My Nana - Day 14

Friday 14th December 2017

14 variations on an original theme - is the construction of Edward Elgar's much-loved
orchestral work, The Enigma Variations, composed between 1898 and 1899.
It was commenced in a spirit of humour but became a serious project in which
the composer sketches his friends and family.

Today I have set off at crack of dawn to visit our Birmingham office. I am looking forward to spending some time with the team and then, after work, I am travelling on to Durham to collect my youngest son back from university. Let the holidays begin...

Today's post is a celebration of a family member, written with much love by Annette Hill. Annette is one of those people who makes the world a better place. She works as the Director of Workforce Development for Hospiscare in Exeter, UK. She is unfailingly supportive of members of the HR and wider social media community. You can follow Annette on Twitter, her handle is @familyhrguru. She is active off-line too, she represents HR for the South West region of the UK on the national HR leads forum which is based in the South West of England. Annette cares deeply about others; she chairs a drugs and alcohol charity in Bristol and is one of the CIPD's Steps Ahead mentors. She writes an interesting blog, simply entitled Annette's Blog that covers a wide range of topics as they occur to her. 

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Heartaches, Hopes and High Fives. I wasn’t very inspired at first. I have 2 or 3 unfinished blogs on the go and just can’t quite express what I want to.

Then the oddest thing has inspired me. As part of coming through another challenging few months, I have been slightly reinventing myself. Part of this is, big gulp, letting my natural grey hair come through! A big step as many women of my age may attest. 

I love it! It’s empowering and, unexpectedly, I am so happy to see in the steel grey coming through at the sides, colouring just like my Nana’s. 

I am one of those lucky people who had all 4 grandparents, at least for the first 11 years of my life, and who had a really close bond to one in particular, Nana Coging, my dad’s mum. I’ve been thinking about her and my grandpa a lot, and about childhood Christmases spent with them.

My Nana’s House

A very modest rented mid terrace in Carlton, Nottingham

The front door was never locked.

We would arrive and my dad would open the door with a loud ‘Yoo hoo!’

We would enter a dark hallway,

Draughts held at bay

By a heavy velvet curtain, blue I think, half way down.

The ‘Front Room’ was to the left – for high days and holidays

Then into the heart of the house

A snug living and dining room with a real fire

Over the years, I would never tire

Of watching the flames, seeing pictures, inventing stories

Full of hopes for the future.

At the back, Nana’s homely kitchen, which had an Aladdin’s cave

Actually, a walk-in pantry down a couple of steps, tucked under the stairs.

On a shelf sat Grandpa’s bottle of Camp coffee.

Never far away from a barley sugar or a toffee.

I loved that place so much.

The only thing I didn’t like was the outside loo

A bit cold and scary, would I meet spiders in there?

Overnight, a chamber pot under the bed

About that, urgh! No more to be said.

Except, my poor parents, coping with us all in one room

Sleeping over on Christmas Eve.

I remember so many tiny details;

Delicate china cups and saucers, copies of The People’s Friend,

The Evening Post, helping with Spot the Ball…

The TV was tiny, black and white, in a box

Controlled by a dial on the wall, it took ages to warm up

But we still looked forward to what was

The obligatory Christmas film, the Wizard of Oz.

Until he became poorly with lung cancer, he kept well hidden

Grandpa pre-booked Christmas lunch in January

In a posh hotel for the following Christmas Day

Nana cooked the turkey for his last one

A few days later he would be gone

We didn’t know, but the clue was his untouched meal.

At home we had warm air gas central heating and a ‘feature gas fire’,

Impossible for Santa to use!

We didn’t even have a chimney, just a gas vent.

So when the Christmas lists we made were sent

We made sure he knew where to find us

At 16 Park Road, Carlton, Nottingham, England, the World.

‘Has he been yet?’ ‘No, go back to sleep!’

But eventually, we were allowed down the steep stairs

To the front room, where miraculously, overnight gifts had appeared

My brother and I need never have feared.

There on the shiny, faux leather chairs

A pillowcase each full of gifts.

In my quilted dressing gown I opened

Felt tip packs, to be arranged over and over according to the rainbow.

Colouring books, outfits for my Sindy doll,

Selection boxes, and some bigger, more costly gifts I’m sure.

But those are not the memories that endure,

What mattered was the warmth and love.

