I'm getting far too sporadic with this blog. I keep doing interesting things and meeting interesting people, and each time I do I think "ooh, I must blog about that" and then I'm on to the next interesting thing and the moment has passed. So I think this will have to be a round up of various interesting things I've been up to of late. OK, so, where to start...
March 5th - I recorded my first ever teleseminar! I'm dead proud of this, I must say. I coped with the technology, having been helped over my intitial panic that nothing appeared to be working by the ever wise Sharon Gaskin, and once I got into it I really enjoyed it. I did make it easy on myself by making sure no-one could interrupt, so next time I shall be bolder and make it an interactive session, which will be fun. I had some really generous and positive comments from listeners which bucked me up no end. If you didn't get a chance to listen to it at the time, I've now saved it and loaded it up as a podcast, so you can listen to it any time by just clicking on this link.
March 8th - I went to the Women Unlimited Conference held at the British Library Conference Centre. A very tiring but excellent day, with some fabulous, inspiring speakers and lots of lovely entrepreneuses. I never knew all this sort of stuff went on before! What a fabulous way to spend International Women's Day!
March 9th - went to my first 4N event as a paid up member. I've been looking for a networking group that felt right for me, and I went to my first ever 4N on March 2nd. I'd seen lots of references to it on Twitter, and then had it recommended to me by a member, so I thought I'd give it a try. I felt immediately at home on my first visit, so much so that I joined the minute I got home, parting with cash and everything! I really like the unstuffy atmosphere, the lack of rules and the fact that you can go to 4N meetings wherever you happen to be. I've met some really nice people and have booked myself in to attend an average of 2 meetings a week from now on.
From there, I went to the launch of the 30:30 Big Wig's Challenge in aid of the Sue Ryder Care Hospice in Leckhampton, Cheltenham. This is a fund-raising venture which aims to raise £30,000 between now and the end of July. You can see what I'm doing to help out here - please give generously!
And that evening, I had a fantastic session with a client, who has uncovered what she really wants to do with her life as a direct result of the work we've been doing together - we both left the session on a real high as a result.
March 10th - to Surrey to visit another client - it was a beautiful (if flipping cold) day and I took advantage of the fact that I had no other appointments that day to take the scenic route and enjoy the drive. The coaching session went really well again, and I went home thrilled that I'm able to spend my time doing something so fulfilling and rewarding. I'm contiunually struck by what a privilege it is to be allowed to listen as people explore their deepest fears and feelings.
March 11th was a Birthday in our house, so not much work was done, but there was a lot of feasting and celebrating. I did have a lovely long chat with Kate Griffiths, who I've met on Twitter, and as a result we've decided to provide a sort of mentoring service for each other, so that's good!
March 12th - my first ever interview with the press! I met a lovely lady called Caroline Fisher, who writes for the Gloucestershire Echo amongst others. I think the interview went well, and we seemed to get on like a house on fire, so now I'm waiting to see the result in print. I took advantage of the opportunity to slip her a copy of my book wot I wrote - I've had some lovely reactions to it so far, and I'm hoping she'll think it's worth a mention.
And in amongst all that I've been tweeting, facebooking, collectring new subscribers for my newsletter, writing articles for various magazines, and being a wife, a daughter and a mother. Blimey. It's no wonder I'm tired!
Monday 15 March 2010
Friday 5 March 2010
On My Adventures In The Big City
Yesterday I went to London for the day. I had 3 meetings arranged: one chemistry meeting with a prospective client, one coaching session with an existing client, and one catch up with a dear friend who was going to give me a tour of her husband's art exhibition. I had arranged the first and last meetings around the middle one, to make the most of the day, and decided to let National Express take the strain.
So, up early to catch the 0810 coach, we left the house at 0730 on the basis that it would take half an hour to walk to the coach stop and I don't like to be late. My lovely husband accompanied me as it was on his way to work. We walked so fast it took all of 10 minutes to get to the bust stop, which left me with a half hour wait for the coach! And boy, was it cold yesterday morning! Still, never mind, I was wrapped up in coat and gloves, and it would only be half an hour.
