IF.....

Dear Lord, thank you for the blessing you have bestowed upon me on this Nuffield trip. For the people I have met and for the words they have spoken. For the lessons they have taught me and for the sights I have seen. Most of all thank you for not allowing me to make a fool of myself too much by ensuring there was no easy access to karaoke and reminding me to do my flies up at every turn.

Now is the important bit: the translation from Nuffield bubble to reality. Please don’t let my uselessness hamper my ability to apply things that I can translate for good; and please don’t let my uselessness make me think things that will never work are a good idea.

That’s the thing - some things I have learnt could help me immensely if I can translate them properly; other things may seem a good idea but will never work in my situation or at the very best distract me from what should be my true focus.

To paraphrase Kipling (NB Rudyard not Mr Cakeman): If I can trust myself, when all men doubt me, but make allowances for their doubting too... If I can dream - and not make dreams my master; If I can think - and not make thoughts my aim..... If I can watch the things I gave my life to, broken, and stoop and build them up with worn out tools; .....If I can force my heart and nerve and sinew to serve my turn long after they are gone and so hold on when there is nothing in me except the will which says to them: “Hold on”.... Mine is the earth and everything that’s in it and maybe I might be close to being half a man. I realise I’m breaching the melodramatic restrictions that I should strictly apply to this blog but lets just forget this last paragraph ever happened.

I think we all have a "useless" side to our characters, something that distracts us from getting close to our full potential. But we all have really good traits too. The trip has made me realise more than anything that I really need to get my act together. A leopard can’t change his spots but he can add definition, body, gloss and have less split ends by using a different type of hair product. I’ll see if my spots can be made better by the product of this trip. Is there an analogy doctor in the house .... it’s an emergency!