any further investigation should they ever cross my path again.

Written in 2007. If you like tigers, then check out Fauna & Flora International and their work with the Sumatran Tiger

Earth Wake

2010-07-11T12:11:00.000-07:00

Here's the first chapter of one of my short stories.

Captain Jamieson jumped down from the ship, his feet crushing the long, spiky blue grass as he landed. He scowled as he looked around and spat out a wad of well-chewed tobacco.

“Welcome, Captain.” Ricard looked at the shining, foamy brown lump the Captain had spat, which now slid slowly down the broad leaf of a low growing bush.

The Captain saw where Ricard was looking and had him sussed in an instant. An Indij-lover. He’d met a few on different planet hops – where they go ‘native’ and forget just who they are working for.

“Come this way.” Ricard led the way to a clearing. In the middle stood a sturdy hut that looked like it was made of mud, sticks and grass. This was Ricard’s home on the planet –in fact (since the first contact team had left) it was Homeworld’s planetary embassy. Ricard smiled to himself, thinking how unimpressed his visitor would be with the local facilities.

Jamieson spat again, the small blob raising a puff of dust as it landed on the dry, yellow earth. “Summary.” He barked as they entered the hut.

Ricard turned on the solalight with a wave of his hand. “Highly evolved society, good natural resources, simple balance of nature equation.” Ricard knew that the Captain would have had a full briefing already, what else did he want to know?

“Can we drill?”

A silence hung between them. Jamieson assumed Ricard’s reticence was his indigenous-loving attitude.

Ricard saw the greed and exploitative streak in Jamieson and didn’t like it. “No.” he said.

Jamieson snorted. An ‘I knew it’ type snort. A tiny dribble of brown liquid ran from his nose into his grey moustache.

Ricard’s stomach clenched in revulsion. Even though Angolican tobacco wasn’t carcinogenic, the habit of chewing or smoking the stuff still disgusted him.

“Why?” said Jamieson deliberately.

Ricard let out a huge sigh. “Geo. The ground isn’t stable.”

“Evidence?” Jamieson said.

Ricard had already sent reports to Homeworld that he knew Jamieson would have seen, but he also knew they would just consider his reasons ‘excuses’. “No solid evidence. “The locals talk of regular earth wakes…”

“Earthquakes?”

“No… earth wakes. No matter how often we ask or whatever the context, our translator says they definitely call them ‘earth wakes’.”

“And?”

Ricard was beginning to feel irritated by Jamieson’s brusque manner, but he had expected no less from Homeworld. Despite thousands of trans-world treaties, one way or another they usually found a way to exploit new planets and tap into their natural resources. No matter how carefully phrased to protect the indigenous species, planets usually ended up in a sorrier state for their alliance with Homeworld Federation.

....

I need to work on the rest of the story - it's finished,just needs polishing. Any comments welcome.

The most excellent illustration is from Kellie Kougioulis - found here: www.photoshopcreative.co.uk/show_image.php?imageID=16757

Georgia on my mind

2010-07-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

What do you think of when someone says 'Georgia'? The songs? The American state? The ex-Soviet state? Well, it's the latter on my mind for this post.

The other day we had a 'download' at work from one of the guys who works out in Georgia. He works with the Tusheti people and the local Government organisations and NGOs to help preserve some of the most amazing wildlife.

They have bears, wolves, jungle cats, lynx and tortoise as well as an amazing array of bird and plant-life. Gareth works particularly on the carnivores (them what has sharp teeth as detailed above). The project, funded primarily by the EU and in partnership with local NGO, NACRES, is designed to protect some amazing rich habitats near the Caucasus mountains and in the south-east.

Of course Georgia was in the news most recently because of border disputes and political 'chest puffing' (I would say willy waving but that's not very PC) that has resulted in conflict. But the Tusheti shepherds still have to take their herds of sheep from the lowlands in the winter to the mountains in the summer - and still have to feed and care from them and protect them from the carnivores that live there too.

It's a challenge - especially as the deconstruction of the USSR has meant that the support infrastructure has disappeared along with the Russians. Part of the work Gareth and the team out there are doing is to help the shepherds with veterinary care - reducing disease in dogs (so it doesn't get transferred to wildlife) and increasing herd survival rates so that loss to predators is not such a great impact. One of the things Gareth is trying to raise extra funds for is salaries for vets who can work in the mountainous and arid regions of this extraordinary landscape.

So why am I writing about it when there's perfectly good information all about it on the FFI website? (here ) Simple - the one thing that is missing from the information on the web is the passion and knowledge that individuals like Gareth share when you meet them in person. I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to hear first hand the stories of the conservation work these folks are doing all over the world.

He told us how hard the wolves are to trap, so you can't do accurate research on them, and how hunting, poaching and over-grazing are serious issues. He also had some amazing photographs (I've chosen one of his bird photographs, well, I would, wouldn't I!)

I have to say my geography has improved too!

Photo: Hawfinch, (C) Gareth Goldthorpe - check out more of his work on Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/garethan/

In the pink

2010-06-28T01:02:00.000-07:00

My girls did the Pink Ribbon run yesterday - it was an amazing day weather wise.On the way back after seeing 1,000 people dressed in pink I saw a swallowtail butterfly on the heath - first time I've ever seen one. It was too quick for me to photograph, but I found this one from the RSPB so you can see what it looks like.

Photo credit: Swallowtail Butterfly at one of the few sites in England that they breed. © Copyright Janet Richardson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

An Odd evening

2010-06-25T00:20:00.000-07:00

Well, not that odd really, but I like playing with words. We had an event last night at the Middle Temple in London. This amazing place is the haunt of the London legal profession (part of it, anyway). I was given a potted history by one of the nice gents serving us wine:

The land was given to the lawyers by King James I on condition that they kept teaching law there. When Queen Elizabeth I came to visit she wanted a table that she and all her entourage could sit at, so the hugest oak was found and floated up the Thames (which originally came right up to the buildings) and a table was made that is 26 feet long - all from a single tree.

There is so much oak in these old buildings - you can't really see it that well on the photo above, but the ceiling was amazing - huge swathes of black oak.

Unfortunately I didn't get to learn much more (but if you want to know more, just check good old Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Temple) but then I was there to work! It was a garden party, with two wonderful speakers. The first talked about his discovery of a unique species of butterfly, the second was the excellent Mike Dilger who not only entertained our guests, but also drew in passers by (who I made sure got some of our leaflets). He described himself at one point as 'Bill Oddie's researcher' only he used a word to replace researcher: the word is usually applied to a female of the canine species.

It was all very good natured, and in fact Mike's ex-boss was present. Hence the cheesy photo of me and Bill. The important focus of the evening was conservation and all those present that I talked to were interested and engaged. Even three guests who had actually come to the wrong event went away with membership forms... it's the killer instinct in me!

There was a most wonderful guitarist playing for us too, the gentle sounds of his gorgeous Taylor guitar adding the perfect backdrop to an English Summer evening.

The train home was packed - I sat next to a man with a cricket hat in his lap. Once I'd had a brief look through my photos, he talked to me. He had been to the cricket, watched MCC beat Kent. Now he was on his way back to Cambridge, to his daughter and his four year old grandson who has cancer. Doesn't life like to give you a 'perspective nudge' at just the right times?

I've lots more to blog - an evening with Stephen Fry (my friend Heather says I am too posh to talk to these days, but honestly she knows me better!) and lots more on my trip to Arizona. I must start to write again - I miss the simple act of playing with language to tell a story. Even if no one is listening.

Arizona Travels - episode 1

2010-06-01T11:31:00.000-07:00

Here I am back in Arizona again - it's been two years since I was last here. This time I came in a warmer time of year - I say warmer, it's 98 Deg F as I write! Well, outside, I'm in the shade inside of course, with AC and cold drinks on tap.

Actually the heat has not bothered me at all, I've covered up in sun cream and worn a hat and cool clothes, always had plenty of water and my asthma has been absent! This climate suits me (mind you, not sure how I'd cope in the summer as the temperatures soar above 100...)

Nadine's house is in San Tan Valley, to the south west of Phoenix. It's an hour to downtown along the freeways, and round here it's pretty much scrubby desert with houses and towns plonked in the middle of it all. Nadine's yard (garden to you and me) backs on to a golf course and there is a metal rail fence so you can see the golfers as they play. You hear 'shucks' (or words to that effect) as they thwack the ball off to the next tee, you hear '*&*&*' when you hear a whack as the ball has hit some house, and lots of happy chatter as women, men and children send their balls off on the appropriate trajectory down the course.

Golf courses here are green - but only green in patches. In between it's coarse desert - yellow brown dirt with the odd seguaro cactus, mesquite tree and some other little bushes. Dashing about between the sparse vegetation are the ground squirrels - dust coloured rodents who live in little holes in the non-green golf course. They are driven to dive for their holes not only when speedy golf carts shoot past, but when the shadow of the Harris hawk flies overhead or a rather ardent grackle (like an all-black magpie) gets a little too close.

