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This will come as a surprise but during the festive season we had a day where we ate lots of food at someone’s house!! How off the wall are we!!
Anyway, as you’d expect, the prerequisite ‘lots of food’ had been bought and prepared by the host and, although we chipped in with some final bits of cooking / stirring / opening packets(!), the host had far and away done the lion’s share of the work.
Wow! It’s been a while since I blogged!! Things have been kinda hectic between work, kids, Christmas, getting ready to sell house, general day to day inconveniences like washing! (I have been washing BTW!)
But my non-blogging, and actually my not-much-tweeting state of late, got me thinking about why.
……People say there’s no such thing…….but I’ve been noticing recently that there are free lunches everywhere!
Free Lunch #1
I first started to ponder this subject last week with @Prash_Jadav when we were chatting about kids toys. A big topic at this time of year! We were commenting on the expectation of kids, and adults, that a toy must a) make a noise, b) move by itself, c) have a touch screen – or any combination of these three aspects.
I was listening to the radio on my way home the other night and heard about a great new approach to dealing with low to mid risk domestic violence offenders. Rather than sending these people off to prison for a few months, the social work team had devised an 18 week programme for these people to be part of. The purpose of the programme was to change behaviour, and help people manage their anger, essentially through a coaching approach. I struggled with some of it, e.g. “imagine what you don’t want your child to say about you when they’re 18″ – rather than focussing on the positive and pre-supposing success. But overall it sounded like an amazing approach and seemed to be working (only 3 re-offenders out of about 70 participants so far – far less than people who get put away).
Back in the summer this year it was my first time having a hip replacement .
I used to have a rubbish arthritic hip which was sore, inflexible and stopped me doing a lot of things with my kids that I wanted to do. Now that I’m all better (for a good few years anyway…till I need another replacement) I can look back on that time and think it was absolutely the best thing I ever did.
Today I looked at my sad, crumpled, paper poppy and, as I took it off my coat, I accidentally pricked myself with the pin and threw both in the bin.
What’s it all about? I love the good old paper poppy for nostalgic reasons – standing in the cold and rain in the school playground, while my friend fainted in front of me from standing too long! But really, there must be…..there are…..better poppy options! So why do the poppy people keep making paper ones that get damaged within about 2 minutes and which are not only ‘lethal’ (possible dramatic licence there!) but are also a waste of metal – how many pins get made and thrown away every year? Crazy!
Last week I was lucky enough to attend the CIPD Annual Conference, and even to speak on the Thursday about the small part I played in the recent CIPD Hackathon. It was an amzing event. The CIPD turned a significant corner about this time last year, when Peter Cheese joined as Chief Exec, and things continue to improve now. A year ago, I was on the train to Manchester feeling embarrassed that somebody might find out I was involved with the CIPD and HR – we were going nowhere. This year I was full of pride for what we, as a collective body, are striving to achieve!