» Personal Change

They say / sing “Climb every mountain..” but perhaps you aren’t supposed to follow this advice if you happen to be a quadriplegic like Jamie Andrews.  15 years after losing his arms and legs through frostbite whilst climbing Mont Blanc, he decided to climb the Matterhorn, a mountain that is considered challenging to anyone. I […][...] read more » Some challenges are just a bit harder

I don’t if you are aware of the work of Prof Daniel Kahneman, whose work earned him a Nobel prize for economics.  He realised that the way we think is far less rationale than we might wish.  We have two ‘thinking  modes’ which he named System 1 and System 2.  One is the rationale, slow […][...] read more » Changing your mind can be harder than you realise

As regular readers may have noticed, I’m a keen fan of rugby.  I have watched a number of games this season which have literally turned on a bounce of the ball.  On Saturday, Harlequins played Claremont in the Heineken Cup, and Mike Brown went one way, and the ball, unfortunately, went the other leading to […][...] read more » A bounce of the ball

There are many ways in which change happens.  There is the gradual change that aging brings, the change of the seasons, the kind of change that dedication and practice brings to people like ballet dancers or body builders, and then there is the kind which just comes knocking at your door.  My son was at […][...] read more » A model of change

On 23rd we lost power due to some incredible storms that hit this part of England.  I had naively thought it would only be an hour or so before power was restored, after all, this is a fairly rural location and power cuts are not unknown.  I was therefore somewhat gobsmacked to learn that we […][...] read more » No Power

Steven Covey, in his “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People”, talks about the importance of ‘sharpening the saw’, as a metaphor for continuously improving your skill set and capabilities.  I was reminded of this today when I had to replace the foil and cutters in my razor.  It is something I do regularly and this […][...] read more » Sharpening your razor

The Guinea worm is a water-borne parasite that used to blight the lives of people 3.5 million living in Africa, Asia and the Middle East people every year.  It leads to people incubating a metre long worm inside their body, which then heads towards the skin, and eventually emerges in a blister.  This process takes […][...] read more » When is a hanky not a hanky?

I thought that I’d write this for those who took an interest in our story and those who might be in a similar boat and let you know where we are now, three years after Carys died.  It does seem remarkable that it is three years already.  Life has a habit of keeping on keeping […][...] read more » 3 years on… the journey continues

I was out walking the other day I came across this.  The picture isn’t quite as clear as I thought, so let me explain what I was looking at.  This is a stump of a tree that has been blown over and its trunk sawn off.  Growing over the stump is a colony of fungi, […][...] read more » Starting over

I was listening to one of my favourite radio shows, Desert Island Disks, the other day and the guest was Blanche Marvin, a theatre critic, actress, and producer.  Kirsty Young asked her about her childhood and she said she never talked about that.  When pressed further she said that it had been unhappy so she […][...] read more » A fresh start?