So, sitting in the garden alone I see lots of things - including the little brown lizards who scoot along the walls and, when they reach a sunny spot, stop to do little push ups to keep their bellies from burning. There are quail who wander past, verdin (little greenish birds) and finches, mourning doves and white winged doves too. I could sit all day in the yard just watching.

The multi-coloured golfer is, of course, the most amusing of these creatures, but I do prefer the wildlife.

Improbably Nimble...

2010-04-19T13:50:00.000-07:00

Improbably nimble... that was a description offered during a conversation about some Morris Men. Not, as it happens, the ones I spent this weekend with. But pretty darn accurate.

We set off Friday night for Dranouter - five of us in one car, the rest all making their way across the channel (none of us by air, thank goodness, as the Icelandic volcano put paid to any flying this weekend).

We arrived in good time and (nearly all of us) met up for an evening meal. There were 18 in the crew altogether - that's musicians, dancers and support team. I was in the band (I've never really been much of a dancer, alas), on the bass in place of their regular chap who was off in Singapore or some other far flung place.

We had a superb meal and the menu had about 40 different kinds of beer. I looked at the wine list - it simply said 'Glass, 1/2 carafe, full carafe' and prices - not so much as a 'red' or 'white' let alone any kind of further descriptor or choice! I guess it shows pretty much where the Belgian loyalties lie.... beer!

The following morning I abandoned my room mate (Natalie) and went for a wonderful walk in the woods just by the hotel on Mont Noir. It was beautiful! Sunshine, birds singing... the perfect morning. And a pretty good start to a rather good day. The reason Albion Morris were playing in Dranouter is that they had appeared at the Festival for something like 35 years! And some of the original dancers were still in the troupe. They were booked to play their last official gig at the Folkcentrum, which is a cultural centre and includes - as well as a super little venue and restaurant - a folk museum. So - how old do you think the guys felt when, watching a historical film, they saw themselves?! I guess when you find your childhood memories in a museum it's nostalgic enough... but to find yourself in a museum? That's a little scary.

In the afternoon, four of us went into Ypres (but spelled the Flemmish way) to the exhibition in the town hall: "In a Flanders Field". It was intensely moving and quite extraordinary. The first world war has shaped this country. Ypres was occupied, not by the Germans but by the British. And we brought with us Chinese, Australians, Sikhs and Moors... the whole city turned into a massive military camp. The terrible conditions are described often enough on screen, but to see the conditions and the photographs of the actual trenches, the bodies, the gas masks, the total destruction that hit the city - it's mind warping; and soul rending. If you go to Belgium, visit this exhibition if you can.

The afternoon we had a workshop scheduled - teaching non-morris dancers how to do some dances. Some local folk dancers joined, as well as some very small children, and they learned three dances (one of which seemed to take forever and by the time we played the tune for the 17th time we were quite ready to murder the dance teacher, Ada). We then had a meal and a chill out before our performance in the evening.

I have to say the dancers excelled themselves. Considering the team was augmented with members of Brighton Morris as so many of the original Albion crew couldn't make it, some of whom had not danced those particular dances before (or in those particular traditions), they did fantastically. I certainly didn't spot a wrong move, but then again I was concentrating like mad on the music.

I did hear that Stuart got hit on the head, but I missed that particular event. All I saw was some great dancing, a very enthusiastic audience and enjoyed the fantastic atmosphere.

At the end of the gig - which was quite emotional for everyone really - two 'Albion groupies' sang a song they had written especially for them. They'd been to see the team for more than 20 years... that's loyalty! And the song was very funny too.

Our hosts were amazing - always looked after us with drinks vouchers (thankfully they had an excellent cider) and made sure we had a superb sound and generally looked after us. You couldn't ask for more as a performer.

After the gig finished the evening continued with a song session led by Ian from Brighton. It was very entertaining - loud sing-along songs which perhaps bamboozled the locals, but entertained them none-the-less. With a most bizarre version of 'Music Man' and many other shanty type songs, I had a wonderful time singing along and relaxing after the intense concentrating of playing (the morris tunes are not one I'm really familiar with and I had to work hard!).

The session ended at around 1.45am, and it was weary, emotional and happy we all returned to our hotel rooms. Mind you, one member of the cast was poured into his room - having eventually been prised away from his best friend, the pillar, without whom he would have been bereft (or just in a heap on the floor). One of the dangers of so many beers and so little time.

The following morning I went with Stuart and Daphne into Popperinge where we visited Talbot House. This building was run by a military cleric, 'Tubby' Clayton and was a haven for the troops. No matter whether you were a colonel or a private, within its walls there were no ranks and everyone was treated equally. Tubby built a chapel in the roof, and his services were always full. So many of those men he ministered to came once, and never came again - never breathed again. Whatever your religious beliefs, he performed a great service, and you can understand why, in such terrible times, people clung to any belief that offered hope in such circumstances.

There was a beautiful garden, a concert hall (from a nearby house which Tubby comandeered without permission from the absent owners), a contemplation room, a billiards table, piano (which is still played today) and an opportunity to return to sanity for an all too brief moment.

We headed home Sunday afternoon after another lovely meal at the Folkcentrum - the trains were crowded with people. It was the end of the weekend, the end of the Easter break and also full of people desperate to get home because of cancelled flights. All in all I had a terrific weekend - excellent food, drink, company, music, dancing and singing. I saw long tailed tits, and heard the most wonderful song from a blackcap. I visited two museums and also the small cemetery at Dranouter. I had plenty of opportunity to contemplate, and to enjoy. A perfect weekend.

I'll post a link to my photos as soon as I have uploaded them.

Species Conservation

2010-04-14T05:15:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I am now working in the field of conservation (and loving it!). This weekend I am engaged in some exciting fieldwork! I am travelling over to Belgium to work with a highly endangered British species called Dancus Morrisus.

This unusual creature has been seen all over the world but is indigenous to the UK. However, sub-species have been identified in America, Canada, New Zealand and as far south as Antarctica (though the Antarctic sub-species is now known to be extinct). They are fairly easy to identify as they are extremely colourful, and the variants such as the Black Face, Rapper and Molly are all very distinctive.

The conservation team are heading over to Dranouter with the highly endangered 'Morrisus Albionus' - this is not an attempt at species bolstering through cross-fertlisation with the local Dancus Contradancus, but an opportunity to introduce the British variants to a more diverse food (and in particular beer) supply.

It is hoped that the trip will put some new life into this fascinating, if slightly weird, flock and either prove that the Dancus Morrisus Albionus is still viably sustainable or, which is the conservationists fear, heading for extinction. Despite some integration with a regional but quite robust variant (Dancus Morrisus Brightonian) we are still fearful that it may go the way of the now extinct 'Dansus Sloshus' and 'Dancus Charleston'.

So - wish me luck! I will be using my technical expertise (and my complex field equipment - a bass guitar and amp) to provide a suitable background environment to make the Dancus Morrisus Albionus feel right at home. Oh, and a few beers are certainly going to help!

For more information on Morrisus Dancus, visit The Morris Ring

For information on the sub-species Albionus, visit Albion Morris

Tiger tiger!

2010-03-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

2010 is 'International Year of Biodiversity' and also the Year of the Tiger. For my colleague, Rob, it was fortnight of the tiger.

Rob works in our office in Cambridge and had the unique opportunity to visit FFI's project out in Indonesia where they are working to protect the rare and exquisite Sumatran tiger. There is a huge national park called Kernici Seblat and Rob went to stay with the FFI head of the project, Debbie (click here to read her tiger blog).

So why am I blogging about it? Because Rob just gave us a 'download' at lunchtime, where he talked about the project and the amazing bit of luck he had in actually seeing some tigers in the wild, and his admiration and enthusiasm for the team out there. The Tiger Protection Unit are local people, all with a real passion for conservation. Poaching is still a problem - but it's not poor local people who are poaching, it's rich businessmen who fund highly dangerous teams to go and snare and shoot tigers for the skins and body parts.

Rob's exploits (highly edited) are on the FFI website, but you should also check out the info on the site about the Tiger project, then I highly recommend it.

Photo (C) Fauna & Flora International

From Shamrocks to Daffodils

2010-03-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

This week saw St Patrick's night - and Shani and I had a gig at a local village pub. Bryan said he may come and play some tunes with us, but not if there was just 'two men and a dog' in the audience.

Don't you just hate flip comments that turn out to be accurate predictions?! OK, at one point there really was just two men and a dog - the pub dog and the two landlords, but at the most I would say there were probably only 8 people in the bar.

