Just pleasantly floundering around.....

For seven years now, we have been lucky enough to have a weekend long camping 'party' in our friend's twenty two acre wood near Bury St Edmunds. The event is simply wonderful - see post 14th Jan! We always started preparing and planning for the party a long while in advance and my favourite of all the preparations each year has always been the treasure hunt. With only a wood to play with (!) we have produced a variety of clues that each lead to a letter - about eight or nine each year. A map guided people to the site of each clue. The letters people collected could then be un-jumbled to make a word. The word then had to be whispered to me before a prize was issued. Simple as that. Only it never was simple, because we usually put in hours of preparation! I cannot remember all the clues, but here are some of my favourites: • The letter you want is in a wallet. We made a road called ‘Wallet Way’ cut into the grass and scattered lots of wallets from charity shops along the ‘r...

Wow what a busy week, culminating in the training session on difference, diversity and inclusion for social workers (mentioned in last Sunday's post) that turned out to be in the upstairs room of the pub closest to my house. (I didn't receive directions for the training venue until an hour before it was to occur - all very 'treasure hunt'.) One thing I have noticed about social workers: they do casual very well. They made me look over-dressed and that really is a rarity. I liked this because I personally struggle to look 'polished' every work day - physically and mentally. Yesterday, I was a social misfit from the opposite direction. To set the scene a bit - my background is in education and therefore when I am talking to teachers, I have a shared understanding that is so 'there' I am not really even aware of it. I have worked with youth workers, school nurses, people from youth offending teams, people from the voluntary sector and various other agencie...

Now I apologise if any of you have followed the link at the edge of my blog to my bit that was on Mike Fleetham's website because the following can be found there and you would have already seen it. However, I am hedging my bets that nobody has and so I bring it here, because I love it as an activity (even if I do say so myself *blush*)..... Are you sitting comfortably? Prince Anir Once upon a time their lived a prince who had everything anyone could possibly want; that is anything that could be bought with money. He lived in a big castle, drove a fast car, had a tonne of toys, televisions and computers and he slept in a beautifully designed bedroom with matching duvet cover, carpet and curtains. He also had servants that did all the boring, messy and nasty jobs for him. However, despite all these things, Anir was not a happy person. He was also not a very kind person. He often threw his things across the room in a fit of rage, shouted at the servants and insisted that he only do...

Despite my two and a half house fires and my little forest fire, the fact I gained not even the tiniest bit of pleasure in any of them proves that I am not actually a pyromaniac. O.K. that has been established. My second house fire, like my first, started after a night filled up by drinking capability-altering-liquid. Now before you suggest that there is a pattern forming, I was entirely sober during my forest fire. I was 12 after all. I had spent a lovely evening with several dear friends. Food, red wine and much hilarity. Upon my return I didn't feel like going to sleep straightaway so I put on some music and lit a candle - so that I could lose myself in ponderous ponderings. I often find alcohol can make things seem more profound and candlelight seems to enhance this delusion further. The candle I lit stood in a very wobbly candle holder that I had bought from QD stores for 40p. One could just about make it stand upright by fiddling around with it for a while - so it wasn...

Well. I do have many thoughts about the issue of religion. My original post was deliberately quite light-hearted. You all appear to have had the heavy debate about it for me. However, I have become sucked in to a point where I have to say more………. I see religion a personal choice in the same way as drinking alcohol/or not or eating meat/or not. People with different viewpoints (as long as these viewpoints do not impact on the rights of others) should be able to co-exist without feeling a need to convert or feel anger towards each other. So if someone does not respect another’s’ right to hold a particular viewpoint, however strange that viewpoint might seem to them personally (and tries endlessly to convert the opposite viewee), that’s when it all goes wrong. That just seems to end up in angry polarisation. I will always challenge a person that tries to convert me to religion - quite forcefully - and defend my right not to believe (or even see the point of religion) but I would never tr...

Well I did try very hard to stay advert free....but the temptation is just too great.... If you place your order with me - I'll only take a little commission.

Religion is not for me and almost definitely never will be. I say almost definitely because I might go senile. If others need it, want it, socialise through it, have it in their very core, cherish it, are guided by it, are comforted with blind faith in it, depend on it, live it, respect my personal choice not to partake in it, don't spend time telling me my life would be so much better with it, don't legitimise judging others with it, don't start wars in the name of it, then it's fine but it's not for me in the same way as horoscopes aren't. Anyway when I got home last night I found a leaflet asking me, 'would I like to know the truth?' The leaflet then prophetically asked my next question - so obvious, I said it aloud as I read it, 'the truth about what?' Well, in fact, some pretty heavy duty questions like: *Does God care about us? *Will war and suffering end? *What happens to us when we die? *Is there any hope for the dead? *How can I pray and...

