On Monday I received an email from the creativity conference organisers in Macao politely asking me for my paper which I had not yet started so this week has been spent putting it together.  I went through my usual process of struggling for a couple of days assembling bits and pieces from different sources I had written in the past without any sort of enjoyment. But on the third day I began to make some useful additions to my own understanding and gain some fresh insights and that was when I began to experience some joy which motivated to put in more effort. It was that sense of making progress with ideas - 'moving them from one state to another'.  Naturally in my internet wanderings I have been open to new ideas relating to creativity and I came across this interesting passage on a website by Michael Michalko which casts light on the way our creative mind works.

IMAGE: Researchers at MIT have found a neural circuit
astrocytes that helps us build long-lasting memories. This neural circuit works best when the brain is paying attention to what we are seeing. Paying attention to something causes the release of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine that stimulates the neurocircuit. Read more: 

'Because we think sequentially and no faster than the speed of life, we cannot pay attention to everything effectively. Our attention becomes too scattered to be of any use. You’ll find that your intention will create criteria, which will determine what—out of the vast range of possible experiences—you are attending to at the time, will help you reach your goal. In short, what you intend determines what you perceive in your world.

Let us imagine that your intention is to make a canoe. You will have, at first, some idea of the kind of canoe you wished to make. You will visualize the kind of canoe you wish to make. You will visualize the canoe, then  you will go into the woods and look at the trees. Your desired outcome will determine your criteria for the tree you need. Your criteria might involve size, usefulness, and beauty of the tree.  Criteria both filter your perceptions and invest a particular situation with meaning and thereby, informs  your experience and behaviour at the time. Out of the many trees in the woods, you will end up focusing on the few that meet your criteria, until you  find  the perfect tree.

You will cut the tree down; remove the branches from the trunk;  take off the bark; hollow out the trunk; carve the outside shape of the hull; form the prow and the stern; and then, perhaps, carve decorations on the prow. In this way you will produce the canoe.

The process is so ordinary, so simple, so direct that we fail to see the beauty and simplicity of it. You  have the intention to make a canoe, visualize an outcome, and give birth to something whole, a canoe. Your intention to make a canoe gives you direction and also imposes criteria on your choices, consciously and unconsciously.

Intention has a way of bringing to our awareness only those things that our brain deems important. You’ll begin to see ideas for your canoe pop up everywhere in your environment. You’ll see them in tables, magazines, on television, and in other structures, while walking down the street. You’ll see them in the most unlikely things,  such as a refrigerator,  that you use every day without giving them much thought. How the brain accomplishes such miracles has long been one of neuroscience’s great mysteries.'

So the sudden insights we gain when we are struggling with a problem that has occupied us for a while are merely the brain paying attention to aspects of our problem as we go about our daily lives and unconsciously drawing our attention (consciousness) to what it discovers in the process. It might seem like a mysterious process and it is a wonderful feeling when it happens but our brain is merely doing what it is designed to do...

The paper I wrote for Macao

Today at breakfast I noticed that our two Canada geese were on the lawn...This was the first time they were together for several weeks and I said..ohh the eggs must have hatched. Sure enough there were four bundles of fluff... running around next to them..  Life and death are all around us..  

My daughter and her children are a very significant part of my life. This week I did my Tuesday child care looking after the twins and also Wednesday afternoon while my daughter went to the dentist.  I love my twin grandsons as if they were my own children.. My wife said this and I realised it when she said it. There is no doubt about it I have bonded to them and them to me in a big way.

They are approaching their first birthday at the end of May. It's been a long, difficult, at times gruelling and emotionally challenging year for my daughter who has had to cope with her three children by herself much of the time. They were born 10 weeks early so developmentally they are really only nine months old. In the last few weeks Archie has learnt to sit and this has liberated him so that he can do occupy himself so much more.  His development is in stark contrast to Alfie's who actively resists sitting... In the last few weeks we have become acutely aware and concerned of differences in his development compared to Archie's. We have always been conscious of the consultant's diagnosis before they left hospital that Alfie's brain scans showed signs of damage - probably because his brain was starved of oxygen at some point. Something that I think is not unusual in babies with such low birth weights. We have lived in hope that everything will be okay but we think we are now seeing the effects of this damage in his development. For  the first time this week I googled to find out something about cerebral palsy. The information was both reassuring (that there is help and the condition doesn't get worse) and distressing (depending on the degree it can be quite disabling).  There are a number of signs that are pointing to this condition for example one of Alfie's arms seems less active than the other,  he throws himself backwards when sitting or standing and he often  goes into a trance. I know my daughter and her husband  are very worried as I am for them and Alfie. The physiotherapist came today and she is going to arrange for some tests for Alfie to check on epilepsy and his cognitive functioning.. I tried to reassure my daughter that the testing is for the best as the earlier any discoveries are made the quicker treatments can be put in place.. But my heart bleeds for them as parents. But she is a remarkable woman and Alfie is fortunate to have her for his mum.. She will I know do everything she can for him and I/we will try and support her and them as family as much as we can. We will not give up hope that his life will not be so limited and I will not dwell on all the potential scenarios and imaginings of of what lies ahead. Instead I will remember the wonderful smile he gives me when he hears 'Hello Alfie its granddad!' and the way he rests on my tummy when I cuddle him. What a funny mix of joy and sadness life can be.

