Village Halls cheer me up

I am still in a sh***y depressed state, but I have been to see my friend Tracey tonight who has 3 girls, two of whom by the illegal Moroccan, the last of which I was present at the birth. Seeing her always puts my life back in perspective. This week-end her eldest daughter aged 15 developed appendicitis and she had to cope with an emergency op for her and going backwards and forwards by taxi with only an elderly male stalwart from the local catholic church for support (God bless Irish Catholics who do support their own!). Anyway, she had survived. Her priorities are getting a computer for her daughter to do her homework, making all her various hospital and other medical appointments (she has complications following the birth), opening up savings accounts for her two little ones, paying off her sister’s funeral fees who died aged 34 from TB a couple of months ago (she lived mainly on the streets). Her aspirations are so honourable and grounded and her humour so ‘street’, she just cheers me up. She lived with FH and I for about 6 years when my daughter was a baby.

The trip to Birmingham was really productive for me and I have Scarman work till the end of the year now. I had a really nice time. In the evening we went to a superb Chinese in Birmingham’s Chinatown, all got drunk and I just enjoyed their company. I now have to look at setting up and running training events for ‘Can Doers’ in the region.

Last night I ran a successful ‘event’ for all the village halls committee members in North Herts. There are 31 halls and 40 people turned up. We had 5 minute talks on parquet floor maintenance, fire evacuation procedures, funding, licensing law etc. and little vignettes from been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, village hall success stories. I’m good at pulling together networking events and got some nice feedback which again cheered me up. Today I went to monitor a service level agreement with a shelter for the homeless and got to hear all about the increase in crack as opposed to heroin use, the increasingly young age at which people become homeless and various other issues which was interesting. These aspects of my work totally absorb me which is good as I struggle with some bits. I was also part of an interview panel this week which I always find interesting. The number of mega successful business people I see starting new careers ‘to give back to the community’ in their mid 50s is incredible, but by and large they freak out my colleagues who tend to go for the safe option. This week I interviewed a city banker who had also studied neuro-linguistic programming and was a hypnotist. He had nursed his wife through a terminal illness and just thought so outside the box it was inspiring. I’d love to have him on my team if my colleague rejects him and I can persuade my boss we can use him to fill my vacancy. M, who has been an ongoing struggle to pin down is leaving for a highly lucrative post, but then she is a great bulls****er.

I hope you are OK Saul – I think of you often. Big hug!