I have always loved this photo as a little window into my ancestry. The chap on the right, back row, is my grandad (George Potter born 1892). He looks a fair bit like my dad did and my sister. He was born in Plaistow and by all accounts was quite a character. I have a couple of poems that he wrote and they are very humorous. He died when I was four and my only memory of him is of him handing me some chalk to scribble on the end of his sideboard. He died shortly after the last of his thirteen grand-children (my brother) was born. My father took my baby brother into hospital to show him his new grandchild but apparently my dad was ushered out by a nurse saying, 'this is no place for babies.' I don't know much about my grandad. I do know he fought in the Battle of the Somme. A couple of times my dad descrbed how he had a hole in his leg. There was always speculation about whether or not it was a Blighty wound. How sensible of him if it was. He married my grandmother long after...

This Friday I have been asked to deliver some diversity training to a group of social workers to deal with a very specific issue: sexism. When I was first asked, I explained that my training is mostly pitched at considering, reflecting on and addressing racism (I'd like to think racism is an anachronism in public sector - but I'm not so sure!), culturalism, disabledism, homophobia, ageism, transgenderism, opinionism...etc and that I could deliver the training as it is and the group never actually receive the message they were meant to receive - the message that would change their behaviour. I have of course adapted my training. The 'situation' I have been asked to address was first registered when one male in an office of many females complained to his boss that he was being made to feel incredibly uncomfortable because of the images, language, attitudes and anti-male e mails (etc) flying around the office. This man does not want it made known to his colleagues that he ...

If the box is the metaphor for convention, all thing with the grain, everything mainstream, conforming...etc...etc....which of these represents your relationship with it? Or do you need a whole new representation? (You can click on each row to enlarge if need be) Please e mail further suggestions for me to add to the box bank if a) none of these pinpoint your exactly relationships with it and/or b) you just feel like drawing some more boxes. xxx

Since I returned to work after maternity leave for my daughter, back in the days when you got five minutes off for the whole bloat - pop - be awake non-stop procedure, my chap and I have in effect reversed traditional roles. In other words, I work full time and he (Andy) runs the home and is the main carer of our children. This is not to say he does not work outside the home. He is a musician and plays amazing classical/world/folk guitar ( http://www.myspace.com/andykirkham ) but his work at weddings, in restaurants and at private parties happens in the evenings or at weekends. I'd say 99.9% of the time the fact we are gender-muddled (!) does not put a single related thought into our heads. To be honest, between the pair of us we could just about, possibly, if we looked really hard, lay claim to some kind of organised system somewhere in our household. Let me see……we eat every day. That’s ‘system’ enough. But since Andy has adopted the home-running role, he has become the relative...

I know there have been a lot of TV programmes recently summing up the noughties in many and varied ways but I caught a bit of one the other night that gave me some food for thought.... The main things that jumped out at me were: 1) The financial generation gap I have always realised that the over 50s and under 30s financial gap was pretty huge and I even remember hearing that 80% of finance is owned by the over 50s but this programme worded it in a way that hit hard. In fact the one question, 'why aren't young people making more of a fuss?' jolted me! While the over 50s are cashing in on property that they own outright (as it probably cost them just a four or five figure sum) and receiving pensions that have actually worked to fund relatively deluxe lifestyles, the younger generations are not only having to get seriously in debt for a university education (a great lesson in being used to debt so early on in life!!!), they are having to couple up and both work to manage thei...

When it comes to psychology, my interest is aroused very quickly. Some of you might have noticed this. I read a book about the big five personality traits this year and I was grabbed because it explained each of the traits in terms of evolutionary psychology – in other words, why it would be beneficial to (those living in a primitive society) to have people with greater and lesser amounts of each of these personality traits. For me, that made this particular model more substantial and valid and less like a wafty science! Personally I can cope with waft, but when I am persuading others, I am always aware that a dollop of logic goes a long way. O.C.E.A.N. – is how the five traits are remembered. Unlike Myers Briggs, these traits do not have ‘opposites,’ you just have a greater or lesser amount of each one. Openness to experience – to me this has strong links with creativity and hyper-connectivity of the brain. Those that score high on openness are more receptive to unusual ideas, creativ...