Or would it? 0810 came and went with no sign of a coach. Then at 0817 I spied it, a big, white National Express coach zooming round the roundabout, approaching the bus stop ..... and zooming straight past with the driver looking fixedly ahead, CLEARLY ignoring my frantic attempts to flag her down. I was dumbfounded. Clearly she was late, but that was no excuse for failing to stop.
Luckily a local bus was right behind, and I thought if I hopped on that I could catch up with the coach at the next stop in town. But look! I have no money on me!! How sensible am I?!
So I rang my lovely husband and asked him to come out and meet me at the gates to his work, and bring me some money. Which he did, bless him. Then he walked me to the nearest bus stop where, as luck would have it, a bus was just about to pull in. As lovely husband turned away, railing at the uselessness of National Express and exhorting me to ring them and complain, what did I espy but a National Express coach creeping up behind the local bus. And, would you believe it, when I checked my ticket, this one actually had the right service number on it, unlike (I now realised) the one that had zoomed past me....
I was now at the wrong bus stop, but I leapt out into the road waving my ticket and holding up traffic while trying to get the coach driver to let me on board. Which he did, very grumpily and probably against the rules, but boy was I grateful!! What a good job he was half an hour late, or I'd never have caught him!!
Once I'd settled in I rang my husband to let him know, but his phone was engaged, so I checked my emails instead. There was one cancelling my first meeting, for a very good reason it has to be said. Just then my husband rang to tell me about the argument he'd just had with someone at National Express's head office and what a shower they were and how angry he was at their poor service. How he laughed when I told him about my mix up with the coaches, and how I was now on the right one! Ha!
The journey was largely uneventful, apart from the WiFi not working and the electrical socket that I'd plugged my laptop into not having any power. As we sat in a traffic jam outside Buckingham Palace I reflected on how lucky it was that my morning meeting had been cancelled, as we were so late that I wouldn't have made it anyhow.
We finally made it to Victoria and I had plenty of time to get my Oyster card, buy some lunch and saunter on to the underground to get to my next appointment. I would even have time for a cup of tea somewhere when I go to my destination. I was buoyed up by having taken a call from a journalist wanting to interview me for a feature article next week - it was a lovely day, I wasn't in a rush, all was good.
A few stops from my destination, the phone rang. My client said "I don't know how to tell me this, but..." he had a family emergency that required his immediate attention. I managed to hold off with the hysterical laughter till I got off the phone, convincing him that he didn't need to feel guilty and it wasn't a problem. I rang my lovely husband and we had a chortle together - and then I noticed we were pulling into what had been my destination and if I didn't get off there, I'd end up who knows where.
Off I got, crossed the footbridge over to the other platform and ate my lunch while freezing my bits off waiting 20 minutes for a train back in the other direction. While there I had a sudden panic - was I meeting my friend in Kingston or Richmond? Was she going to cancel on me too? How did one get to Kingston or Richmond from where I was?
Thankfully she texted me right back - I was going to Kingston, she wasn't going to cancel, and she could meet me earlier than planned. Apart from then passing through various stations 3 times because I got confused about which route to take, the journey to Kingston was uneventful. I had a lovely time with my friend, including copious amounts of tea, wine and ribaldry. To our delight, our guru, the man who taught us to be coaches, happened to wander past the window of Carluccio's as we were ribalding, so I ran outside like a thing possessed, bear-hugged him and woman-handled him in to join us. Once he'd got over the shock (I'm quite hefty, and apparently he doesn't often find himself being charged at by overweight middle-aged women dressed in all the colours of the rainbow!) he was as delighted to see us as we were to see him, so we had a lovely catch-up before we let him go free again.
I made my leisurely way back to Victoria, picking up some supper from M&S on the way, and arriving at the Coach Station with plenty of time to spare. Got on the coach, no problems, settled down, no problems, plugged in my laptop and WiFi, no problems. Went to eat my supper - a nice healthy couscous salad with roasted veg and spicy chicken. Which I had to eat with my fingers, cos I hadn't picked up a fork.
I had a lovely day out, and I hope my next trip to London will be as much fun!
So, up early to catch the 0810 coach, we left the house at 0730 on the basis that it would take half an hour to walk to the coach stop and I don't like to be late. My lovely husband accompanied me as it was on his way to work. We walked so fast it took all of 10 minutes to get to the bust stop, which left me with a half hour wait for the coach! And boy, was it cold yesterday morning! Still, never mind, I was wrapped up in coat and gloves, and it would only be half an hour.