Today, we may say it was a time of hopes, heartaches and high fives!

The latter an ‘Americanism’, we never used back then

We were happy, sad when Grandpa died, and always so pleased to see each other.

Nana lived in that house for a few more years,

I used to stay with her sometimes, holding back the tears

When I had to come home leaving her all alone.

In my primary school autograph book Nana wrote

‘Smile, and the World smiles with you, Cry and you cry alone.’

Looking back, I wonder if that is exactly how she had to live.

In poor health, never a taker, always preferring to give

My Nana was one of the wisest people I have ever known.

I still miss her.

The Wisdom Within - Day 45

Day 45 (Sunday 14th January 2018)

45 years - the length of time that Margrethe II of Denmark has been on the throne.
She was crowned on the 14th January 1972. Margrethe is the first queen to have
ascended the Danish throne since 1412 and the first Danish monarch not
named Frederick or Christian since 1513



Today I am driving to Durham.

It gives me huge pleasure to welcome back to the Advent Blogs series my former colleague and on-going friend Katharine Bourke. She is a co-founder and Director of South West Growth Service (@SWGrowthService), a consultancy that supports small businesses, enabling them to develop, adapt and grow. Katharine is a certified mBIT coach (for those who don't know, mBIT stands for multiple brain integration techniques). Outside work, she is keen on walking and exploring the beautiful countryside where she lives. When Katharine and I worked together we were based in London, but she was born and raised in a farm on Dartmoor and she has returned to her roots (but not farming, although she is helping things grow). Since moving West she has founded a successful IT business and spent four years helping to deliver the government's Growth Accelerator and Business Growth Service in Devon and Cornwall, before co-establishing the South West Growth Service.

Katharine has many varied interests and knowledge that she shares. I recommend that you follow her on twitter (her handle is @KatharineBDevon) and she assure me that 2018 is the year when she is going to resume writing - so watch out for her posts, articles and blog...

PS Most of the pictures have been provided by Katharine herself.

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Darkness and Dawn: The people who inspire us and our wisdom within

As another year draws to a close, so begin the flurry of ‘best of’ summaries, which always make me reflect on the year that has passed. When Kate asked if I’d like to contribute this year, I thought long and hard and the topic that keeps coming back is a memory of someone really important to me which aligns with thoughts about the wisdom we have within.

With all the distractions of modern day life, it has become all too easy to ignore our inner voice, distracted by the next ‘must watch’ series on Netflix, whatever is trending on Twitter not to mention the constant challenges of keeping our home and work lives in some kind of balance. Everyone I speak with seems to have a tale of how they started searching for something on the internet only to find themselves somewhere completely different before they go back to what it was that they were looking up (and I blame the growth of digital remarketing for some of this!).

I feel I began to understand that we all had inner wisdom thanks to the wonderful relationship I had with my grandmother. She was physically disabled by a car crash near Dawlish in 1971, when I was 4, and as a result she lived with or near us for most of my childhood.  She was a remarkable woman, an avid reader, a lover of classical music, good coffee and great chocolate. Some of my fondest memories were Sunday mornings when she would make good coffee and serve it along with something extraordinary. I may not have drunk coffee in those days, but as a little girl growing up on a Dartmoor farm in the 70s and 80s I loved trying all the tasty things she had discovered! When I started working in London, I spent many hours in an era before the internet, tracking down a chocolate maker she had shared stories about, none other than Charbonnel and Walker, who were then only available from their little shop in the arcade off Bond Street. This was of course long before anything like an internet search engine. All I had to go on was her tales of them being delivered to the Scottish estate where she was working, and a London telephone directory or two. I was thrilled to find them and be able to give her a box similar to those she’d told me about on those mornings, wishing her a happy 90th birthday in lettered chocolates:

She also encouraged me to listen to music and put into words what I heard, what it meant to me and how it made me feel. It was like a game then and I loved giving it a go. Listening to Chi Mai, used as the theme tune for the Life and Times of David Lloyd George in the 1980s, always provokes a happy tear as I remember sitting in her lounge, trying to describe what I was hearing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-0UhCjwUeg Try it. Do you hear a river? Or do you hear something else…?

