In a lime green container – great food in the cafe – we spent 4 or 5 hours in the company of Jeremy Houghton who, despite a sleepless night with a young baby had travelled across from his home in Worcestershire to give us newbies a taste of what it might be like to be an artist.

Trust me, an artist I am not having failed my O-level in art humpty hump years ago.

First we did some warm up exercise with our non-dominant hand (the signs for success weren’t good) and then moved on to working with masking paint, pastels or – in my case – collage.

It was a fun day, I learned something new and got a close up view of the Olympic Stadium

But they really do have some work to do before next summer!

And it got me thinking about the society we live in and how we got to this point where working at something just doesn’t seem have value any more. I came up with some reasons – in no particular order – and I wonder if you agree

Many UK families consist of two children singletons and whilst I don’t advocate going back to the Victorian age of families that could field a football side, in larger families of 4 or more you do have to learn to give and take, to apologise and get a long, how to be fair, wait for your turn, know that you have turns. With good parenting, it becomes ingrained behaviour

Relationship with technology more interesting than relationship with people
Many years ago, before the internet was invented, I used to queue in builder’s merchants and the like and be totally infuriated when I reached the counter only for the phone to ring and the guy to pick up the phone than deal with me. Why?! Look at me, I’m here, how do they get priority?

Fast forward “several” years and when I visited my daughter recently at Uni I noticed that although she’d only been gone a few weeks I had forgotten hw infuriating it was to have a conversation with long pauses and occasionally forgotten topics while she texted or read texts or played with an app. Look at me, I‘m here. Talk to me

And as for supermarkets, well. You’re lucky if you get a person and not some automated gadget. And if you do get someone under 21 the chances of them actually looking at you and talking to you are minimal. I was at the dry cleaners the other day and their computer system and I actually had a conversation with the assistant while she looked up prices and dates rather than being rapt with what was going on on the screen.

Delayed gratification
And whilst I am not advocating a return to civil service promotions boards I think there is something to be said for joining at the bottom of a company and working your way up but mention it to Gen Y or the Millenials or whatever label is being applied this week and you’d be laughed out of court. Like Headmasters & CEOs who go in “to fix a problem” and move on rather than deal with the consequences of their fix they don’t get promotion they job hop.

I don’t think it’s sustainable. I don’t know where it’s going to end but I suspect we are cooking up a whole shedload of trouble for ourselves down the line

and someone else has reinforced my fears http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/your-brain-work/201109/the-end-the-conversation

and I just came across these quotes from her

► We need 4 hugs a day for survival.
We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance.
We need 12 hugs a day for growth.

► So much is asked of parents, and so little is given.

► Problems are not the problem; coping is the problem.

► Life is not what it’s supposed to be. It’s what it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.

► Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.

And I particularly relished this one

► Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible – the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family.

Or would that be ” a nurturing organisation” ?

“I had a really great day today at the “Worldly Wisdom” pre-conference workshop. It was al about narrative & story-telling in the organisation (run by Mary-Alice Arthur I think).

I created my title “Subtle Spanner of Change”. Note the wordplay. “The spanner that knocks or turns or makes change” (remember the story of the plumber who came and charged £100 to knock once on the pipe. The bill said “For knocking the pipe – £1. For knowing where to knock – £99). & “the one who spans”

Then there was the story of the Emperor’s Seed. All the seed had been boiled so that the only true pot was the empty pot (remind you of any corporate meetings you’ve attended?) bringing elements of truth, honesty & persistence

Then we each told stories in a series of story circles. The learning points from this were :
: clear vision leads to action
: a birth process is not an easy one. Expect difficulties
: at the moment of the most difficulties comes transformation
: model what you want to grow
: the answer is within
Don’t go for gurus

After lunch came Haikus. I loved creating Haikus, here’s a few samples

Dark red rock
Looping the labyrinth
Of the Soul

Acres of departure
Feeding the gloom
Glow-worms of desire

Glimmering hare
Leaves untouched
The oceans of plane / pain

Speed of change
Drags tortoise feet
Through primordial mud

Distributing information
Accumulates sands
Of time in the storm

Then we used Soul Cards as an oracle to answer a question and learned that everything can be seen from at least 2 perspectives

Finally there were various suggestions of what’s new in organisational storytelling

I loved this workshop. This is what I want to do

Subtle Spanner of Change”

The ideal cat house?

