This is a summer of ambiguity; politically, socially and, personally. I imagine being a small piece of seaweed, being tossed about, sometimes doing some tranquil bobbing, other moments being battered under by the sheer weight of water. 
I can see the shore but have no clue how to get there and even if I do will a ‘Skorrie’ come to peck me to pieces, or a large boot squash me into a blubbery wet mess? Is it safer in the wild sea than on the sea shore? I just need to wait and see where the elements decide to take me.
A consultant phone call to a beach hundreds of miles away, turns life upside down, inside out, back to front.
Last time we lived with 3 days of ambiguity, this time as it’s the holiday period it’s at least 3 weeks for some more informed answers. This is Ambiguity with a big fat A. Boy, it’s tough.
And this time round I have no moments of bravery, no pithy responses, no false promises. This time round I am more knowing than before.
There can be no certainty. I have learned this. There can be no absolutes. I’ve learned this too. Whatever lies ahead is ahead. Not now. Now right at this moment that I type. I have given my offering to the garden Buddha knowing he also can make no promises. 
Craig and I look at each other through tear stained eyes, taking it in turns to talk each other off the ledge. We talk about worst and best case scenarios while gulping strong G&T’s and listening to JJ Cale. We are raw honest in our conversations, tightly bonded by this latest development.
I talk to Mr Moon and Es Vedra in the wee small hours of the morning. Connecting to their power, channelling strength and resolve.
There is nothing to be gained by allowing thoughts to rush ahead. we are working hard to stay in the moment.
Ibiza works her magic. Let’s enjoy.
What’s been done cannot be undone – much as though we may wish it to be so. All of the reports and media articles of people saying I didn’t realise what it would mean, do not change the outcome. Change is upon us. Our choice is, now what do we do to make this work?
I have never claimed to understand this. I have been irritated beyond belief that this is how he is built.
I went back into work this week. Scheduled to meet a Shell senior executive, first, I found myself standing shoulder to shoulder with all my other colleagues in our canteen turned conference room, listening to the news that the decision has been made to close down our HQ campus and move all activity to London by the end of 2016. And that the voluntary redundancy process starts in May with the compulsory process to follow thereafter. None of this comes as a surprise to any of us in the room. Like other companies, operating in low dollar priced oil, Shell need to trim their costs. In addition, they also have the additional pressure of recouping some of the £45bn they have spent acquiring BG Group. And more broadly, the energy industry is undergoing another seismic shift, an urgent need for a lower and more productive cost base and more innovative thinking to secure cleaner and more easily replicable energy sources for all. Our Townhall meeting explained context and rationale, the leaders were open, engaged and responsive. The respect and care they demonstrated goes a long way to softening such difficult news. I feel proud to have belonged, to still belong. And my loyalty is shifting, away from the old and embracing the new.
Sometimes loyalty is not earned – “My parents always voted this way”. “My friends always go to this venue”. “We always go to the supermarket closest to home” etc. These are cases where loyalty is the default position, leading to complacency and sometimes malpractice.
Demonstrated by the extent that leaders will blindly and categorically refute wrong doing within their command structure and will actively seek to apportion blame elsewhere. A situation where right and wrong and the personal values which bind the 23 pages of
I don’t believe that all of these police officers blindly follow their leaders when untrue stories are being concocted and shared. I don’t believe that they all lack integrity and commitment. So what happens to force their silence, to bind them to their senior officers? How do you break the ingrained systemic behaviour and belief that if “I look out for you, you will look out for me”, no matter what it takes and the consequences it brings?
I’m playing one of my sing-a-long playlists, everything from Joni Mitchell, Nick Drake, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Carly Simon, James, Taylor, Fleetwood Mac through to John Legend, Bruno Mars, Phil Phillips, Coldplay and even Johnny Cash singing the Old Rugged Cross – my Nana used to sing this as a soloist in church and I still remember sitting in a hard wooden pew listening to her voice soar while silently
as the pubs had closed, we would stand importantly at the front of the pulpit
and trill 
And without the ability to hold the notes, my ability to let go in the music is diminishing. It’s fine being the funny guy – Craig and Roscoe roll around laughing as I try to get the tune out- but inside it hurts.
Founded in 1974 as a response to violent conflict in Irish society, Glencree was where all of the political parties from Ireland, North and South, and the main parties from Britain, participated in inclusive and multilateral dialogue workshops to bring about the Irish peace process. This learning and talking, which took patience, time and perseverance, was then built on and shared with the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the South African peace and reconciliation team, survivors of Rwandan genocide and many others from all over the world who are involved in, or victims of, acts of religiously motivated or political violence.
We would wrap ourselves in the knitted patchwork blankets, created by survivors of these many atrocities and share our stories, tell our tales, practice our learning and be reminded of our amazing lives and opportunities. And the love, fear, memories and hope bound into every stitch, enveloping me in every moment, turned out to be more powerful and transformative than any facilitation certificate. Although I did receive the certificate too!!
not at all like the chaotically colourful, soft, patchwork yarns of Glencree! Wrapped inside, I look like a larvae who has enjoyed his fill of plant life. My half head protruding from its layers, I lie quietly trying to empty my mind and not fall asleep.
The research being conducted into the potential damage to the brain by holding a mobile phone near the head is a great cause of concern to the execs of the mobile phone companies. And, increasingly, Doctors like Dr Erica Mallery-Blythe are publishing their 
we are re-learning to connect without the constant glancing at phones, electronics and gadgets.
There is much to be said for the routine of habit.
I own my behaviour or as Roscoe often says “you only own your own self”.
The need, the habit of attaching self-worth to the work, has shifted.
Click 
Living in Africa, you breathe differently. Its a hunger for breath, a joyous grasp for every drop of air, it makes you feel so ALIVE! Every day, every night, every trip could be your last, particularly if outside of Kampala, driving in the dark, when locals believed that using headlights was burning fuel, so did without! 
Once, driving out of Kampala in the musky light of pre-dawn, on my way to a 6am flight out of Entebbe, I followed a large lorry and a couple of cars, over an unexpected hump in the road. I recoiled when I saw a man’s head roll into the side of the reservation. It was too dangerous for a single Muzungu woman to stop, so I had to carry on, badly shaken and with a heavier heart.
My dearest friend, Jill, sold her cottage in Wales and emigrated to a new life in Vancouver Island in her late 70’s. She is one of my role models. This is how I intend to be! Watch the best Exotic Marigold Hotel 1 and 2 movies and let me know if you’re interested in joining me…
So saying this, I know I need to consider growing older with an attitude of positivity, health and well-being. There is an interesting article in 
I’ve watched people letting go what they once belonged to and take new, tentative steps into the un-known.
Well, all the visualisation, tapping, swallowing tablets, drinking green juice and attempts to walk 10,000 steps a day, have not paid attention to my mind’s bidding. I have to let go of my desire to be better 
Yet these patterns are now being broken and in the letting go of the matriarch there is letting go of the family machinations.
Our energy, creativity, innovation and passion don’t exist in walls, places, stock prices, shareholder opinions or the BG employee brand, these attributes exist in us.
How many of us really embody daily change and difference in our busy lives? How exhausting would this be?! And in recognising that many of our actions and decisions are more habitual than conscious, does this awareness change our behaviour?
I must trust that time is not linear, it is cyclical. That I was, I am, I will be, great again.