Despite her physical frailty, she continued to live her life as fully as she could with the adaptations that were available to her then (a walking frame to start with and a pretty basic wheelchair as she aged). She listened to her music, and as her sight deteriorated with age, and audio books were only just beginning, I loved spending time reading her favourite books to her onto cassette tapes as I was no longer living at home. I still have the recording I made for her of Richard Bach’s ‘Jonathan Livingstone Seagull’ along with one of Krishnamurti’s ‘At the Feet of the Master’.

In her late teens and twenties my gran spent time with all kinds of discussion groups including Theosophists which culminated in a visit to Ommen in the late 1920s to hear Jiddu Krishnamurti speak. I will always remember the way she described being out walking in the woods when she came across him, walking alone between sessions. Her recall of that moment was powerful. She spoke of the way he made her feel even though they didn’t speak, how he seemed so serene and peaceful, at ease in his body, taking time out in the beautiful woods near Castle Eerde. This photo reminds me of that moment, even though it is one of him in front of a large crowd:

I still remember having conversations with her about world religions and particularly her readings of Krishnamurti and his thinking. She spoke about having an inner voice, a place within us where we have the answers we need if we make the time to listen:

“I have found my Liberation and because I have attained that Kingdom of Happiness which dwells within me” Krishnamurti – Ommen Camp Fire Talk 1927

Blessed with the time I spent with my gran after school most days and at weekends, she introduced me to the quietness we have within, to a form of meditation which began for me as that young child sitting quietly, listening to beautiful classical music in silence, then talking about what I had heard and how it made me feel.

Having spent more time meditating in these past few years (see http://kategl.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/what-is-this-life-day-49.html) I’ve realised that for me this has been the missing link for so many years. I feel different when I don’t make time for those walks or to meditate each day. I notice that I’m not as productive at work, it is harder to stay focused, and as an Executive Coach, harder to be present for my clients if I don’t make time to be still before a session.

Amidst the many other distractions we now have, I have found that time spent out walking, something that most of us are physically capable of doing, or sitting quietly, noticing our breath, is invaluable. And I know I’m not the only one! There is evidence that we make better decisions when we press the pause button for a moment. Business leaders talk about how they meditate or use mindfulness to aid them in making good decisions. Medicine has also recognised the link between our physical and mental health. Have a look at the number of articles that connect depression with irritable bowel syndrome and indeed how meditation has been found to help many sufferers.

In the last ten years or so neuroscience has also proved that we have centres of intelligence in our cardiac (heart) system and enteric (gut) system. With all the same hallmarks of the brain we all refer to in our heads, our heart and gut also have large numbers of neurons and ganglia, neural cells and the functional attributes that include perceiving and assimilating information. Is it any wonder we often feel a bit sluggish after a big meal?! Or hear how people have followed their heart when achieving a goal? We talk about passion in business these days, something I don’t remember when I started my career nearly 30 years ago.

All too often we ignore the wisdom these other brains offer, hence this attempt to encourage you to make a bit of time to be able to hear them. And to suggest that next time you shed tears unexpectedly, consider whether your heart may be trying to tell you something. Or when you take a really deep breath, perhaps your gut is inviting you to listen...

I will always fondly remember those quiet times with my gran, and am guessing that you may well have someone like her in your life, someone who encourages or enables you to be closer to the calmness that is within you. Someone who inspires you with their ability to face up to life’s challenges. Many have already contributed to Kate’s Advent Blogs this year and in previous years.

I hope this will have encouraged you to reflect on who you are and what makes you the person you are today. Please make time to listen in for that inner wisdom. Start with a few minutes each day and allow it to build. Making time each day to sit and breathe or take a walk can deliver powerful results. And when you discover what works for you, do more of it and enjoy exploring that peaceful place, the calm that leads towards your inner wisdom.

What still remains - Day 31 (New Year's Eve)

Day 31 (Sunday 31st December, New Year's Eve 2017)

31 December is known as Hogmanay in Scotland and is a night of celebrations
that have become famous around the world. Many view Hogmanay as a bigger
party than Christmas. It is thought that the word originates from the French
"hoginane" meaning gala day and was first used in 1561 on the return of Mary
Queen of Scots to Scotland. At that time, in Normandy, presents given at
Hogmanay were "hoguinetes'. An alternative derivation of the word is the
Scandinavian "hoggo-nott" meaning yule. A tradition linked to Hogmanay is
"first footing" - the first guest to cross your threshold after midnight - it should
be a tall, dark stranger (to Scots many years ago the surprise arrival of a blond
often signified a dangerous Viking trying to cause harm). A first footer should
bring gifts of coal (for heat), rich fruit cake known as Black Bun (for food for
the year), salt (a symbol of friendship), and whisky (for good cheer and hospitality).

