Pink Champagne on Ice.

Way back in 1994 during the height of my madness I was sent for 4 months to a specialist unit in London for intensive in-patient treatment. Leading that so called treatment was the eminent psychiatrist Bernie Rosen. A vain, clever, and arrogant man what stood out was his belief that he was always right and only he knew the way forward. If a patient chose to leave against his wishes he would ensure they didn't get treatment anywhere else. As a result I quickly christened the unit the Hotel California after the iconic Eagles song. "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave". Well I did leave and proved him wrong.

I do like the Eagles although I have never seen them perform. Not listened for a while either but last night as I drank pink champagne in a London hotel I thought back to song. "Pink champagne on ice, we are just prisoners here of our own device". I rarely drink champagne for  2 reasons: it gives me heartburn; and I can't afford it. Yet seeing old and wealthy friends from long ago was a lot of fun.

Back to the reality of a quiet Sunday now. I have listened to Don Giovanni and am now listening to Mozart arias. All very pleasant. Later I will roast a small joint of gammon and drink the rioja given me by one of my departing students. So quickly the hours will tick by until yet another Monday comes round. But the countdown is on, only 4 more weeks of work before a long and well deserved rest.

I'm anticipating the proofs of "Charon's Ferry" next week. If I were to estimate I should have the first copy in 2 weeks. Then we must party!

I Heard a Voice.

The Pub, a Dying Breed.

Many a time I have extolled the virtues of that British institution the pub on here. In truth though, they are dying out. Many country pubs have gone. Some blame the government for the heavy tax. It is right that we have robust laws against drink driving but that has done the country pub no good. Since the smoking ban in 2007 the closure rate has increased. When I left Kent that year there were many pubs in my old town; now there are 3 fewer. But what of the popular town centre pubs? Surely if they are busy they must be safe? Apparently not. It was with great sadness that I learned last night the pub that served as my second home when I moved up here is to close. In its place will be yet another bar/restaurant. The food had better be good or I won't be going in there. I do hope the Hedgehog will survive.

On other notes it is finally cooling off after our longest heatwave in 7 years. The air is more tolerable and it is easier to sleep. But it has given us all a burst of enthusiasm, finally a summer to remember.

Along side that my buoyant mood remains. Not manic just good. I have decided that I will commit to another year at the University. There remains the issue of pay but in the absence of anything better I have now filled in the paperwork to undertake the MSc in Mental Health Practice. I can do it in a year and assuming they agree to pay we will go ahead. After that there will be change. Whether that helps more or not I do not know. If it doesn't then I go back to my job search. Something will turn up one day.

Late this afternoon I received a very important e mail. The proofs of "Charon's Ferry" will be with me next week. I had hoped to get them today but alas no. If all is well then we may be looking at publication of the paperback in the next couple of weeks. Then I can really celebrate.

Over the next few weeks I have drinks in London, a wedding, and a Prom to go and see. The latter was courtesy of an old school friend who had a ticket but will be on holiday. We had a fine meal in Chinatown last night. Not my usual place but excellent if a little pricey. 4 more weeks of work then the holiday-hurrah!

I Heard a Voice.

Glorious Sun, Glorious Food, and Glorious Music!

Every now and again in cold, wet, dark England the summer comes. It has not been here since 2006. But now it has come back with a vengeance! It is nearly midnight and it is 27 degrees. We have had the highest temperatures today since that last summer. The humidity to is up there with warmer climes and we are melting in the heat. It is fantastic!

We English are good at beating ourselves up. Yet what a summer. Murray (admittedly not English) wins at Wimbledon in 50 degrees. We thumped Australia in the Ashes at Lord's. And a royal baby is born. Sometimes we English do things well.

I spent the weekend in an English country village near Cambridge. I roasted an English local chicken stuffed with garden grown sage, rosemary, and thyme with English potatoes. Result, stunning. The finest I have ever cooked. Oh how I yearn for good produce at the butcher I can't access and the fruit and veg shop that long since ceased to exist where I live. A couple of pints of local ale in a Cambridge pub I'd not been to for 20 years sealed it. Sometimes we are good.

On a bakingly hot day I listened the Edward Elgar on the way to and from work today. Has there ever been a finer recording than Du Pre's of Elgar's Cello Concerto? I suspect not. I know she is not English but it is an English piece.

And what of me? I too am feeling glorious. Mood is up but not manic. My life after 2 years of unhappiness and uncertainty now has a direction. Where it will lead me I don't know. But I'm out of the darkness and long may it continue-no extra risperidone needed now.

Here is to tomorrow, tropical storms and 28 degrees; now that has been a long time coming!

I Heard a Voice.

An Epic Win!

What a test match! It has been such a tense day as England battled with Australia in the Ashes. Finally I can relax as England won by 14 runs. I'm getting too old for this and I'm only a spectator. God knows what it was like for the players!