It's been a very enjoyable and emotional weekend as our son and daughter came home from university to celebrate their mum's big birthday and Mothers Day. Having all the family together these days is a rarity so we all savoured it and had a lot of fun and lots of catch up conversations.. We were a complete family again each fulfilling our role within it and it felt good.

It was fascinating to see how our son and daughter are growing up and becoming/being independent and this manifested itself on numerous occasions. In one conversation my daughter was discussing the possibility of travelling to Cambodia to work with an NGO.. her mum was not too keen but she suddenly said..'look you can advise me but I'm going to make the final decision on whether I go', I'd never heard that sort of thing before. 

I am just starting to think of wellbeing as a dimension of lifewide learning. My daughter has just started writing for her university newspaper so I have commissioned her to write an article for Lifewide Magazine (which she can also use for her newspaper) on how students understand their own wellbeing. I developed a simple questionnaire and interviewed her and her brother to pilot it. It worked a treat and we had good meaningful conversations. Both, in their individual ways, made the point that their wellbeing was not just about happiness or feeling good, but was much more about discovering, pursuing and achieving your purposes. Both indicated that trying to find your purpose and that they try to do this by taking on new things.. not at random, but guided by their interests, values and relationships.  

When I added my tags to the post I realised that this was the first time I'd had categorised a post using 'wellbeing' so it not a concept that comes in to my head very much. Perhaps the things I do and the relationships I have are so integrated into my wellbeing that I take it for granted. As a generalisation I do feel fulfilled and happy with my life. I am a valued member of a family that I am supporting and gaining much love in return. I enjoy my work which gives me challenge, interest and opportunity and a belief that  what I'm doing is worthwhile.

I latter completed the questionnaire myself and realised in doing so how much of my own sense of wellbeing was bound up with my family. Seeing them find and achieve their purposes, and playing a part in helping them do this, was perhaps the main source of my wellbeing.

WELLBEING QUESTIONNAIRE

1 What does 'wellbeing' mean to you?
I am very fortunate to have more than the basics in life including a lovely home and income to support my needs, time to do things I want to do and I am reasonably healthy and fit. These things all contribute to my sense of wellbeing. But ultimately wellbeing is about understanding and fulfilling my purposes - or at least the ones that I think are most important in my life.

My wellbeing is founded on the relationships I have with the people who matter most to me. My immediate family which includes my three children by my first marriage and my wife and three children and grandchildren from my second marriage. My greatest sense of achievement and fulfillment comes from the love and attention they give me and my involvement in their lives. Seeing and helping them grow up and find their own ways in life has given me my main purpose in life. A second set of purposes which cause me to get up in the morning is my work in promoting lifewide education. Here fulfillment comes from a sense of making progress in achieving the educational goals I believe in.

2 Is wellbeing linked to happiness? Are they the same thing?
Yes. I believe I am contented and happy with my circumstances and although things do crop up in life that make me anxious, sad and unhappy -  the big picture is one of happiness. But wellbeing is not only about happiness it is much more about discovering and pursuing purposes and doing things that you believe are worthwhile, meaningful and valuable and deep and meaningful forming relationships.

3 Which aspects of you does your wellbeing involve or affect?
Given what I have said it must affect me physically. Although I can no longer run because of my knee I am generally in good health and physically I can do most things that I need or want to do day to day. It affects me psychologically and emotionally - I generally feel positive and rarely suffer from negative feelings, and sadness can usually be offset with joy. Aspects of my daily life keep my mind active so it affects me intellectually. And spiritually, I am comfortable with my understanding of who I am, why I am here and what will happen to me when I die.