Or would it? 0810 came and went with no sign of a coach. Then at 0817 I spied it, a big, white National Express coach zooming round the roundabout, approaching the bus stop ..... and zooming straight past with the driver looking fixedly ahead, CLEARLY ignoring my frantic attempts to flag her down. I was dumbfounded. Clearly she was late, but that was no excuse for failing to stop.
Luckily a local bus was right behind, and I thought if I hopped on that I could catch up with the coach at the next stop in town. But look! I have no money on me!! How sensible am I?!
So I rang my lovely husband and asked him to come out and meet me at the gates to his work, and bring me some money. Which he did, bless him. Then he walked me to the nearest bus stop where, as luck would have it, a bus was just about to pull in. As lovely husband turned away, railing at the uselessness of National Express and exhorting me to ring them and complain, what did I espy but a National Express coach creeping up behind the local bus. And, would you believe it, when I checked my ticket, this one actually had the right service number on it, unlike (I now realised) the one that had zoomed past me....
I was now at the wrong bus stop, but I leapt out into the road waving my ticket and holding up traffic while trying to get the coach driver to let me on board. Which he did, very grumpily and probably against the rules, but boy was I grateful!! What a good job he was half an hour late, or I'd never have caught him!!
Once I'd settled in I rang my husband to let him know, but his phone was engaged, so I checked my emails instead. There was one cancelling my first meeting, for a very good reason it has to be said. Just then my husband rang to tell me about the argument he'd just had with someone at National Express's head office and what a shower they were and how angry he was at their poor service. How he laughed when I told him about my mix up with the coaches, and how I was now on the right one! Ha!
The journey was largely uneventful, apart from the WiFi not working and the electrical socket that I'd plugged my laptop into not having any power. As we sat in a traffic jam outside Buckingham Palace I reflected on how lucky it was that my morning meeting had been cancelled, as we were so late that I wouldn't have made it anyhow.
We finally made it to Victoria and I had plenty of time to get my Oyster card, buy some lunch and saunter on to the underground to get to my next appointment. I would even have time for a cup of tea somewhere when I go to my destination. I was buoyed up by having taken a call from a journalist wanting to interview me for a feature article next week - it was a lovely day, I wasn't in a rush, all was good.
A few stops from my destination, the phone rang. My client said "I don't know how to tell me this, but..." he had a family emergency that required his immediate attention. I managed to hold off with the hysterical laughter till I got off the phone, convincing him that he didn't need to feel guilty and it wasn't a problem. I rang my lovely husband and we had a chortle together - and then I noticed we were pulling into what had been my destination and if I didn't get off there, I'd end up who knows where.
Off I got, crossed the footbridge over to the other platform and ate my lunch while freezing my bits off waiting 20 minutes for a train back in the other direction. While there I had a sudden panic - was I meeting my friend in Kingston or Richmond? Was she going to cancel on me too? How did one get to Kingston or Richmond from where I was?
Thankfully she texted me right back - I was going to Kingston, she wasn't going to cancel, and she could meet me earlier than planned. Apart from then passing through various stations 3 times because I got confused about which route to take, the journey to Kingston was uneventful. I had a lovely time with my friend, including copious amounts of tea, wine and ribaldry. To our delight, our guru, the man who taught us to be coaches, happened to wander past the window of Carluccio's as we were ribalding, so I ran outside like a thing possessed, bear-hugged him and woman-handled him in to join us. Once he'd got over the shock (I'm quite hefty, and apparently he doesn't often find himself being charged at by overweight middle-aged women dressed in all the colours of the rainbow!) he was as delighted to see us as we were to see him, so we had a lovely catch-up before we let him go free again.
I made my leisurely way back to Victoria, picking up some supper from M&S on the way, and arriving at the Coach Station with plenty of time to spare. Got on the coach, no problems, settled down, no problems, plugged in my laptop and WiFi, no problems. Went to eat my supper - a nice healthy couscous salad with roasted veg and spicy chicken. Which I had to eat with my fingers, cos I hadn't picked up a fork.
I had a lovely day out, and I hope my next trip to London will be as much fun!
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