I was thinking I didn’t congratulate you enough on being a judge. I guess in legal circles this is the big whizz post so sorry for not picking up on that sufficiently.

Lots to tell you about this week, especially as I probably won’t write before I get back from Istanbul.

I have just spent the last 3 days on an excruciating course – PRINCE 2 Managing Project Delivery. What a relief it’s over – mind numbing or what? Last night I spent 3 hours going over past papers for my exam this afternoon with the most obscure multiple choice.
e.g. what is the fundamental principle behind the process ‘managing project delivery’?
ans: A controlled break between project manager and product creation/provision by third party suppliers.

It’s the sort of thing they take the mick out of in the daily mail when they are berating councils at large.

Anyway, I now have a brief break before I am off to Baldock to meet stakeholders looking at a Town Centre Strategy.

I very nearly came to see you Sunday afternoon. I was driving back from FP’s quite early because he had to take his children back and actually drove into a garage to work out a route and how long it would take me, but then I thought, I haven’t organised anyone to do the horse and didn’t have my diary with the numbers in; that I hate impromptu visits and that you may have been out or not feeling like it. Blah! Probably missed my opportunity for yonks now.

I saw Tracey’s very nice house on Friday. Was also witness to a 4×4 getting nicked off a garage forecourt – don’t see that sort of thing in Luton. On Thursday I saw Jenny. It’s impossible to give you a synopsis as we go round in circles. Lots of rows, lots of tears, but probably, as they are only 6 months down the line – some hope. It all sounds rather like a war zone, which must be difficult to live through, but neither one is saying no, never, so it’s different from FH and I. if there had been a ray of hope I too may have ranted and cried. I certainly felt the emotions by the bucket loads, but to have let it all out at the time felt dangerously close to insanity and FH has never been keen on ‘grief’.

On Sunday I went to see Iris who is back from another foray to second youngest son’s block of flats he is renovating in New York. We had the full testimony to a collapsing relationship between him and his wife. He adored her, but although they have one son she has had 4 terminations during their relationship, all his, and he wanted more children. There are other issues about who is the bread winner, philosophy about child rearing and a lack of joie de vivre any more. I remember the euphoria of the arly days between them 9 years ago. Iris apparently spent the last 3 days getting out of the house before she woke up in the morning and returning after she had gone to bed. Some of this is her fault because she does ‘invite’ herself places, no doubt for too long, but she is in her mid 60s, does finance many of their entrepreneurial schemes and deserves a modicum of respect.

I watched Uzbek on Tuesday night which is an ‘art’ Turkish film about a young man from the country moving into his Uncle’s flat in Istanbul and the older man’s gradual realisation of the sterility of his life. The student at Blockbusters raved about it and said I was only the third person to have got it out, but I remember reading about it – it got all sorts of awards and the main character has since died in a car crash. Anyway, I really only watched it for a glimpse of Istanbul. It was the sort of gritty realism that makes you think your life is heaven.