This did not stop us having a grand evening though! We played and sang and generally enjoyed making music. At 11pm two ladies came in and, up for a grand evening (it was the birthday of one), we played and they danced. The two ladies and the landlords all dancing round happily whilst we sang some hackneyed Irish songs and a few other standards, for good measure (they loved our rendition of 'Let me Entertain you').

The birthday girl asked us if we'd play at her birthday party on the Saturday night, and we turned up but the way things turned out we didn't actually perform (apart from three and a half songs).

Sunday, however, was Thriplow Daffodil Festival and we played to a nicely full tea tent on a sunny, English spring day. The daffodils, however, were reluctant to perform (given the cold and long winter) but that didn't spoil what is a quintessentially wonderfully English village festival.

We played our set, then were asked for more (not with raucous encore shouts, but because there was more time to fill) and had a thoroughly pleasing little afternoon gig.

Next? Well, there is talk of a beer festival at the village pub ...

The Toad Charmer

2010-03-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

Did you know the toad belongs to the anuran family? No, nor did I. But as these engaging creatures seem to be attracting my attention a lot recently, I thought I should look up a little more about them.

The common toad is not particularly rare, but less common than good old frogs! The natterjack toad, though, is not only rare but endangered. I have had three encouters with anurans recently (hey, isn't that a great name for an alien in Dr Who?). The first was a frog. (see my previous Frog Blog for more froggy tales and my own pictures.)

It was a rainy night a few weeks ago, I was walking back from the station along a main road. It was dark, drizzly and I was thoroughly fed up. Winter blues in full swing. Next to the pavement I was walking on was a wall, atop the wall an old metal railing fence. Behind the fence was a hedge, part of the garden of a house. I was looking down, keeping the rain out of my eyes, when I noticed something unusual. A huge frog! He was gorgeous - green and brown and shiny in the rain. But on a pavement next to a busy road he was likely to get squished - either by unnoticing pedestrians or, should he(she) venture the wrong direction, by unseeing traffic.

I stooped to pick him up and he scrambed towards the wall. I held him in my hand and he settled immediately (perhaps the warmth of my mammalian hands was actually rather nice to a cold frog). I lifted him to the top of the wall where the greenery poked through and the earth and safety beyond beckoned.

I held my hand flat on the wall. He turned, and instead of leaping off, just looked at me. "Go on" I said. I swear he winked, and then he hopped onto the wall, and then off into the undergrowth.

The other day, cycling back from the station (instead of walking in the rain), I came via the Heath and as I trundled over the earthy heap that separated the open paths of Therfield Heath from our road, I noticed that at the side of the path one of the brown leaves was the wrong shape. I swerved the bike so as not to squash the toad who, nicely camoflaged, had chosen a pedestrian pathway to sit upon.

I picked him up and gently set him down further in the leaves, off the main path, so that he should not get squished. Hopefully he took the hint and stayed clear of the cold tarmac. He didn't seem to object to me picking him up. Toads excrete a rather nasty substance from their skin making them unpalatable to most predators. Perhaps that's what gives them their confidence when being handled?

That was encounter number two. This morning, however, the toad came a-knocking at the door. Well, not literally, but pretty close. I opened the front door to head for the annual Thriplow Daffodil festival and there upon the doormat was a huge, swollen bellied toad. Yellow, brown and with bright eyes, it looked at me. And then continued as if to enter the house.

Now I know that yon toad would not have had such a warm welcome from other, more squeamish, members of the family, so I picked her up. Again, totally unconcerned at my touch (she didn't even puff herself up, as some do), she settled in my hand. The answer was obvious - I took her round to the back garden and set her down on the greenery next to the pond.

Toads return every year to the same pond if they can, I just hope ours was the pond she was heading for. I am sure we will be able to tell as our little pond fills up with skaters and other wiggly pond life, and -without doubt - it's annual quota of frogs and spawn. I'll keep my eye out for the strings of spawn which mean our garden toads have decided to bless us with their warty, pleasing presence once again.

Photo from BBC, more info on toads: http://www.herpetofauna.co.uk/common_toad.htm

Spring?

2010-03-10T03:10:00.000-08:00

Spring raised it's head briefly yesterday, uncurled from the frozen brown earth to take a breath of sunshine, then disappeared again today under the coverlet of clouds.

The birds are silent today, yesterday's enthusiasm dampened by grey skies and chilly air. But there are small white buds on the magnolia, and the primroses are struggling to open. Snowdrops, white and green against black, hard earth, are trembling in the rush of wind caused by the speeding, dirty busses that trammel the brittle tarmac.

Spring is on its way, reluctantly. But we are eager with anticipation, and optimism. The slightest bit of blue sky brings a smile, the instant of sunshine warms more than its thin heat radiates.

On the train, in the evenings, the sky is a riot of reds. Scudding clouds are daubed with vibrant colours, and the sunsets cast dramatic silhouettes of bare trees, farm buildings and scrubby fields that are slowly, slowly challenging the winter to turn green.

And this morning, as I came in on the train, into the city, the arms of a huge yellow spider clawed their way from the mound of earth that is the rebuilding of CB1. Three diggers looked like arachnid limbs, and the devastation surrounding their industry is like another spring - the bare field soon to sprout the concrete shoots of new buildings.

Change is a constant, and the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of development is as unstoppable as each sunrise. Though some days start grey, there will be sunshine one day. Remember that the sun is coming, that the wreck of land will soon be something new and shining, that the broken earth will soon blossom. It's hard to keep a positive attitude sometimes, but all we have to do is look around. And remember.

Changing Paths

2010-02-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

I’ve spent years behind a desk for my job, and I’ve always been extremely lucky to have jobs that I have enjoyed and, most recently, that contribute directly to the wellbeing of others (healthcare, education, training). Though my ‘ideal job’ as a youngster would have been to be a forest ranger (I worked briefly as a volunteer on a nature reserve in North London), my career path took a very different course. This time I’ve definitely hit the jackpot as far as jobs go – and I don’t mean financially, but in terms of fulfilment and engagement. Around me my colleagues talk of their time in Kenya, India, America, Alaska, Indonesia, Viet Nam and Antarctica. I am in fact now working for a conservation organisation where the employees are not just dedicated but hands-on experienced.

The Membership Secretary used to be an Antarctic Scientist, the Comms Officer use to work with endangered Wallabies in Australia and the Fundraising Officer (who I am slightly worried to find out loves dressing up as a gorilla) has spent time in Swaziland. Next month he is going out to Indonesia for more hands on conservation work (hopefully not in costume, he’d have some problems at customs). There are 60 people working for the charity in nearly every corner of the world.

The work I’m doing now, a change from my previous employment, means I need to learn (and quickly) about Fauna & Flora International’s conservation projects: the work we do with (to name but a few) gorillas, trees, people, habitats, bats, carbon emissions, global warming and – crucially – how to fund the work we do all over the planet.

In short, every day I work here inspires me (and also stirs some previously suppressed wanderlust). Most of the people round me are younger and have done or are doing their travelling now (for work, sabbatical, or just for the hell of it). I would love to travel more and even do some field work myself, but I do know that it’s not all ‘cute cuddly animals’ – oh no! The work this fantastic organisation does is much more varied than that – they work with Kyrgyzstani women to help manage the sustainability of their fruit and nut forests, help farmers build buffalo fences to protect their crops (and the buffalo) and help local communities to develop tourism and other forms of enterprise to reduce the impact on their environment.

The dedication of the people in the office is just a reflection of those out in the field – and I am very proud to be part of the oldest conservation charity in the world. I may only be here for a year, but you can bet your last pound (please make sure you tick the ‘gift aid’ box on your donation form!) that I am going to put everything I can into it – I’m already getting so much out. I’ve never been afraid to get my hands dirty, so who knows, one day I may actually do something a bit more adventurous with the rest of my life.

I do, of course, still run the training business, which I enjoy thoroughly, but there is something to be said for working in an evironment where you know you are contributing real value beyond your own existence.

A midwinter night’s drive

2010-02-13T03:59:00.000-08:00

My mother has been working on hats for the Rose Theatre’s production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. She made four lovely Elizabethan style hats for the fairies (and the frames for some of the collars, like Oberon's in this picture). The play is one of my favourites by Shakespeare I have to say and it was wonderful to hear the language, the voices and to engage in the action and the story.

The star of this production, to my mind, was not the ‘big name‘ (Dame Judi Dench) but Bottom. Of course it is a role which begs indulgence, and he played it to the full.

The costumes were effective, the staging simple but atmospheric and the theatre, full to bursting, had a natural ambience that felt redolent of a much older building. There was floor space in front of the stage filled with audience sat upon cushions or the polished boards, we sat in the second row on the extreme left. This gave us a close but angled view of the action.

