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This is the month which announces the arrival of Spring, the time of rebirth, regrowth, new buds and the annual hope of better times ahead. There’s a saying that if March comes in like a lion, it goes out like a lamb. The moral of the story is that it’s a changeable month. It’s hard…

There seems to be some confusion among the wider world about what having mental health issues really means. Are there, as we professionals would imagine, nuanced definitions and understandings that can help with treatment. Is it a one-size-fits-all categorisation or, perhaps the worst possible scenario, is it a condition that means whatever is done can…

An old friend once told me that all that mattered was: “Behaviour, behaviour and behaviour”. I was younger then and even more foolish than I am now so I didn’t entirely understand. I think I’m beginning to get it. What my friend was trying to explain was that, no matter what someone said, the key…

We’re just over halfway into Advent now, the period between the fourth Sunday before Christmas and Christmas Eve. If you’re UK-based, you’ll probably have been aware of preparations for Christmas from around the end of October but this period is the one when it gets serious. You can’t miss it. If you’re concentrating on the…

An old friend recently invited me to accompany him to see the play Oedipus, currently winning rave reviews at a London theatre. Sounds like a laugh a minute, I thought. But the temptation to be a guest at a West End show was too good to resist. Reader, I booked them. I often get the…

  My disappointment in the ending of the summer was slightly eased by recalling that there didn’t seem to be much of it. Even so, I feel a lingering regret every year and try to find ways of compensating by looking forward. Christmas is a bit too far in the distance so, for the past…

Last month I was lucky enough to be invited to go for a day trip on a sailing barge. The type of barges that sailed down the British coastlines before trains and motorways, delivering coal, sugar and all sorts of heavy cargo that you couldn’t imagine. We in the modern world are so used to having…

It’s August, the peak of the summer – although some might say that’s stretching it a bit – and just one more month to go until the annual reappearance of Strictly. This veteran of 20 years draws the highest audience for our national TV’s channel and is a Saturday night “must” for millions of us….