My dad shared very few memories with me of his younger days so I could hardly write a biography. What he did share, however, was usually very funny, tragic or interesting... ********************** My dad was the fourth child of five. His older brother, George (first-born) was nearly nine years older than him - old enough to have fought in the second world war and have a uniform so he only looked up to him with admiration. His younger sister he also adored. However sisters number two and three gave him a lifetime's scar. The story goes that my dad was about four when he was trying to get into his sister's bedroom. They were not going to let their irritating little brother in so they slammed the door on his face - so hard, his nose was completely broken. This left him with a 'nose' that in effect was completely flat until you came to the nostrils. He had this 'deformity' until at the age of twenty one, when he had his nose reconstructed using a piece of bone from ...

This idea comes from an activity in one of my books due out soon (Even More Outside the Box). I like that title. It's a sequel to Outside the Box so I am guessing if I write more, they might be called 'Viewing the box from space.' It starts by defining: *Ordinary - as nothing out of the ordinary! *Extraordinary as unusual but possible and *Extra-Extraordinary - as extremely unlikely or impossible. (for the purpose of this activity) For example: take these three teachers' journeys to school. ORDINARY Mr Jones Mr Jones leaves his house every morning at 7.30 a.m, exactly. He gets into his blue car, puts on his seat belt and pulls out of his drive. He drives along the High Street,turns left into School Road and right into the school car park. He puts on the hand brake and climbs out of his car. He enters the school by the main entrance. EXTRAORDINARY Ms Teapot Ms Teapot leaves her house by a small window in the downstairs bathroom. She untangles her bicycle from the gooey c...

Did I have you on tenterhooks? Absolutely brilliant party with host and hostess attending to every detail. Rabbit curry, salmon and goose on the menu, lots of things labelled with 'E' adjectives...a blue punch called exhilarating elixir....etc I won second prize for my outfit although marching in and telling the hostess that not winning a prize would render me devastated (just after she had given out first prize) might have swayed the result a little. I won an egg timer. There was an Einstein, two Egyptians, two 'Eighties' - one looked like Adam Ant the other Madonna, an enchantress, an Essex girl, an estate agent, two Elvises, some elves, an Easter bunny, an e mail, an envelope, Eddy Edwards, Edwina from Absolutely Fabulous, an executioner, the Eastern Daily Press, an explorer, Emma from Jane Austin, a few Emos, an elephant, Elton John, a big E, Edith Piaf, an Everton supporter, an eclipse...and some others I have forgotten. And now I need to rest.

We have some great socialite friends that often throw great parties and gatherings. In recent years they have thrown parties of a 'letter' theme. The very first party I attended was an F party and I was part of the hired help: our band played. I claimed I had come as a frump, which of course needed very little planning. I did also tie huge papier mache flowers to the microphone stands, so I had made a little effort. To their D party the following year, I went as a decoy (or distraction) - simply stuck a sign that said 'they went that way' to my front and my fella spent all day turning himself into a domino to arrive, arms stuck out at right angles from his side, to discover he was one of a set that provided a joke about lining up and toppling them over all evening. This time the invite has declared it is an E party. I am assuming it is not a reference to mind altering pills or I am putting unnecessary effort in. The first port of call is a brainstorm, followed by th...

I am not a pyromaniac. Perhaps I say that in the same spirit as an alcoholic denies their alcoholism. Let me see....... Evidence for pyromania: *Two and a half house fires *A forest fire *An exceptionally good understanding of what burns well *Never getting past the sugar volcano experiment in my chemistry set *A father that would get instantly angry at the sight of me with a naked flame (of any kind and I tried a few out for size) *The only song my brother wrote about me was called 'Closet Pyromaniac' (it was a statement about how I always had a fire when I felt my life needed to completely change in direction...but this all happened on an unconscious level of course) Evidence against pyromania *I can never find a light when I need one *You can grow out of things right? ****fuzziness to denote back in time******* It was the very last night I was to spend in our very mouldy student shared house that had been home for the second academic year of my degree. My eccentric friend Lo...

I'm going to tell you about a significant memory creator in my life...... My mate Chris lives in a 22 acre wood with a meadow in the middle of it near Bury St Edmunds and for seven years since the year 2000 (we had a couple of years off for recuperation) we have thrown a weekend party in it. Over the years it has produced some of the most bizarre and wonderful happenings. Chris, Andy (my chap) and I enjoy putting weeks of preparation into the event. No two years have been the same (however one thing we could always sadly guarantee was rain. In fact in one of the years we had off, a friend of mine rang us up to ask, 'If you had had Christock this year, which weekend would it have been? I need to know because I will avoid a holiday in the UK then.') The weekends have mostly been about a bunch of like-minded people coming together, to camp, play music round a camp fire, eat food we prepare and laugh to the point of pain. To give you a flavour here is a list of some of the thin...