It's the last day of the year. Happy Hogmanay! I have had a memorable year - full of precious moments shared with loved ones, new colleagues and friends coming to help me do things I need and want to do, some recognition (which is much appreciated) and visits to amazing places and events. I know that I am fortunate. I hope that you have been too.

The start of a New Year is seldom dark and dull and the year ahead does not have to be dark either - as David D'Souza points out in his post below. 

I am fortunate to have had David as a colleague and to have him as a friend. He is a true polymath, with a thirst for learning and a passion for positive innovation (especially technology - his latest fascination is cryptocurrencies). David is globally recognised as a thought-leader who is not afraid to challenge the status quo. You can get a taste of his views if you follow him on Twitter (his handle is @dds180). He is a devoted husband and father and a loyal friend (although, as Head of Engagement for the CIPD, a job that takes him around the globe, he is so busy that he is seldom able to spend the time he and others would like have with him just to catch up and connect). I strongly recommend that you read his blogs, he writes his own under banner on 101 Half Connected Things and also posts pieces often on behalf of the CIPD (the UK-based professional body for HR and Leading and Development professionals).

Because of the personal nature of this post I have not added any pictures - the photograph was provided by David.

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"In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains"
The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkel, 1969

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There are some years that are better than others. There are some years that are definitely worse. The relatively arbitrary unit of the year gives us a chance to reflect and renew. Why January 1st? It doesn't really matter.  Our lives are made up of these little units. They actually seem big units when we are young and then they seem to rush by, barely allowing us time to process their impact.

I remember listening to The Boxer by Simon And Garfunkel being played live on an acoustic guitar in a vineyard in South Africa. My late mother was drunk. She would have said she was tipsy. She was certainly tipsy enough to be drunk... She was conducting a crowd of strangers in making the distinctive noise heard in the latter parts of the song. Everybody was grinning.

Wikipedia describes the creation of that distinctive noise in the original recording thus

"The iconic crashing sound in the refrain was recorded by setting up a drum kit in front of an elevator shaft, which provided the proper reverb"

That seems a very elaborate set up when all you had to do to create that noise was give my mum a bottle and a half of white wine and some sunshine.

I can't listen to that song now without it being bittersweet. Google Photos threw up photos from that day recently as part of its 'do you remember this happened on this day?' type function. A function that can still catch me unawares, but that I don't turn off. 

I recall my mother on that day smiling. Grinning.  All Google can offer me is this photo of her with her 'if you take a photo of me you'll be in trouble' face. I was also very familiar with that. 

Anyway, I digress...

The point is that the memory both hurts and cheers. That will be true of so many memories for people of this year. It's been a tough one for many. 

We are shaped by our past and our experiences, but also by those experiences yet to come. The past does not determine the future unless you let it.  And we have control over the here and now and how we react. 

As people get set to write their resolutions for the New Year they will focus on diets and budgets or spending time with others. 

Here is what I hope you resolve. 

Let it be a genuinely New Year. Let it be unencumbered by the weight of past memories. Let it be a new day and a welcome dawn. Take with you into the next year the things you want and need and none of the things that hold you back. Shape the future, rather than being anchored in the past. Have the year you want. And if it doesn't turn out that way, well, there's normally another one in a few months. 

It's a whole new arbitrary unit to make the most of. That's a beautiful creation, one of our best inventions.

To you with love…

Day 45  (Saturday 14th January 2017)

45 minutes of moderate exercise can be as beneficial as just 60 seconds of strenuous
exertion - was the finding of a group of scientists at McAlister University, Ontarion,
who published their research in April 2016.

This series is entitled the Advent Blogs and you can tell that Jayne Harrison wrote her piece in the run-up to Christmas, however, I think the theme that sits behind the seasonal content holds it own, needs to be read now and is full of love - it is a reminder to each of us of what should be important in the year ahead. 

