life ... drawing ...

A longer break than normal - apologies.

A good holiday eventually brings self-reflection.  Often it is fleeting, a whiff of something as distant as your regular life is as you walk on the beach that you'll never walk on again.  Sometimes it doesn't form itself into anything recognisable until you are back and even then it can be crowded out by the mayhem of 'normality'. How ever intangible, it is usually enough to put a little perspective on the things you do.  It settles a moment into a period in your life.  It sharpens now and slows time a beat.  It is calming and refreshing.
People talk about doing something that scares you, about widening your comfort zone.  What are you avoiding in life?  What skills do you think you will just never have?  What happens when you draw with your left hand but write with your right?  What happens when you draw with both hands?  What do you hands express that words can't? What do you see when you look at another person's naked body?
For the journey, the reflection, the relaxation and the perspective, and cheaper than a holiday, try Life Drawing...

Bank Holiday musings

It's Jubilee weekend and we are preparing for our street party - I had grand ideas of union flag icing on cup cakes but the cakes all sank (why do I never follow a recipe properly?) and I resorted to blue (and purple) smarties and glace cherries on some of co-op's best mini-cakes.

cake cheat

In the news they often talk about the economic cost of an extra bank holiday - the BBC give their take on it here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18277486

Personally I'd always thought the extra leisure spend would make up for a day's work but my principal project - a £3million refurbishment/development in the centre of Cambridge - will struggle to make a meaningful start this week and as usual, every second counts.  We had a celebratory dinner with client, user, builder and consultants last week - 2 women, 16 men.  It was a good idea and I made a point of talking about development, the Olympics and procurement and NOT: my dilemma about what to wear, worries about the project and my garden.  It was good practise although I needn't have worried: a couple of the blokes had had a similar wardrobe dilemma, one had no clue what I meant when I talked about 'BIM' and there were plenty of personal anecdotes going round.

I took the opportunity of telling a few men they needed to employ more women too. Recent research into the advantages for companies of having more women in their management team is getting quoted a lot -  the pdf "Women on Boards" is available here: http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/biscore/business-law/docs/w/11-745-women-on-boards.pdf - even if that's the only thing you mention, give it a go.  The evidence that women are good for business is clear and the more it gets talked about the better the prospects for all of us.  Happy Bank Holiday!