The sound system didn’t really meet the standards of the rest of the production (and being a musician I would, of course, have preferred live musicians), but the music was appropriate and worked well. The actress who played Cobweb had a very clear and pretty singing voice, and one of the fairies (a solid looking guy with dreads) had the most amazing ability to drop what sounded like two octaves in one verse.

The performances by all were, without exception, entertaining. Dame Judi was a wonderful Titania, and her wonderfully tall (by comparison) Oberon was elegant and an excellent foil.

I highly recommend this production (but you'll be lucky to get tickets) and if you haven't been to a play in a while - go see one. The lights, the people in front of you speaking real words from memory (not an autocue) and performing for you, to you, not a camera.

The drive home was much quicker than the drive there which took three hours from Cambridge to Kingston via Temple Fortune (to pick up mother). I drove through sunshine, rain, snow, sleet and hail at various points of the journey (some of these meteorological events lasting only a few minutes), but it was well worth a winter night's drive.

Production photos by Nobby Clark - no rights are exerted over these images which remain the property of the original copyright holder.

Snow days

2010-01-08T06:06:00.000-08:00

Well, the country is covered in snow from top to bottom! Looking at the satellite pics on the TV yesterday, there was barely an inch not covered in fluffy, white snow laden clouds. And though it's not actually snowing here now, outside the temperatures are making sure that the snow does not melt in the weak winter sun.

I went on to the heath when the snow started and took a few pictures.

2009

2010-01-02T10:23:00.000-08:00

I thought, as I took down the calendar, that I'd have a quick look at the year and see what we'd done. It's been a busy one, for sure! Here's a few edited highlights. I've not included the many gigs that Bryan has done - possibly because lots of them didn't get put on the calendar, but mostly because it would fill the blog!

January

Mel flew to New York and not only had to do the long haul flight, but also went to the top of the Empire State. For someone who doesn't like flying, heights and lifts, she did pretty darn good! She did quite a bit of shopping too.

February

Not the most exciting month according to the calendar - but Alex had an ingrowing toenail which was treated.

March

This was a busier month, with the Thriplow Daffodil Festival (where Shani and I played and were not appreciated by some grumpy old granny!), a visit to Coventry for Alex to see the Uni there, and a meeting of the old Shave crew. Goodness - was the reunion really 2008?! Mel also signed on at a children's modelling agency.

April

Ted from Denmark visited and we played with him in London to celebrate the launch of his CD, Gypsies and Butterflies. Carol and I went to the midlands to have a weekend at Sundial, and we had a great time. I also went to Heacham to visit my friend Sandra.

May

Shani and I played at Rougham, the airfield, doing two shows in one weekend. Always good fun, we had a pleasant time and folks liked our music. At the start of the month we had a BBQ at Shani and Nickie's, for Shani's birthday (previous month). I met little Marcus again, Nickie's nephew. My ain't they sweet when they are little?!

June

The calendar is sparse for June again, but I know at work I spent a lot of time working on the business plan. The Writers Circle went for a walk on the heath, which was lovely. I learned a lot about plants and their uses.

July

Ivisited my friends in Bath in July and had a lovely time wandering round my favourity English city. This was also the month that a long time family friend, Don Anderson, passed away.

August

Melody, Rosie and Paige flew out to Mallorca to stay with Sally for just over a week, and Mel stayed on for longer. I flew out to join Mel and Sally, and enjoyed one week of sun! About the only sun we saw at all due to the awful English summer. My friend Nadine ran a 'blog party' which was a huge internet success - an innovative and clever idea that increased site visits and helped lots of authors.

September

Bryan seemed to have a very busy gig month in September, playing with Penni, Strangeworld and the barn dance band. I had one gig with the Brookfield band, and played at a medieval fair with Penni (where I was given the best chat up line ever!)

October

My friend Susannah was in the Times, on TV and on radio; a lady I have a lot of time for and a lot of respect. She and my cousin Nick run a charity called the Aurora Health Foundation. Visit the site to see why she was so busy that month.

November

This was a very busy month, with a visit to the West Country again, to Skirrid Fawr in Wales, and then to London with my friend from Ireland, Cathy. Cathy and I went to the National History Museum, the V&A and the British Museum. We also got lost and spent one evening in an Irish pub watching France cheat at football.

This was also the month I was made redundant by PDT, who could no longer fund my post to run The Complete Trainer. Though I keep hold of Complete Trainer, the security of a salary was ended and the business has to make more money! Job hunting started in earnest and I went for some interviews and, with Shani's help, updated my CV and improved my interview and job pursuit skills.

Sadly this was also the month our dear friend Kevin passed away, far too early. We miss you Kev.

December

Started the month with a Christmas dinner with the Writers Circle. Once again, someone (not naming Colin, but...) set fire to something on the table. Never leave us in the company of live flame! I did more job hunting and was interviewed by Fauna and Flora International, which I found out about through a friend on Facebook. I'm delighted to say I start a one year contract there in February.

Shave also got together for a friendly meal and a chat and had some photos taken. There's some fun ones on Guido's flickr site.

So - a busy year which seems to have got quite squished up with lots happening in my little world at the end of the year. The good news is that I am keeping up with Compelte Trainer and starting a new job, as well as doing some consultancy work.

2010

A busy year ahead with lots of challenges. Stay tuned folks, I hope to keep blogging and keep you up to date with my daft stories and odd points of view on life, the universe and... well, just about anything I can think of that is a suitable enough excuse for me to put finger to keyboard (pen to paper sounds better, but...)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Did I mention?

2009-12-29T12:17:00.001-08:00

Oh goodness, Christmas has come and gone, and I've probably missed lots of 'bloggable' opportunities. There was the trip to London with Cathy, visiting museums and meeting her brother; a gig in Cambridge where the band outnumbered the audience (and we are a duo!) at one point; a week working for a drinks company; a week stacking shelves in the local supermarket and - well plenty really.

And of course changes in job circumstance too! I'm moving back into the not-for-profit sector in the New Year, reviving my fundraising marketing talents with an amazing organisation called Fauna and Flora International.

They are a fantastic international organisation who do amazing work. They are based in Cambridge and I hope to start in February. Meantime I am also doing some consultancy work and still running http://www.thecompletetrainer.com/.

The 'Shave' crew had a get together for some lunch and photos - just for fun.

Well, a short post with not a lot of detail, but once I get my 'flow' back, I'll be blogging again!

Kevin Hill

2009-11-29T12:29:00.000-08:00

Kev and Ro, and then Richard. Kev we met through our friend Kevin, the singer in our rock band, Aardvark and No Money - there were always lots of Kevins in our musical world. We quickly became good friends with Kev and Ro and years on, 25 or more years on even, we are still friends.

Kev and Ro are a bit younger than us, but their son Richard is about the same age as our son, Alex. Richard is a talented artist, Kev and Ro worked in the same school (different jobs). The shock of hearing that Kev died, is almost impossible to process. He was, as far as we knew, in good health. He just came home one Friday night, sat down, and said he didn't feel well. And that was it. A heart attack. Not even 50.

We had some good times with Kev and Ro - one of which I will retell here. For New Year's Eve, many years back, Kevin (not Kev, to distinguish the two) worked for Critall Windows in Silver Street. They wanted a band for their party and Kevin suggested that the members of Aardvark play. Not everyone was available so we set up a scratch band which, when we reviewed the wonderful standards we had decided to do, we called 'Shame and Scandal'.

The band featured me on bass, Bryan and Terry (he was our sound engineer) on guitars, Tony on drums, Ro on vocals and tambourine, Kev on keyboards and Kevin singing. It was a riot! In the changing rooms (well, toilets really) Bryan came out and said 'I know you girls put on makeup before a gig, but I've never seen a chap do it'. Kev wore eyeliner, well... it was the 80s!

We had a lot of good times together - Kev and Ro came to festivals with us in the Shave the Monkey days, and we stayed in touch - even if we didn't see each other as often as friends like.

Unfortunately I had to work and couldn't go to the funeral, but John said it was amazing - standing room only and a sunny December day.

I will remember Kev with fondness and affection. And Ro and Richard, I will not lose touch.

So, in loving memory my friend - and to those who have lost someone they love this holiday season, I send my love and warm thoughts. Think of those people as they were when they were living and sharing our lives - and remember those times.

Updated adventures!

2009-11-27T14:39:00.000-08:00

It’s been a long time since I posted my last blog, and it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything other than application letters, emails and marketing articles. I’ve just not had the ‘creative muse’ visit me recently, despite having:

- Clambered up the slippery slopes of a small mountain
- Visited the haunts of my youth (and entered a 5000 year old tomb)
- Been to London with my friend from Ireland and ‘done’ the museums
- Visited a Hindu Temple
- Had a couple of gigs
- Been made redundant
- Started winning some squash games!

