Clearing my name

No don't faint. I just thought it was time to allow everyone to start a new thread (note PAB, a cyber term!) and to clear up a few things in the process:

1. I have never, nor ever do intend to, use Liz's channels. (Monica's are a different story altogether- but I have been asked to keep that completely between Bill and I until John has managed to get underneath W's scam this time....)

2. The term you have been looking for is complete abdication- why stop at delegation?

3. I am very grateful to all you dedicated subscribers to Liz and my blog. I am finding this a very therapeutic, normalising and humbling experience that is teaching me much about how I am viewed by others. Rumours about my needing to have significant building work done on my utility room to permit the passage of my cranium are much exaggerated...

Although one of the things Sally has failed to keep you informed of via her blog, is that when I haven't been

- working my socks off with the business (see below for why I don't mention it by name now...) or
- doing various things regarding greenbelt with varying degrees of benefit/ value... or
- helping Sally run Battle of the Bands, or
- assisting my church to re-organise around radical management structures (yes, consultancy to the Church of England! what am I doing!)

I have actually been working hard in the utility room, which Helen decided needed radical reform through the use of builders rather than powerpoint and a new ODPM policy document...

However, I did point out that if we had applied a little more discipline in the project management and planning, we would have thought of getting the floor done before the building work was complete, and we therefore would not have needed to suspend plumbing changes until the floor was down (floor finish still being decided...)
Strangely, this comment was not appreciated......

Anyway, to close- my other reason for the huge blogging delay was to take the heat off it due to business credibility reasons...

Some of you may have noticed I amended the 14 Sept entry to remove my company and client name. This was because our PR agency was tasked to find all news references to the hughly successful e-auction aforementioned. You can guess the rest- it was the only ref (out of 20 WE knew of) that they found and informed my marketing manager about- sending her the link direct to my blog. (we have now sacked the PR agency...)

But what made it worse was she found it so funny that she mentioned it to my fellow directors, a couple of whom then read previous blogs to 'gain an insight'- and began to make 'concerned noises' about my interest in huge lesbians etc...
So I've learned my lesson, and future blogs will only contain beautiful thoughts from heaven.....or whatever else Liz chooses to write on my behalf....


D

the most unlikely of places

-that's where you see God's promises, in my opinion/ experience....

take today for example. I have been spending the last few (working) days getting back into being the grown up, successful management consultancy executive- and doing it very well. Even went round to the St Albans Homestart offices today to get a copy of the Every Child Matters green paper for a summit mtg I have at DfES tomorrow, and held a very erudite and focused conversation with the Senior co-ordinator without mentioning bathrooms once...
Then got in the discovery to drive to a County Council for the UK's first online e-auction in local govt, which my company have helped establish.

On the way up, I call N Yorks to advise on their major procurement, then Derbyshire to discuss when I can come and see them to kick start their modernisation programme ( again!). All seems quite natural again....

Finish the calls and put Cathy Burton on the CD. It's been drizzling, and as she sings about what He has done for her, I see a rainbow appear in the mizzle between me and the car in front. Don't know why, but suddenly feel very loved and cared for- and looked after.
He promises us so much- maybe all we need to do is 'be' who He wants us to be, and remember to notice the little signs....


and yes, the e-auction was a resounding success. Back to my green paper homework now- wonder what I'll notice at DfES tomorrow...

Size isn't everything

It's Saturday, and I feel I need to prove that- just like the press- my blog can depart from erudite thinking at the weekends and 'explore' more light hearted areas of our lives.
So my short wondering today is:

what makes a lesbian "enormous"? (see Sally's Friday blog). If it is the obvious- size- then what does it matter if she is a lesbian? Does that mean she is bound to gorge on larger bars of chocolate than her direct gender peers ( unlikely), or that her 'male' tendencies will make her choose 24oz tbone steaks and eat them blue, like me?......nah, can't be it.

If it refers to the bluster and 'largesse' of her lesbian tendencies, or indeed to the frequency and intensity of her activities, then James should watch out for Hilary when they hand the flat back. And maybe suggest their 'landlady/lord' consider a career in stand up- or sit down if both defnitions are true....

Looking through my left eye

is something I experimented with this evening, during the final leg (Northallerton back to St Albans) of my epic 9 hours of driving today between clients- sometimes for important but brief meetings, other times to find the meeting had been cancelled and they'd forgotten to tell me....never mind, I managed to speak to the key players at each client anyway ( due to my extrovert nature and the fact I think they still like me..)

Now to most of you, I am led to understand that closing one eye and looking through just the other means that the view doesn't change much, but you lose a bit of perspective. Not for me though...
I have a rare and beautiful condition known as 'Independent Vision' ( Sally and I once wrote a sketch of that name- nothing to do with the condition, just used the title to talk about being blind to social justice I recall...) Anyway, this means that my brain refuses to combine two visual signals into one- and therefore chooses the one it likes best at any one time(you should see me trying to use binoculars...). Naturally, it prefers the one most in focus and strongest, hence - even when optically corrected- my right eye dominates

However, if my brain picks up anomalies between the two signals, it sometimes lets my left eye 'butt in', which becomes a distraction. Like it did tonight.