Now this is not to imply that owners / managers / runners of the usual boarding cattery are doing anything wrong. They are doing what is usual. I want to do what is best for the cat.

So first of all I would like to replicate – as much as possible the usual surroundings of home. There would be (cleanable) carpet, a nice easy chair (covered in a washable fleece), not quite curtains, but a proper wall so that a cat doesn’t feel overlooked all the time.

There would be boxes and hidey holes that cats could hide in whilst they get used to their environs (moveable to different heights to accommodate those cats who are less nimble). If possible there would be walkways at height so occupants and walk around whilst remaining off the floor.

There would be cat scratching posts – you know the big ones – so that cats could climb and sharpen their claws.

There would be inside and outside and outside would include different mediums on the floor. I have discovered that my cats like a bed of sand to roll in – like a dust bath – and I’ve always though it would be good to have running water, like a stream running through (health considerations to be taken into account)

Also outside, there would be plenty for a cat to watch – wildlife at least in the form of bird tables and trees and shrubs. Would people coming and going be stressful?

IT would be good for there to be a view from the inside pen as well. Not only for carers to look in, but for the cat(s) to watch an aviary or aquarium or even guinea pigs, hamsters or mice happily playing in their preferred environment.

I would like to explore if it would be possible for the cat to be let out to play or for the construction to allow cats to wander round individual walkways above human head height. After all, we would be taking them from what would hopefully be quite a stimulating environment to somewhere where they might just get to watch their claws grow.

So have I covered everything?
• The room(s) would be warm inside, there could be radio piped if it was thought to be beneficial to the cats.
• Running water would be provided either in an individual water fountain or from a stream.
• Food would be placed in different places so that they a) have to hunt for it and b) can’t demolish it too quickly and sick it back up again (or is it only mine who do that?) and c) it would be away from the water AND the litter tray
• Entertainment – things to watch
• Privacy
• Access to outside
• Litter tray would have the medium they are familiar with.
• A variety of games and entertainment from “Da Bird” to finding treats
• And the most important last – LOTS of cuddles, grooming and attention so that your friend doesn’t feel completely abandoned.

Bear in mind that all this would be varied depending on the style of cat that was coming to stay. If your companion is an aloof loner, the last thing (s)he is going ot appreciate is someone waving a feather stick at them

In my trawls round the internet to explore what is though the best way to board cats I have come across the following sites

http://www.moderncat.net/2008/10/08/unbelievable-cat-friendly-house-design-from-japan/

http://calicocattery.com/boarding.aspx

http://pics.livejournal.com/caboodleranch/gallery/00045az5

http://catplay-stations.com/outdoor_fp.htm

http://www.oakdalecattery.co.uk/

And now it’s over to you to add your comments. Would you leave your cat in a cattery such as I’ve described?

Have you found the perfect place to leave your friendly feline at while you go on holiday and if so, what makes it so good?

A final thought, I heard somewhere recently that cats like to tunnel. Have you heard that too? Is it true (certainly my ones’s favourite toy of the moment is a crinkly tunnel tube). And if so, how to incorporate into my plans.

How can you improve on my initial ideas?

Stack cat bed

I know they exist – a cat breeder I know has one – but can I find one on Google or elsewhere?

Nada

If you have one or have seen one, do let me know

Ayesha

and her name is Ayesha – “she who must be obeyed”

You haven’t met her yet!

Why?

We’ve managed for years without our every conversation being snooped on.

I have said before and will continue to say that the ruination of the human race will come about from its habit of doing things because it CAN without giving any consideration as to whether the SHOULD

I should make clear, first of all, that I do not have an extensive list of favourite insects. In fact it’s rather the other way about – I have a list of distinctly unfavourite insects. and if you include spiders (and I do know they’re not strictly insects but they have the same limited appeal) then the list is considerably lengthened.