As you can see, certainly plenty of bloggable material there, but with no muse to date. I’ve not even written any songs lately (or even of my awful poetry). So – what brought it back tonight? No idea! But even though I’m tired out, I’m going to post!

So, where should I start? Perhaps the mountain – Skellig Fawr. I went to see some friends in the West Country at the beginning of November and on the Saturday we headed over the Severn to Wales and ‘climbed’ the path to the top. I had to stop quite often because I am, alas, unfit, but at every turn it would be ‘not far now’ and then, as we crested each ridge there was an ‘oh, it’s a bit further on than we thought... haven’t done this in ten years’... Aaargh! Well, though the day started off a bit damp, it was only when we reached the top (but not the end of the ridge) that the rain started to come down. ‘Do you want to go on?’ – well, it wasn’t that much further (only another quarter of a mile).

By the time we reached the very end (see how happy I look. We did it!), the weather was appalling. Rain slanted sideways at us, wind whipped at us, and even those hardy folk who had embarked on a remembrance walk for a recently departed friend (we talked to several of them on the way up) had given up and started heading down again. But it was worth it! The view, albeit cloudy, was tremendous.

On the Sunday I left my friends and headed to Wellow, a small village just outside Bath. As a child, my parents and aunt had jointly owned a small holiday cottage there. I spent many happy holiday as a child splashing in the brook, catching fish (loggerheads) with my hands, and enjoying time with my friend Paul, or maybe my cousin Nick or even my brother (like most siblings, we fought a lot). I went for long walks through the village, back to the ford, through the fields and out behind the church. As I went past fields of horses, the sound of the choir and the organ playing drifted gently with me on the chill but dry wind.

Later on I drove a bit out of the village and, after negotiating an extremely narrow lane, parked in a small gravel area and clambered over stiles and through more fields to reach the Stoney Littleton Long Barrow. It was raining by the time I got to the barrow, but not hard. I crawled in – it seemed smaller than when I had visited it last (as a child and once again on my honeymoon, many, many years later). I didn’t go too far in, having to crawl on hands and knees on rough gravel, but at the very end I could see something white that shone, even though there was no light inside the barrow. A couple who were also at the tumulus said that it was a letter – a sad love poem – left by some distraught soul.

I went back to the car and took a slow and happy drive home. I must have walked miles that weekend, and I certainly felt better for it.

So... coming soon! My visit to London and the Museums (and my night in an Irish pub on a football night), and my change in career circumstances.

If you'd like to see more photos of my 'adventures', then please visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8100559@N04/ which also contains some pictures of the historic market town of Ware in Hertfordshire.

Abuse

2009-10-05T08:22:00.001-07:00

If you get a chance, read this article on the Times on Line Site:

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/article6860532.ece

Abuse by women on children is an awful subject to contemplate, one that the interviewer in the Times suggests we 'refuse to accept' or block out. It's not a subject I can talk knowledgeably on, but like many people, I know people who have suffered abuse, in many forms.

Read the article if you get a chance, and check out the Aurora Health Foundation:

http://www.aurorahealthfoundation.org.uk/

They need support to continue to provide front-line services to survivors. If you can help, or know someone who could, please forward these links and let's see if we can make a different to support a worthwhile charity who are not funded by the Government.

On Thursday 15th October Susannah is on the This Morning programme on ITV. http://www.itv.com/lifestyle/thismorning/ - please tune in if you get a chance.

Thank you.

The best chat up line yet!

2009-09-13T06:51:00.000-07:00

Never mind etchings - how about:

"Do you want to come and see my eagle owl?"

OK, it was late and I'd had a few ciders (er, rather too many ciders actually!) but I didn't take up the offer and see his eagle owl, or his buzzard, or snowy owl or any of his other birds. He was a falconer and a Welshman with a nice singing voice. This bird is a crossbreed, beautiful creature! I do like birds, and I understand the conservation work that falconers and other raptor rescuers do, but I love to see them fly free - not chained to little posts in the ground. I know - they probably know no different - but I like watching birds wild, not captive. However - I digress - what was I doing to get asked this question anyway?

Well, another of those 'mad gigs' that we end up doing, of course! We played at a medieval fair in the depths of the Fens, an evening gig for the stallholders once all the visitors had gone home.

By the way, on the way to the gig we saw hot air balloons - I will try and download the photo from my phone showing them descending near the windfarm. It was quite spectacular.

We set up outside the beer (and cider, did I mention the cider?) tent and played as the sun went down. Thankfully there was enough ambient light from a nearby food trailer and the bar itself! It did get a bit chilly though.

It was a fun evening with Penni, Craig (a friend of Penni's) and Martin on drums (me on the old bass). Much to my surprise I met up with some of my friends - people who I knew as Viking reenactors, not medieval! "We just slipped a few centuries" Emma explained. It was great to catch up with them and to meet their lovely nippers - feet and faces dirty from running round the field all day. A lovely passtime for little ones, these medieval fairs and reenactment shows.

Later in the bar, I met a chap who asked if I had played in Aardvark and No Money. Goodness gracious, yes! That was our first folk rock band back in the 80's - it was Mark, the guy who engineered our very first recording at Woodworm Studios all those years ago. Small world! We munched on a pig corpse in the bar - leftover from the hog roast. Weird sort of bar snack to offer, but tasty.

After we finished playing is when the enthusiastic (and also a little drunk) falconer targeted me for some further entertainment and though the offer of a night in his caravan (shared with his birds?! I don't know) was politely refused, it was still charmingly made and gave my ego a bit of a boost.

I usually go swimming on a Sunday morning - this morning I decided to sleep in. You know, just because I was tired, not because of a headache or anything like that, oh no... not at all.

The most amazing blog party on earth!

2009-09-04T00:52:00.001-07:00

It's over - a whole month of blog party on Nadine's site, - and it was amazing!

It had visitors from 56 countries! Authors gave away 31 books... and there were not only many participants in each daily 'party' (with some days running to nearly 100 comments) but hundreds of 'lurkers' who just hung around and watched the fun.

Nadine is not only a good writer, she's an amazing friend to writers all over the world. She shares her experience and wisdom (I keep telling her she should charge for this!) and her blog party was incredible - giving other authors exposure, new site visits and more sales.

When it comes to writing, people think it's a lonely world (visions of dusty attics, clattering typewriters and smoke-ridden, dusty dens), but the internet has changed that. Writing is usually a solo experience, but with forums like http://www.mywriterscircle.com/ and authors like Nadine out there, it isn't like that any more.

Visit her blog, take a look through the posts, find out about some amazing books, and visit her website too. Spread the word, spread the love, and help independent (and mainstream too) writers:

http://www.nadinelaman.blogspot.com/

http://www.nadinelamanbooks.com/

Simple Guide to Mallorca

2009-08-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

I went over to Mallorca again to visit mother and so that I could travel back with my daughter Melody, who'd been over for some weeks..

On the flight over I heard some kids talking 'So they talk Mayorceese do they? Spanish?' and I thought, well... not a lot of folks know much about Mallorca beyond the hotels and beaches on the holiday channels. So here's my simple (slightly tongue in cheek) guide

1. Is Mallorca part of Spain? Think of Mallorca to Spain like you do Wales to England. Own language, own culture, own history, but governed by the local 'big boys'. The Mallorcan (pronounced mayorkeen) language is a derivation of Southern Spanish language. So, like Welsh and Irish are both Gaelic languages, so Mallorcan is a Catalan language.

2. How do you tell the difference between a Mallorcan and a Spaniard? Not easy for visitors! The difference is accent is hard for a non-Spanish speaker to tell. But there are more blondes (natural) in Mallorca than in Spain. But be polite, do not assume everyone on the Island you speak to is Mallorcan or even Spanish. If you can, ask.

3. Are the natives friendly? I have found them to be so. When you walk down a small town street, people will say hello. Say 'Ola' to the younger generation, and 'Buenas Dias' to the older people (show respect). If you are in a really far flung place, where they may only speak Mallorcan, just smile.

4. Can I get egg and chips in Mallorca? Of course you can - there are plenty of English bars and places that will sell you all sorts of international foods - but if that's your cultural exploratory limit in cullinary tastes then forget going to this lovely island, pay for a few sessions at your local tanning club and stick with your local chippy.

5. What is good Mallorcan food? There is good Spanish fare and good Mallorcan food on the island. Fritos Mallocan are lovely - but bear in mind it is chips and liver! The rabbit and meat roasts are wonderful (not great for vegetarians). The traditional Spanish tappas, tortilla, paella and, of course, marvellous fish dishes from the ports are also highly recommended. Pan bolli (phonetic) is a plate and then lots of cold meats, salads, bread (the pan bit) and olive oil instead of butter.

