The Reward is the Journey

It's that time again.  The time where I begin to feel just a tinsy-winsy bit uncomfortable anticipating the early start on Saturday.  But this unfeasibly early start is for jolly good reason.  Lest I forget I am in training.  I keep reminding myself, via other people.  So, in response to the stock line 'Anything planned this weekend...?', I pause momentarily, suspended in the perilsome prospect of riding an incredibly long way on my bicycle.  I hover, which always generates more interest than is probably advisable, and make the announcement.  Delicately, drawing as little attention as possible to the fact that I am getting up on Saturday morning, to put my bike into my car, and drive somewhere in the middle of nowhere to undertake a gruelling circuit of the North and South Downs in an event invented by bike-mad fools (with possibly rather too much testosterone and most definitely something to prove) called (and the clue's in the name) 'The Long One'. ...

I have come to the conclusion that working for myself suits me very well indeed.  A big component of the immense pleasure I derive from the work I feel so privileged to do is the fact that I have control of my own diary.  My working hours are flexible.  No two weeks look exactly the same.   In relation to this reality, there have been many occasions on which I've found it necessary to educate the unfamiliar with the mechanics of therapy-ing...  I work with clients.  Adults and young people.  Mostly they attend their appointments alone.  Sometimes there are three chairs in the room.  Occasionally, there are more of us.  A great many of my clients work.  Most of them have fixed hours.  I seek to offer them appointments around their immovable commitments.  I offer them my own commitment.  In turn, I ask them to make a commitment.  There are only so many hours in a day.  And of these, there are only a numbe...

I don't drink, but I do celebrate.  With ice cream.  From time to time.  It's something of a not-so-guilty-pleasure.  But not just any old ice cream.  It has to be gelato.  Today there was little excuse needed.  There was, and is, much to celebrate.  The sunshine had emerged, against all the odds.  The working week was officially over (though in my case, not quite finished) and it being the longest day of 2013, summer is deemed to have arrived.  I ordered mine without compunction.  Lunch seemed but a distant memory, and I had a busy evening planned... the art of moderation... Appreciating my chosen cone, connected to a very young part of myself it occurred to me...  Pleasure is important.  I have attracted a variety of strange looks, including suspicion, when asking a new client what it is that they enjoy doing.  I am well experienced in this line of inquiry.  It appears to be a difficult question to a...

No - not the Shopping Centre in Essex.  It's quite some time since I stood at the barre dressed in a turquoise leotard for my ballet lessons.  I was a student who whilst attentive, lacked promise (in large part due to the fact that I was, even then, rather tall).  I have however never stopped enjoying ballet.  I found myself struggling to stand after the English National Ballet's epic performance of Swan Lake at the Albert Hall.  Performed in-the-round with no less than sixty swans (and at times more than 120 dancers on stage), it was the most extraordinary evening.  The largest production of its kind, and certainly London's dance event of the summer, I had been looking forward to it since excitedly booking tickets with a girlfriend on a dreary March morning.   With the dry ice smoke covering the sizeable stage the lines between observation and involvement were less straightforward as you felt invited into the scene which was unfolding amo...

My cultural intake this week has exceeded my usual allowance, which has been fabulous.  From Graham Greene, to Roald Dahl, and the Menier Chocolate Factory to the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.  On successive evenings I was lucky enough to take a seat and enjoy a fantastic performance.  Two very different but equally enjoyable feasts for the eyes, ears and one's adventurous imagination.   What the shows had in common was brilliant choreography.  There was little work to be done by the audience, who were transported wherever it was that we needed to be, to appreciate what was on offer.   Travels with my Aunt exceeded expectations and comprised astonishing performances, only enhanced by the proximity with the stage.  I was captivated from the opening lines - and successfully transported from Southwood to Istanbul on the Orient Express, and later to Buenos Aires, before quickly moving onto Paraguay. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory did not disa...

I hadn't been prompted to think about it for a while. Too long, perhaps. My understanding of the nature of the disease whose effects I have witnessed all too closely. Addiction for me, is a disease. And it's sufferers and those around them get to experience dis-ease.  I subscribe fully to the outline presented in 'The Doctor's Opinion', and have found no better explanation than that which Silkworth proposes:  it makes a lot of sense and carries with it significant currency having helped countless previously hopeless feeling individuals gain a solid understanding of the nature of their cunning opponent.  We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and fou...

So, the good news is that Charlotte's recent scan showed everything to be stable. I didn't need a scan to tell me that about my best friend who has only ever been stable, from my somewhat more fluctuating perspective. But it is the very best thing she could have been told by the wonderful oncologists who have taken care of her since last January.  The thing is, nothing is certain. No guarantees are on offer. In many ways, the place Charlotte finds herself to be now hasn't shifted all that much. It seems symptomatic of life. Many of us live with all sorts of unknowns. We live alongside uncertainty. Not knowing is, it seems, part of life.  "Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, And knowing how to live with insecurity i s the only security." John Allen Paulos Charlotte is, for now, in the clear. The signs all look good but we cannot be sure. The very best science has to offer, and the finest machines, with the highest resolution...

Polyamory ˌpä-lē-ˈa-mə-rē  (from Greek πολύ [poly], meaning "many" or "several", and Latin amor, "love")  is the practice, desire, or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved. This week I have been thinking seriously, rather than seriously thinking about polyamory.  Necessarily so.  Friday represented a deadline which could not be missed.  I commenced my reading without much difficulty some time ago.  I took various resources away with me to Somerset, and started thinking about the philosophy and practicalities of relationships that don't fall within the traditional monogamous constellations we might (unless and until educated otherwise) are the only way in which to (try and) relate romantically and/or sexually.   Society likes monogamy.  It's been given the seal of approval.  It's sanctioned, encouraged and some might say enforced...

I once worked for a man whose motto I have never forgotten. He still uses it when speaking in public to the many different audiences he addresses, and feels particularly relevant for me this week. 'Aspire and achieve against all odds' . It's a brilliant mission, and one I know at least two people were living up to this weekend.  Charlotte has, I think, no idea how much of an inspiration she is to me, and I guess countless others. Those she teaches, formally and informally. Those she has ridden alongside (or, probably more often, in front of) over the years. The crews she formerly trained with as a rower, and the many others she has come into contact with personally, professionally, and within the plentiful spaces for serious amateur sports people in between.  It seemed fitting that we were both up early for our respective challenges on Sunday. Our debuts and new found passions for which we've been training - she perhaps with a little more structure. ...