You see, she whom I share a bathroom with decided to be environmentally aware and dilute the last little drop of shower gel to make sure we used all the contents of the squeezy bottle- only didn't secure the lid properly. So, this morning, when I got in the shower and squeezed- yes, you've guessed it- a full dose of diluted gel jetted upwards out of the bottle top and straight into my left eye.
The agony was intense and lasted a long time- despite prizing my eye open and dousing it with water from the shower head. It felt sore all day, and I'm sure watered ocassionally during those meetings (maybe that's why they took sympathy and saw me...)

So- tonight I'm driving home in the dark- at an appropriate speed officer- when I sense something blurry. I recognise it as my left eye butting in, and wonder if
a) sight is returning and I hadn't noticed it mising all day, or
b) something is still up with my left eye, and it's tying to tell me...

So I start closing each eye in turn, and experience the great phenomenon of the cars in front of me changing position slightly, and the bonnet of the Discovery getting even wider.... I then realise that I've been using my right eye almost exclusively through the journey and probably the whole of the day, based on the fact that my perceived vision alters not a jot when I close my left, but massively when I close my right. I continue this blinking for quite some time.

Having satisfied myself that my left eye is still sore and infrequently blurry, but otherwise functional, I turn to my ethereal observations. Like

if simply changing which eye I use can alter my world view, what would happen if I changed bigger bits of my lifestyle etc?. How radically would my life and the way I see and respond to the world change?

I resolved to do the blinking thing every time I felt I was getting set in my ways and not being open to the world.....

the scent of leather

it's time I shared a few more intimate facts about me with all my virtual friends.
Let's start with leather....

nothing really kinky, but I do belong to the fraternity of sniffers- yes, those sad people who like the aroma of new leather products.
A friend of mine recently purchased two new handbags in the local market- cos she could strike a good deal ( actually I think she couldn't decide). When next I saw her, I was invited to sniff the merchandise- real genuine Italian (I could tell). OH, something else we share.....

So today I have been working from my home office, and about 11am broke to go and assemble my new desk chair- yes you've guessed, an executive high back LEATHER swivel job !!

My last one was leather too, but the wheel came off- literally ( well one of the 5 castors anyway) and it wasn't doing my posture (and therefore back condition) any good to keep balancing.. so on Monday, I remembered trying out some good ones in Office World at Cheltenham when we were satisfying another little fetish (more another time) before the festival, and thought I'd visit the Watford branch to see if they were as good. And there I fell in love with 'Drake'....

Anyway, I've worked from home all day- pausing only occasionally for tea and sympathy, and am now going to bed to wrest myself from the luxury of my directorial position. All I need now is a white cat and Neo...


So now you also know why my last wallet was so large.

D

life with only one diff lock

having read PAB's welcome- I felt it only appropriate to provide some reference to my previous cyber life in ebay.
Spoke to Norman briefly the other day, to see how he was getting on at Mantra- the place where virtual and reality actually meets (in my experience of the last two festivals)- to find he was undermanned. No surprise there then. Oh well, let's see what happens next year....

The other reason for calling him was to find out what his preferences were regarding our fleet of wonderful land rovers. My belief is that we should keep the ex-military soft top, and one of the county stration wagons. But which one.... We had just begun the conversation when he had to rush off and prevent an unwanted piercing, or something...

Eleanor had told me that the land rover engineers amongst the fire crew were last seen 'stripping and swapping bits' on to the one they wanted to keep. So until I next hear from Norman, I live in trepidation that we may be keeping two, and not have another one to sell...

If you have a preference on gb's land rovers, feel free to comment...

PS- I would like it noted that I have also already found out how to add an html link....

another world

-that's what this is.
Where we exist and make the best of what we have- but also get the chance to share other experiences.
This afternoon, I'm going off to Paul Turner's stag eve in Grantham. Only half a dozen making it out of a large set of invites apparently. Paul says he knows who his friends are!

I can guarantee it won't be the same kind of drinking sessions I've been used to over the last couple of weeks. When you stop and gather in front of a ethnic tent and drink tea like a nomad, or other times when you feel almost surreal through the hour and the tiredness- yet still want to find time to share, and sometimes let feelings out.

When I said yesterday about touching heaven, that's what I meant. I guess I got to see a bit more of gb than some of my friends, but the real 'touching places' this year were when we got to 'stop' and share within our community. I think God was so powerfully present this year, he suffused us all, made us vulnerable and his light brought our feelings and emotions into real contrast- whether we liked it or not.

Discuss....

oh and a final thing: can more experienced bloggers show me how to add links between blog pages, and load pics?

This is my first time

OK- I've finally succumbed. But you all need to know that I won't be regular or reliable (if this surprises you then you really don't know me!)

So why now? Cos having touched heaven with many of you over the last few days, and realised so powerfully this time that it contains tears of pain and laughter, I feel the need to establish a way of sharing such insights with you all, and maintaining the thinness of this place.

Suppose it's a bit like an 'alien abductees' support group......except He comes down to us, rather than vice versa.....