6. Mallorca is just beaches and hotels. Wrong... it has some amazing beaches and some super hotels I'm sure, but it is an amazing island with wonderful mountains, fantastic little bays and ports and lots to explore beyond the pool and the hotel bar. If you can, go on trips away from your resort and explore what your locale has to offer - for example the Monastery at Lluc, the Cathederal and the Arab baths in Palma, the extraordinary caves and the wonderful architeture of towns like Alcudia and the beautiful Pine Walk in Pollensa. The island is a haven for those who are sailing enthusiasts, and anyone who loves the sea. Explore a little!

7. What is beach etiquette? The first thing that I notice is that the sandy beaches are accepted as one giant ashtray. Though they clean the beaches every night, you will find that everyone leaves their fag ends on the beach. This is disgusting. But the beaches are still cleaner and tidier than any English beach I've been on for a long time.

You may bathe topless at most beaches. I recommend if you want to that you don't sit next to another English family though - as long as no one knows you are English (or a visitor of any non-residential kind), then unless you have startlingly white skin (as per me) then no one will bother. If you are heard speaking English and go topless, they will think you are weird. This is just my take on it though... try it for yourself and see.

Dogs are mostly not allowed on the beaches. Watch out for the 'jellyfish flag' which means that there are jellyfish in the water and you may get stung.

8. What's the sea like? Wet. Apart from the odd jellyfish, it's pretty clean and warmish - though if you go into deeper water it can get quite chilly. Sometimes it can get quite rough, and there are hidden currents further out from the beaches, but make sure you follow beach safety rules wherever you go swimming. Little hidden beaches are wonderful, but make sure someone knows where you are and don't fall asleep on your inflatable and end up drifting towards Africa! There is some flotsam - but mostly weed and the occasional plastic bag; the latter is not the sea's fault.

Here's something that may be a surprise to you... There Are Fish In The Sea! Swimming in Illetas I love to snorkel over the weeds and watch the fish (I counted about seven different types, quite pretty). They also swim around you in the water but you don't know they are there. When returning to the beach after one little snorkling session I told a friend how wonderful the fish were. "You mean there are fish in here? I don't like the thought of that..." said one British woman. Der... it's the sea?

9. Do they like animals? Yes, especially roasted, grilled... but as a nation they seem to prefer dogs to cats. Cats are everywhere and a useful pest control population, but they need control themselves. There are many places where feral cats multiply and they are not the most hygienic of creaters. However, there are usually some ex-pat do-goders around who will either feed them or otherwise look out for these feral felines.

Dogs are everywhere and where I stay they are a nuisance... they bark day and night and the poop on the pavement doesn't get cleared up by owners. Dogs are used for guarding empty properties, dogs are companions and dogs are also taken into places like restaurants and shops, but not all.

10. Can I smoke in a bar in Mallorca? Of course you are not allowed to by law. Which means, broadly speaking, yes, if anyone else is. Restaurants have areas for smokers, bars don't seem as worried about the non-smoking regulations as they are in the UK, but for goodness' sake ask before lighting up.

11. Why should anyone go to Mallorca? Because the people are friendly, the architechture is amazing, the history is troubled and fascinating, the beaches are great, the sea is warm, the food is great (unless you are vegetarian) and the mountains beautiful. If you want to sit on the beach and suntan, you can. If you want to swim, you can. If you want to cycle or climb or run or explore - you can. There are water sports, land sports, equestrian centres, every kind of activity you could possibly imagine.

12. Why should anyone not go to Mallorca? If you want to avoid the English, German, Spanish or Smokers, this isn't the place for you. It is a hugely popular holiday and retirement destination. The island is crawling with expatriot residents who have happily lived there for 40 or more years and will still have strong opinions on the economy and government of their home country, even though they've not lived there or participated in the democratic process since they left. However, they do expect to be cared for by social services or the NHS when they return 'home'.

OK, a light-hearted look at Mallorca - but seriously, don't just book your hotel and flights and head for the beach. If you do, you will be missing out on a lot.

Entertainers needed for London Charity

2009-08-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

Hi folks - anyone able to help with this request from Wendy?

"I am currently in the process of organising a firewalk to raise money for our charity. The Fawcett Society is the UK’s leading campaigning organisation in the UK which campaigns for equality between women and men.

We don’t have a budget for any entertainment, but having someone there to entertain the crowds would mean the event was much more than just a firewalk. I wondered if there was anybody that would donate their time for this event. It is happening on the 3rd December 2009, from about 5.30 in the evening in London, E1. In return we would promote them on all our materials, on our website and in any marketing that goes out.

It really would be amazing to have someone there, to bring the event alive!

I really want this event to be a success and am contacting anyone I can think of to ask for help! If you aren’t able to help then don’t worry. "

Many thanks

Wendy Hall
Business Officer

The Fawcett Society
1-3 Berry Street
London, EC1V 0AA

Our vision is of a society in which women and men enjoy equality at work, at home and in public life. Add your voice to our campaign! Join us at www.fawcettsociety.org.uk

Fawcett Society. A company limited by guarantee no. 4600514. Registered in England. Registered Charity no 1108769.

If you are interested in helping - please email me at carolyn (at) thecompletetrainer.com and I will forward your offer.

It's my turn to party!

2009-08-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

Nadine's Blog Party features yours truly today!

She's put up some of my songs and has written a (flattering!) piece too. Go take a look - join in the party and win prizes ALL month!

http://www.nadinelaman.blogspot.com/

Bombs in Mallorca

2009-08-09T13:11:00.000-07:00

I know the lovely Ballearic Island of Mallorca reasonably well, compared to most holiday destinations I've visited. Reason is, I go back there often as mother lives there part of the year. - in a small village above Palma.

My daughter is out there now, with her friends, with my mother. And the bombs, claimed by ETA (the Basque separatist group), are in places I know, places we've been. The first bomb killed two policemen and was a 'military' (establishment?) target. Subsequent bombs have been in tourist areas. But no tourists killed. ETA don't want that kind of publicity I guess - but see policemen as acceptable targets?

I don't know the politics - I think of Mallorca/Spain a bit like Wales/England. A separate cultural history, language, but subsumed (not always a negative) by the larger neighbour. But no matter what politics is involved, I can't accept bombing - even of static targets (buildings, things, not people).

Am I worried? Not really - I think statistically the chances of my family being hurt by a bomb in Mallorca are probably smaller than them getting hit by a car in our home town. But I'm a long way away, and that does hurt. Good thing I'm going out soon.

Blog Party!

2009-08-09T11:54:00.001-07:00

It's a blog party! Sounds a bit like 'block party', doesn't it? And has some similarities - Nadine's Blog Party is bringing together bloggers from all over the world to have a knees up!

So much going on - I can't begin to cover it all here. The thing to do is visit Nadine's blog (First Draft) next week and join in the fun!

www.nadinelaman.blogspot.com

You can win one of my books (The Ghost Sniffer) on one of the days - check out Nadine's blog every day to see what you could win (and how!)

Painted Ladies!

2009-08-08T09:10:00.000-07:00

Watch the painted ladies dance
In a gentle breeze
Their light lives
Flitting, fleet.
Let them stop to sup
And watch
As their wings
Stretch in the sun.

At least 12 painted ladies in my garden! Ah... but you know actually I mean butterflies, not any other kind, so it's not so bad. At one point I saw 14 butterflies on our buddlea, including Peacock, Painted Ladies, Red Admiral and Cabbage White.

Here's the Painted Lady in all her splendour. I spent ages in the garden today just watching them. the buddlea is collapsing on to the lawn and needs cutting back, but whilst it is host to such a glorious assortment of butterflies, bees, lady birds and other creatures, I can't bring myself to do it. Once it's finished flowering though...

Storytelling

2009-07-30T00:46:00.001-07:00

I wrote a post on my work blog about storytelling. I think that 'storytelling' is my skill/talent/passion. Whether it's in song, the written (or spoken) word, for entertainment or for business.

When I write articles (and quite a few have been published I am not shy in saying), I still access that 'storyteller' part of me to deliver my business message in an accessible way.

And the posts on here - they are 'mini-stories' too. Some recount my exploits, some are just reflections. But if you wonder why I post my writing on a blog that probably very few people read, the answer is simple: I am a storyteller. I have to keep writing and telling stories (even when no one is listening).

When my kids were little I made up all sorts of adventures and characters to tell them at night; for example The Emerald Isle was populated by extremely clever and magical horses (for my daughter). I used the stories to help calm and relax the children, to get them to use their imaginations - asking questions as well as 'telling'. "Well, what colour do you think Starlight's mane was?" and the child's answer was always right, of course.

Writing a book or an article a great way of delivering your message, but by storytelling you can engage on a totally different level. I'd love to try proper storytelling one day - there are lots of professional storytellers out there. A really good storyteller can entrance an adult audience as well as a young one.