However, I will make an exception for the Hummingbird Hawkmoth

Hummingbird Hawkmoth

It comes every year – well, I assume it’s not exactly the same one – but we are visited every year and I find it endlessly fascinating. the BBC website tells me that it is indeed a moth despite the fact that I see it during the day and had assumed that all moths were nocturnal. It doesn’t make a noise, it doesn’t do much in fact except hover and feed but it makes my year complete to see it. Strange really.

I also enjoy watching the bumble bees. There were a few of those on the lobelia this weekend as well. I didn’t see the major Bombus Terrestris or the Hercules of the bumblebee flight – like the Hercules you wonder how either can fly – but I did see the smallest bumblebee I have ever seen. I wondered if it was a baby! It’s little panniers were packed to the gills with pollen, it was working for its life! And then I got to wondering when little bumblebees get to go out gathering.

And then I thought that maybe I should get a life . Unfortunately the Bumblebee Trust web page only lists the top six species, so I don’t know how I will find out what it was.

If you sit on a lawn quietly you will often see many different bees – bumble and honey and probably other varieties as well. Each has their different preference for flower so you will see more or less of them through the seasons. And unlike some other insects, they will tend to leave you alone so you are quite safe just to observe them. In fact most insects will leave you alone.

We have another – less attractive annual visitor to our garden. Or, more particularly, to our shed. I usually forget, go in to fetch some implement, hear a humming. Look up to find a wretched queen hornet busily making a nest. How do they know? Is there some kind of pheromone left behind? Each year we destroy the wretched thing and each year they return. Hornets are mild enough – they’ve never caused me any problems (apart from their nest-building activities) – although I believe their stings can be quite horrendous. I always consider them to be like the V2 bombers. While you can hear the noise, you’re OK. When the it stops, you’re in trouble. One year, they did the dirty on us and built a nest in the thatch. Or was that wasps? Now there’s an insect I cannot abide. Nasty, aggressive things.

What I would say is that if you come across a Bombus Terrestris on a path, you would be doing it a kindness to put it on a small leaf and branch and just gently moving it out of the way because my understanding is that they can suddenly get depleted, especially when the sun goes down – and run out of energy. Just put them somewhere safe and out of the way – in the sun or on a flower if you can – until they recover.

I suppose I ought not to be too surprised at my mild fascination for the bee. My grandfather was an apiarist of some experience. He worked at Rothamsted between the wars. If the stories I’ve been told are right, he used to investigate Foul Brood in apiary bees and worked with a colleague across a quadrangle. The story goes that if the colleague thought he had found an insect with Foul Brood he would hold up a card with the letters FB on it to the window. If my (notoriously short-tempered) grandfather disagreed he would hold up a similar piece of card with the letters BF on it.

He would have up to half a dozen bee hives in the garden and the water butts had pieces of cork floating in each of them so the bees could rest and take a sip of water. He also had slates with runnels and miniscule ponds engraved in them between the down-pipe and the water-butt to provide yet more bee-sized watering holes.

On one occasion – we never did discover why – my younger brother (aged about 3?) decided that the only thing he had to do was go and thump one of the hives with his teddy-bear (for some reason I particularly remember that this bear had been blue but had faded to a peculiar shade of grey). Exeunt small boy pursued by a number of very unhappy bees. And an equally distraught parent.

My husband used to keep bees and, in the early days of our marriage joined a local bee-keeping club. He happened to mention one night that his wife’s grandfather had been a bee-keeper and told them the name. To be met by the riposte “Ah yes, mad Major Morland” Unhappily he reported this back to my mother, who never forgave him!

But there my fascination ends. I can’t replicate the interest of another ancestor from the other side of the family tree who devoted her life’s interest to Diptera (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v145/n3666/abs/145178b0.html). I do draw the line at Typical Flies

The point being made by the writer was that Stafford Hospital was not an isolated incident and that had personal knowledge of others.

Which got me thinking that the more targets & measurements and key performance indicators and hoops to jump through are set, the less those whose performance is measured against them actually have to think. The mindset being “It doesn’t matter if I think this is right or wrong. This is what I’m measured against and this is what I’ll do”.

And if you extrapolate that a little further I can see examples in my own august organisation and beyond in the risk assessments now mandatory when children set foot in the school playground, let alone outside it on school trips. Damiit it all, even Facebook appears to have gone all “Command and Control” What was wrong with the original Facebook where you picked and chose apps according to your interests and preferences? Now, “Facebook Decides“. Well here’s another newsflash, I’ve decided that Facebook is rapidly losing its appeal and only worth a cursory check-in once a day.