Jayne is the founder and Director of the management consultancy, Peak Potential. Both Jayne and her business are (appropriately, given the company's name) located at Chapel-en-le-Frith in the UK's beautiful Peak District. Jayne commenced her career in recruitment, before moving more into the talent and performance space. She exemplifies what Lynda Gratton states will be the typical careers of the future, with skills being gained from various employers, but that in addition individuals will take time out mid-career to do things that, in pervious generations, might have been saved for retirement - I am envious of the year-long sabbatical Jayne took to travel and notch up a number of wish-list activities (including sky-diving, learning Nepalese, under-water caving and white water rafting). Jayne is a popular coach with a human touch and the ability to help clients reconnect with their passions - she focuses on behavioural change. She is proud to proclaim that she is on a mission to normalise people's attitude towards the menopause and encourage kindness and humanity at work. She is a Faculty Member of the NHS East Midlands Leadership Academy

When not coaching or consulting, Jayne loves spending time with her husband and dogs, or enjoying knitting, reading and veganism. You can connect with her on Twitter, her handle is @JayneHarrison3.

The majority of the pictures illustrating the below post were provided by Jayne. Treasured keepsakes. Like her, I am a keen card giver - I used to write and send a card every day to my sons when they were away at school (the nearest I could get to giving a goodnight kiss) - they have kept many of them as mementos. So, Jayne's post resonated with me when she sent it, hence my saving it as a treat for near the end of the series. I hope it inspires you to tell someone you love how much they mean to you...do it today, before it is too late.

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To you with love…

We’ve always been enthusiastic greeting card buyers in our family.  It’s a tradition that’s been handed down to me by my mum and dad. They used to buy each other such elaborate cards, those that folded into four or were practically a book.  I was in my early teens before I realised that they chose those cards because they used to write secret love messages to each other, hidden away under the flap or back page where others might not find them. 

For me, Christmas has always been about family, friends and above all, a chance to show love to those that mean the world to me.  I choose to do this by writing what I feel in a card. It’s just something we’ve always done and it’s a habit I’m happy not to change.  Equally when I receive a card with a well-thought out message, it touches me deeply.  Thank you to all of you out there that have done so this year when I needed support and encouragement, and to celebrate a great milestone birthday.

This year it struck me that my Christmas card list is so much shorter than it used to be. Family members gone, a diminishing list of friends (although I like to think these are the ones who will be on the list until I die) and a gaping hole where my parents used to be.

Dad’s birthday was on Christmas Eve – gran used to say he was the best early Christmas present she’d ever had!  He died through Christmas too – I pronounced him dead at home on New Year’s eve after a short battle with cancer.  And boy, did he battle.  It was almost as if he was hanging on so that we could have that last Christmas together; so that Christmases future would not be tarnished with his loss.  He was wrong.

It will be eight years this year.  I’d like to say it gets easier – and maybe it does for the rest of the year. But his loss, the gap he leaves in our family at Christmas time is unfathomable.  Mum never recovered from his early death and she is almost gone now too, being taken by another type of illness entirely. 

It’s still incredibly painful, as if it was just yesterday.  But to feel this, there had to be heart to start with and for that I am eternally thankful.  I know that life may offer further hollows; that there will be black, heart-breaking, gut wrenching and unbearable experiences yet to come. But I also know that from it will come greater appreciation of the heights and hearts in my life.  To feel such agonising loss, means you have to have something to lose in the first place.

I had the job of clearing and selling mum and dad’s house earlier this year, because her illness means she can no longer live on her own safely.  In boxes, tucked away among the Christmas decorations, lights and other knickknacks one amasses over a lifetime, were all the cards we’d ever sent to her 

and those she and my dad had sent to one another. 

It was such a lovely thing to find and treasure – memories of Christmases, birthdays and other events gone by marked by a picture and loving words.

I’m definitely their daughter.  Christmas is a time when I will spend hours poring over artistic pictures, funny captions, or trying to find the right verse that captures the love and essence of how I feel about someone close to me.  Sometimes I can’t find the right one – so I will have to have a go myself (with varying degrees of success  as you can see J).  Luckily my English improved as I got older.

So this weekend I will be selecting cards once again for my husband, our family and friends. I will do this happily and be grateful that the sands of time gradually fill in the hollows, and remember with enduring love those no longer on my list.