When I sing one of my story songs, I usually have a chorus that people can join in. I want to bring people in to my world, engage them directly in the story - perhaps why I personally prefer songs just to instrumentals. The power of the word, without the picture, is that the listener's imagination provides so much more of the 'fill'.

When you see a film, watch TV or visit a live performance, everything is provided for you. Sound, action, character, visual and also (think of cinema or theatre) other senses are engaged too - smell, touch, temperature... we are given a full range of sensory experiences that leaves the imagination very little to play with.

Perhaps that's why I love reading books and listening to radio plays. The characters are built in my imagination, as I like to see them. Everything is set up in my head - from the huge country house for the murder play, to the hot desert sands in the action adventure. I have, of course, plenty of references to build these images from.

I love storytelling and I love reading - fiction, biographies, historical, factual, business, leisure... the power and versatility of language is what fuels me.

Check out the storytelling article on my work blog - I'm always grateful for comments: http://www.thecompletetrainer.blogspot.com/

Summer

2009-07-25T08:23:00.000-07:00

Yesterday when we left work at just gone 5pm, the temperature was about 15 degrees celcius. It was warm, but muggy. By the time we had travelled a few miles in the car, the temperature had plummeted to 7 degrees, we had driven through torrential rain, thunder and lightning and were then bombarded by hail!

It has rained almost permanently for a whole week. That night the sky went a dark, purply grey and we had more thunder, rain and lightning. But this morning the sun is shining and bright and warm and everything is green and growing and almost stretching in the sun - escape at last from the relentless rain.

I walked down to the town market, bought some goodies for the kids (and some chocolate for me.. shh, no one else has found it yet!) and then walked home. I walked back through an alley and at one point, where there is a small car park at the top of a lane, there were blackberry bushes and they were burdened with ripe fruit.

Sticking very much to 'above doggy pee height' I tasted some of the ripe, juicy berries. They were warmed by the morning's sun and tasted of England. There is nothing so delicious as wild fruit, ripe and warm, juicy and 'scrumped'.

I checked my blackberries at home - at the bottom of the garden - they are ripe too. Blackberry and apple pie tomorrow!

Mister Mister

2009-07-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday we attended the funeral of an old family friend - Don Anderson. We'd know Don for about 29 years - he was the partner of our best friend's mother, Veronica. I've know Guido, Veronica's son, since I was 14 (so that's a LONG time!). We spent many Christmas holidays with his family - often going to their house on Boxing day and nearly always seeing them over the holiday period at some time.

Last Christmas Don and Floss (Veronica is known to some as 'Floss') spent Christmas day with us along with Guido, his wife and children. I'm glad now we had that time together, as Don departed rather suddenly. He was 73, but had been hale and hearty up until a short while ago when he was diagnosed with a cancer that took him rapidly.

His funeral was in New Southgate and the small chapel was very full - it was standing room only at the back. There were family (the children and family of his first wife), his friends from the RAF, fellow steam train enthusiasts and many others who knew him.

The service was very touching. And, as always at these events, we learned more about Don now that he was dead from the eulogies and conversation than we had known of him when he was alive.

But why have I called this post 'Mister Mister'? Because Don and Veronica spent a lot of time in Spain, and it always amused the Spanish to hear him called Don (which means Mr in Spanish), so he was dubbed Don Don - meaning Mister Mister.

He was not a man I knew well, but he is a man I have fond memories of. I am gald I knew him.

It's a strange world

2009-07-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

Bryan's band Strangeworld played at Ely Folk Festival last weekend and, by all accounts, they stormed it! Here's a snippet for you to enjoy.

There's lots more on their site at Strangeworldmusic.com, and you can buy their CDs from their site too (or from me).

A trip to Bath

2009-07-12T09:25:00.000-07:00

Friday I had a business meeting in Bath - a location chosen not only because it was nearer to the person I was meeting (a trainer named David) but also because it gave me the opportunity to visit friends and to return to one of my favourite cities.

On the journey down I stopped to answer a call of nature. The ladies loos at the service station were reasonably tidy. On the door of the cubicle I was in was scrawled 'We must be the change we wish to see - Ghandi'. Below it, neatly written, was 'Love the sentiment, shame you can't spell Gandhi'. And below that.. was 'F*** off, just be yourself'. I didn't realise I'd visited the philosophy booth!

I arrived in good time and followed the sat nav instructions to the car park where David and I had agreed to meet. I arrived first, but he was not long behind me. When we met up he was suited and booted from a coaching session he'd attended, but wanted to change into jeans.

One he had changed (without the aid of a Telephone Box) we walked into town and found a hotel where we sat and discussed business (we have a great product we are launching in partnership with our two businesses) and then just nattered away before driving to see my friend Amie. I met Amie on line and she kindly offered to put me up when I came to Bath.

We drove around the city, out on the Radstock Road, up to Odd Down and down a steep road back towards the City. We tried three houses before we eventually found Amie and her husband Paul. After brief introductions, we went in Amie's car to the Wheatsheaf pub where we had booked a table for supper. I had known this pub in years back and outside it looked the same - perched on a Mendip hillside, dovecotes integral to the white painted walls, thatch and a beautiful garden. It was in the next village to Wellow, where I had been often as a child and where my step-granny, Peeps, had lived.

We walked in and immediately saw that the pub had experienced a radical make over. There were flush lights, glass panels, modern furniture and smooth pale wood bar - it was now a nouvelle cuisine restaurant. So - probably not a ploughman's for supper then! We had a superb meal - even though it was 'nouvelle' we had plenty to eat. Started with little hand-made rolls, then a neat little coffee cup of lobster bisque (not ordered, just part of the meal), and finally our main courses which looked superb, tasted wonderful and were actually filling! We didn't even have a dessert.

Conversation over dinner was interesting - I was with three engineers! Different kind of engineers, but engineers none the less. David had been an engineer in the army, Amie works for a national standards body, and Paul works for a company who makes devices regulated by the board Amie works for. It was a bit like 'copper and thief' at the table sometimes - Paul and Amie didn't always agree about the process for approving products.

After dinner we went back to Amie's house. David left (concerned about the fact he was late feeding his parrot) and then Amie, Paul and I watched the last thrilling episode of Torchwood. Their cats kept us company, the two sister cats snuggled up on Paul's lap. We nattered for about an hour and then, pretty tired, I headed for bed.

In the morning I woke at 6am - the sounds of railway, the city, unfamiliar, but not disturbing. I went back to sleep and woke again at 8. At about 10, I left my kind hosts and headed for a walk round the city. I walked down and went through the newly built up Southgate Centre. They are keeping the style of building and it works well - but the bus station is something else. I visited the Baths (the free access section) and the Abbey. When I entered the Abbey the vicar was giving a sermon. He was in his pulpit addressing an audience of wandering Italian children and a few people sitting politely in the seats at the front. He finished shortly after I entered and as I wandered round this superb building, I came up to him and offered a simple 'good morning' and he smiled. It must be strange addressing a non-congregation.

I enjoyed my walk around and found a snack in the old Guildhall market. I chatted with a girl on one shop where I bought some postcards. She described the new bus station as 'the baked bean tin'. At the back of the market was a stone table which says:

Market Pillar. This 18th century pillar or 'nail' stood on the site of the markets since 1768 for the transaction of business and for prompt payment in bargaining. It is said this gave origin to the phrase 'pay on the nail'.

I wonder how many visitors to Bath ever see this? I wandered on through the city - past the house where my Aunt used to live, through the park (some amazing trees - the outstretched branch on this maple was nearly 70 foot long!) I walked around some of the back streets, not just the main tourist routes. I would love to get to know this city better. It's odd, but I like being a lone tourist.

I returned to Amie and Paul's house. We had some lunch and then I headed off to my next meeting - a visit with an author (and trainer) in a small village in Oxfordshire. On the motorway I noticed signs to Watlington - where Peeps had lived when she was with my grandpa and where my mother had spent some of her youth.

The red kite, a rare and protected bird of prey, was first reintroduced in the UK near Watlington. I have seen them where I live now, but only very occasionally. On my journey to visit Alison, the author, I saw 11 red kites - at one point five of them playing in the air above the motorway itself. Amazing birds! Very distinctive with their sharply forked tail - easy to spot in the air without taking your eyes off the road.

I arrived at the village, which is on the river Thame. Alison's house was very picturesque and her labrador, Jasper, very welcoming. She greeted me in tennis whites, having been playing in the garden before I arrived (I never found out with whom, or whether she was playing on her own). We worked for a couple of hours, getting the last edits sorted on a book we are publishing, and then I headed for home.

As I drove I thought about my quick trip away. I love the city of Bath, I miss not going there to see family (none left there now) and I miss the deep greens of the Mendips. Next time I go I will visit Wellow and some of the villages I used to know. Yes, everything changes, and it will be different when I go, but I can still visit places just to enjoy them for how they are.