Let’s tackle childhood first. It would be too easy to reminisce about how “it was all different when I was growing up” but it was. My experience was that you went about your own business as a child and as long as you turned up when a meal was on the table no-one wanted to know much where you’d been or what you’d been up to. We certainly played on heaps of rubble that may have shortly before been bomb sites although I doubt they’d seen a bomb in many a long year.

My parents once dropped my elder brother off on one side of the Derbyshire moors and told him to hike home. It was only later that they looked at the map and discovered that they’d sent him over treacherous marshland.

And all this without a SatNav or mobile phone to be had.

At one point in my mother’s growing-up days up she lived on the edge of Dartmoor near Seal-Hayne Agricultural College and – I am told – she and her four brothers and sisters used to go off camping on the moors for days at a time without their parents (apparently) worrying

Neglectful – possibly. I don’t know how others were brought up but mine didn’t feel markedly different from others. I’ve no doubt there were tragedies and who is to know if the technology had been available how we would have been brought up.

But there is a saying

A woman is like a tea bag. She only knows her strength when put in hot water

I wouldn’t be quite so gender-specific. Who knows where any of our limits are unless or until we reach them and find we have strength beyond. Certainly the best teachers aren’t those who excelled in their chosen subject when they were learning. It’s the ones who struggled with it and found a way through who will have most skill and patience when it comes to helping their learners.

I believe my brother-in-law was not the best mathematician in the school but did go on to become quite a gifted teacher of the subject.

It’s something I try and explain to my daughter (although maybe I should leave her to learn this for herself – my passions seem to switch her off) We learn most where we struggle most.

My mother used to insist that we should write our thank-you letters for Christmas presents from extended family on the afternoon of Christmas Day. In retrospect I now suspect that she and my father wanted a little quiet time. I do recall Christmas Day being over-shadowed by tears and desperation as I struggled to write something, anything to these people whom I saw maybe once a year. That and attempting to abide by simple rules of English imposed by my teachers

• “don’t start a sentence with the same word twice”
• “find alternatives for got, nice, do etc”
• “avoid starting a sentence with the I”

or did I imagine that last one?

Anyway, writing is now something I enjoy (I didn’t say you enjoyed reading it! )

I remember reading some biography about Richard Branson which said that his mother would constantly put him in demanding & testing situations throughout his childhood and adolescence. I’m not sure it would have made for a very comfortable growing up, but maybe, in some way, it led him to be the risk-taker that has made him the successful entrepreneur he most certainly is.

But leading back to “lazy brains” and “Setting aside critical activity around decision-making” and penned-in childhoods and even the Command and Control culture I see in my workplace. (Oh, by the way, my teachers didn’t approve of starting sentences with prepositions, but I tend to ignore that one. It leads to a more conversational style – I hope!)

There is a tendency for all of us to settle in and let someone else take charge; suspend or simply not develop our own critical faculties. And the more that someone is given limitations or boundaries – whether it is doing a risk assessment for a school trip so a child doesn’t develop his or her own abilities to evaluate risky situations or providing endless measurements, targets or processes so that an individual no longer has to engage with their own assessment about what is right in a particular situation (“I was just following the rules” – now where have we heard that before) or whether it is a government that appears to creating a state machine larger than those found in the previous Eastern Bloc – the less shrewd they will become in assessing their own risk, financial advice or the work decisions. A passive, sheep-like population. Nice!

I’m probably beginning another blog here, but there is another issue with a Command and Control style of leadership. To begin with, it treats those being led as mere ciphers.

It is also no way to develop leaders in your own organisation. I know there has been a tendency in recent years to “buy in” talent rather than growing your own in-house. Maybe that wasteful approach to employment will also be reviewed in the light of the current economic situation. Although in-house development is not withoutits own problems, those who are bought-in have less investment in the organisation than those who were nurtured by it.

Neither is it any way to engage the hearts and minds of everybody in the organisation. And if we are to survive the difficult times that undoubtedly lie ahead, then we do need every brain engaged.