It's another hot sunny day. The dreariness and cold of early summer seems to have gone. I wonder how long this will go on? As the cricket went on much longer than I anticipated I have not listened to any opera today. But Ali and Gary are coming for dinner tonight so I fear I may have to put on some Puccini. The shoulder of pork will go into the oven at 3 pm for a 30 minute burn, then slow roast for another 3 hours-heaven!

Tomorrow looks calm. I have one student coming then back to those stupid cards. In 2 1/2 days I have done 63, only 47 to go. I still ask the question, whose need does this serve? Certainly not mine.

Next test starts on Thursday, it could be mighty summer. Then when the autumn comes it is back to the NFL. There are rumblings that my beloved Rams may move back to LA-can't wait! Back where they belong.

I Heard a Voice.

An Enforced Absence.

My sincerest apologies for being away from here for so long. It was certainly not intended. The plan had been to blog on Wednesday after my dad had left to go to Germany. I had a post entitled "The Missing Mania" planned. Then disaster. Every time I went to write it came up with error so I couldn't click into the text box. As you all know I'm not very confident when it comes to technology so I was stumped. Is it easy to contact Google? Is it fuck. But I did find a forum and someone suggested changing browsers. I tried on my Chrome this afternoon and it worked. So here I am back again.

What a week in this country. A heat wave has accompanied Andy Murray winning at Wimbledon. Scorching temperatures and fine sunshine has adorned each day and an epic test match is being fought out at Trent Bridge. Surely England must win from here. And me? Well the mood has been flying.

I'm still trying to come to terms with my election to the Council of Governors with HPFT. Potentially it is huge. But that is daunting. I will find out more about what is expected of me on Wednesday. At the AGM on Saturday I will formally become a governor. I will not be there to see it as I will be in Cambridge. After that who knows where my life will go.

In the meantime I need to keep an eye on my mood. Don't want it getting out of control. But life in some ways is looking up.

I Heard a Voice.

Call Me Governor!

Hi all, I'm back. The sun is shining, I've been to 2 BBQs and I'm off to a 60th birthday party tonight. All sound good? Well it didn't look that way on Friday.

On Friday morning I woke early to a blinding headache, churning stomach, and severe nausea. Not good at all. I called in sick at work and went back to bed. I must have been ill as I slept for another 3 hours without the aid of medication. Not a good start.

The symptoms did begin to ease and late on I decided to take the risk of the jounrey to Kent to see my dad. Then the world changed.

A cursory glance at my work e mail brought me news I was not expecting. I have been elected to the Board of Governors of Hertfordshire Partnership Foudnation Trust. I was stunned. I never thought I would get elected. But elected I was and now the nutter no one wanted to listen to has got into a place of power. Oh how my world has changed.

Part 2

The above was written yesterday but a technical error meant it didn't publish. So onto today's post.

What a weekend for British sport! The Lions rampaged all over the Wallabies and now Andy Murray's glorious victory at Wimbledon. I'm not much of a fan of tennis but it was exciting watching the last few games when I got back from my dad's.

So I face another week as the summer grinds on. In the few weeks I'm headed for Seville and Granada then it is back to the mayhem. I guess in between times I will learn what is expected of me with HPFT.

I Heard a Voice.

PS And here is to England thumping Australia in the 1st test on Wednesday-the Ashes are back!

Death by Yellow Card.

My friend Madeline poses a rather interesting question when it comes to bureaucracy. Whose need does it serve? That just about sums up my day today. It was a day on which I spent many hours completing forms that serve no purpose for me or my students.

One of the realities of modern life is that we have to find some system of recording what we do. When I came here in 2007 no one had done my job before so there were no systems in place. So I devised a simple electronic set of data collections that were easy to use and covered what I do. It is my no means perfect but it is exceedingly accessible and does reflect the chaos of my life. For the students it stands as an accurate assessment of their interactions with me. So it serves the purposes of both of us.

When I was forcibly moved departments in 2010 I kept going the way I had always done things. Why would I want to switch to a labourious paperbased system that makes no sense to anyone except those who devised it? And guess who those people were? It was devised by counsellors for counsellors. Why it is so complex I have no idea. Perhaps they want to hide behind too much information? Or maybe they just want to baffle the reader? But I pose the same question, who does it benefit?

In the 3 mainly unhappy years since I moved increasing pressure has been put on me to integrate with them. So this year I have been forced to use the infamous yellow card system. When we paid a lot of money to an organisational consultant for our annual navel gazing exercise she seemed as baffled by it all as I am. Will we grind to a halt without yellow cards? We are moving to a new system next year but I'm still being forced to fill them in which benefits neither me nor my students. I have spent all day today doing it and am not even half way through yet. I have no idea what the codes mean without a code breaking sheet (it is several pages long) and much of what I do simply isn't covered in it.

Has it been a useful deployment of my time? I guess only others can tell me that. But what I do know is that it won't be like this for ever. If I remain here, in a couple of years time I'm hoping yellow cards will be banished to some storage facility and forgotten.

And by the way, after I have transferred data from my database to the cards, someone else has to spend many weeks inputting it into another database. I'm glad it is not me!