There's some more photos on my flickr site

The Kathryn’s Beach Trilogy

2009-07-09T07:44:00.000-07:00

Book review of the trilogy by Nadine Laman

I’m an avid reader and I read all genres, from sci-fi to biography, novels to history. I love to read and the key to me is a great story and ‘engagement’. Even if you don’t like the characters, you have to engage with them.

That’s what I loved about Nadine’s trilogy – I read Kathryn’s Beach and I felt that the active, first person style was very engaging. You are right there, in the moment, seeing the world through her eyes. The upsets, the challenges and the drama all feel very real when you are reading from the first person point of view, even though it is not that common a form. The story in Kathryn’s Beach is also one that engages – you understand the distress she feels and why she had to ‘run’, the curiosity as strange events unfold, and grief and joy as different action takes place in Kathryn’s life.

Nadine has a blog where she talks about her writing at www.nadinelaman.blogspot.com and you can buy her books off her website www.nadinelaman.com.

Once I’d read Kathryn’s Beach, I just had to read the others. High Tide, the second book, still used the ‘drag you along’ style and the shocking events that happened, and how Kathryn handled them, still felt personal. Though maybe you don’t agree, as a reader, with everything she says or does, you are taken along by the story and follow her life changing encounters with a family that you kind of wish you had, and are very glad you don’t have.

The final book, which we had to wait a bit for (keeping us in suspense! Everyone I know who read the other two books was dying to find out what happened in Storm Surge) kept the character strong – you knew it was Kathryn (like recognising an old friend) and wanted to find out how she coped with a complete life style change and some quite tragic, and heart-warming events.

From start to finish, I wanted to know what happens, I wanted to follow Kathryn on her journey and I enjoyed meeting the people she interacted with along the way. The reader gets comfy with people like Mr Goldstein, the elderly and kindly neighbour, Karen, the ex-boss who is a bit of a fixer, the demure Mother Elizabeth (I never met any nuns, but I believe this one) and the close companion Maggie, who is lost so early on.

All I can say is buy Kathryn’s Beach – and you will want to read the whole trilogy.

Nadine has an excellent blog where she talks about her writing: www.nadinelaman.blogspot.com and you can buy her books off her website at www.nadinelamanbooks.com

Another work article

2009-07-06T04:28:00.000-07:00

One of my favourite quotes is from Winston Churchill:

“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.”

We learn best by doing, and Churchill certainly ‘did’ a lot – from his career as an officer in the British Army, through his exploits as a historian, writer, and artist to being the only British Prime Minister ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.

There was no on line learning in Churchill’s day, but I am sure he would have embraced it. You may think on line learning was not available during Churchill’s life time, but in fact on line learning pre-dates the internet. The first recorded system was the Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations, developed at the University of Illinois in 1960 (and remained in operation until the 1990’s). In 1994 the Open University in the UK developed a Virtual Summer School.

As computers became an everyday item in households throughout the Western World, so on line learning also grew. During the early 1980s (in the days of 8” floppy disks) I worked for a large international computer company. There was excitement as the concept of desk-top computers equally as powerful as machines which, at the time, occupied whole rooms, were a reality that we saw grow nearer every day.

On line learning is now part of everyday life. Children today are given homework assignments and assistance via the internet, you can gain business qualifications and learn new skills without leaving the comfort of you own home. You can study with fellow students at a University half way round the world, if you so choose.

However, if you want to train to be a chef, you can complete a training programme, check recipes, find out about new foods, techniques, purchase the best tools – all on line. On line learning is an excellent enhancement to classroom and practical learning, in this example. The practical side can be done without external tuition, but the results and the credibility of the training may be perceived as inferior.

There are tremendous advantages to on line learning – but what are the barriers to learning? Access is important: you need a computer, probably internet access, and appropriate programmes for audio and video content. Learning styles are also highly individual and many people don’t like ‘reading’ what to do. There are also issues for those with reading disabilities (though audio and visual options are available for many systems). Some people just don’t like learning with a computer instead of a person. For example, I may find using the internet an excellent way to research a subject, but if I want to learn to identify birds, no matter how great the video, audio and catalogue resources on the internet – I actually want to be outside, listening, watching, and learning with a book or (even better), with an expert.

With management development, in a corporate environment, access is usually facilitated through the workplace. Individuals can work not only in the place of their choosing, but also at a time that is convenient for themselves and the business. Teams can work together in remote locations, company competency frameworks can be implemented globally and individuals can be given access to the tools they need to develop their skills.

Much has been, and continues to be, written about on line learning. What advantages does it hold over face to face, how flexible is it, do people really learn from electronic resources or is it just a cheap alternative to ‘proper’ training? I don’t need to go into a detailed breakdown of the pros and cons, because they are highly individual – the important thing is that this resource exists, in many forms from simple on line documents through interactive e-learning to simulations and live web and pod-casts.

On line learning is, above all else, a wonderful opportunity. For self development, business development, individual skill building or implementation of organisation wide knowledge sharing – on line learning is an extraordinary resource that, had he been alive today, Churchill would no doubt have welcomed with open arms and mind.

The Complete Trainer has launched their own on line academy - find out more on the main site.

Footnote: I published this article on Hub pages, ezines, on my work blog and on here - I wonder if that will affect the links status of the product? I do find using these different methods interesting to try and promote the business and do everything I can to try and increase search engine rankings.

Swimming

2009-06-28T07:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday mornings I go swimming at our local leisure centre. I usually get there from around 8am to 9am - the earlier I go the less kids, so though I swim in a lane, it's quieter if I go earlier.

I go regularly and so do others, of course. Because I am not set to a precise time every week, I tend to see different people. And, as I can't resist observing, I also watch these people (I am not a speedy swimmer so there is plenty of time).

Sometimes I just watch the water - the sunshine creating patterns that shimmer and dance, seeing how the movement of my hands sends whorls of current scattering the light. I enjoy the sensation of swimming, of being light and able to move in the water with the buoyancy of this marvellous element.

But back to people! There are two ladies (older than me) who go regularly. One is dark haired, the other (bottle) blonde. If they are in the 'slow lane' (my favourite haunt) with no one else, they go up and down together, side by side instead of following. And they walk the first half, right up until they have to swim, because they are so deep in converstation. These are not ladies who lunch, but the 'ladies who swim'. The darker haired one is a grandmother - and when her child arrives with partner and their two twin babies, she lights up. She abandons the lane and heads to the 'free for all' section to dote upon her two grandchildren. And they are incredibly cute and love their swimming, even though they must be less than a year old.

Then there is the couple who swim in separate lanes. She in the 'medium lane', and he with me in the 'slow lane'. There are signs at the end of each lane with arrows showing which way round to swim - up one side, down the other. Mostly you can gauge which lane to be in by who's already in there and how they compare to your natural pace.

The man I reminds me of a whale - not because he is huge (he is large, not huge) but because he breaches on each stroke, like a whale. His back rises and his head plunges - all the way up and down the pool.

Then there is 'grunter'. Another chap who plods slowly up and down and makes a female-tennis-player type grunt with every stroke. These are all familiar faces to me, as we share the slow lane at different times (all of us at once would be madness!). Today I went swimming and I have a new person to add to my list of characters - she is 'bubbles'. On the downstroke she blows out through the mouth (not uncommon, of course) but makes lots of bubbles (noticeably!) and also a noise. You make some noise when you breathe out, but to make this odd sound she must actually vocalise. So - even from the other end of the pool - you can hear her bubbling as she rises and falls in the water.

I wonder what, if anything, they think of me? I must have some foibles, but mostly I am just slow. I don't swim to be competitive or for a massive health workout, I swim because I like it. I am in my own space, in my head, I can think about anything or nothing and just enjoy the sensation of exercise without stress or competition.

By the way - the photo is just one I nabbed of the net - from a club in the USA. I just liked the picture!

Sunday

2009-06-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

This Sunday morning early I went outside into my garden. I heard the loud clear song of the blackbird and the syruping lilt of the goldfinch. No traffic sounds - just the creaks of the world as it stretched itself ready for the day ahead.

On blackberry blossom near the dogroses, the bumble bees were busy, intent on nectar collection. There was the sweet scent from the mock organge, drifting on the breeze. The lawn was long enough to allow the clover to flower. Dandelions crept out, hoping to escape my notice.

Overhead two old planes flew past - their ancient engines rattling the sky briefly as they passed. On their way to Duxford perhaps, chasing the few white smears of cloud.

Back on the ground tall toadflax with purple flowers, also beloved of the bees, waved gently in the light breeze. My vegetables watered, fed and tended, I just watched the world for a moment.

The wings of the bird, the wings of the bee, the wings of the plane. The church bells rang - a long peal that could be heard for years, their sound drifted on hidden wings. Sunday morning, a precious moment for me.