4  What sorts of things do you do that enable you to cultivate a sense of wellbeing?
I am surrounded by my family and I am involved in their lives, some more than others. At the moment I am helping my daughter a couple of days a week with childcare - looking after her 8 month old twins. Its hard work but very rewarding and it gives me a lot of pleasure to feel I am giving her practical help and time to do other things in her life. Beyond this my wife and I do lots of things with and for the family both immediate and more extended and these experiences ground me in the life of others.

I enjoy my work, and my writing it stimulates me intellectually and gives me the satisfaction of creating new things. I play in a band and  have weekly rehearsals and that also gives me enjoyment and challenge. When time and weather permit I like to get out into my garden and do things in it.

5 Is your sense of wellbeing something that comes from doing one thing or many things?
It comes from different things in different parts of my life - indeed having things happen and making things happen in different parts of my life enriches my sense of fulfillment and achievement.

 6  What sort of things erode your sense of wellbeing? Please give examples
Concerns and anxieties within the family have a big impact on my sense of wellbeing. For the most part these are small things that are all part and parcel of family living. But sometimes they are big. We have concerns that one of my daughter's premature twins might have brain damage because he stopped breathing when he was in the incubator. We watch intently for any developmental signs and it remains a concern that affects me emotionally. I also know that illness or injury has a negative impact. I damaged my knee playing badminton and discovered I also had arthritis and this has been painful, slows me down and inhibits me from doing anything really active like playing sport, jogging or long walks. Feeling overweight and slothful also makes me feel less good about myself. In the working side of my life feelings of not making progress or not achieving anything worthwhile erode my sense of wellbeing.

7 If you are unhappy about your state of wellbeing how do you change it? Can you give an example to illustrate?
Improving wellbeing always involves recognising what is causing the problem and doing something about it. A few months ago I felt overweight and this combined with my knee problem was making me feel not so good. I found a diet and stuck to it and began to lose my bulging stomach. But some of the really big things in life.. like the loss of a partner.. are hard to do much about.. grief and sadness are always with you no matter what you do. In my case I found someone else to share my life with her and her family, and my children,  helped me enormously to rebuild my life.

8  Is there a relationship between learning and developing and your sense of well being? Can you give an example to illustrate

Yes. I am conscious that so much of day to day living involves learning and developing in order to accomplish something or help someone else. This LWE project aimed at exploring the idea of wellbeing and how it relates to lifewide learning is involving me in finding out what others think wellbeing involves through on-line searches, in devising an interview protocol (this set of questions) and using it to have structured conversations with people (beginning with family). I will also use the opportunity to develop new relationships with people. I am learning through this process, and this is one example of a continuous process of learning and developing.

 9 Is there a relationship between wellbeing and achieving things that matter to you? If yes can you give an example?
Yes. Trying to achieve something I have decided to do becomes a significant focus for me and engages me on all fronts. If I do not make progress or the outcomes from what I am doing are not so good it makes me dissatisfied and that usually involves me in trying harder or trying something else. 

In the context of trying to help members of my family - just getting feedback that shows that what I have done has been valued is sufficient to make me feel that what I have done has been useful and worthwhile. Example - it was my wife's big birthday recently and she did not want any fuss being made. My wife is Iranian and in her culture birthdays are not celebrated as an adult and she is quite anti-birthdays. But I thought it was important to mark the occasion and planned/plotted a family celebration with the children and the two older ones came home from university for the weekend. I searched for and found a Persian restaurant with music and dancing and invited other close members of the family. We had a lovely evening and my wife really enjoyed it and the whole weekend. The best moment was when she said she would have to revise her view of birthdays! On such occasions you can tell when what you have tried to do has proved worthwhile.

10 On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is least and 10 is most important.. How important are these things in creating your sense of wellbeing.

1 Connecting with and having good relationships with people I come into contact with everyday 10
2 Being healthy and fit....physically active - walking, sport, dancing etc   9
3 Being involved in the world - being curious and aware of the world around me - looking and finding new opportunities 9
4 Feeling creative - doing things that give me a chance to be creative, inventive or resourceful 8
5 Continually learning and developing myself 9
6 Doing new things that interest me 9
7 Making progress in the things I am doing  10
8 Doing things with and for other people 10
9 Having a close relationship with someone I trust and can discuss anything with 10
10 Feeling that I am valued by the people that matter to me 10
11 Being able to do the things I want or need to do 10
12 Achieving something that I think is worthwhile 10

11 Why are the things that you rate most highly very important to your wellbeing?
All these things are important to my sense of wellbeing. Most of the things I rate highly are to do with relationships and affiliations. Perhaps I would add feeling loved as well as valued as being important, and feeling I am acting responsibly in fulfilling my role as a parent or friend.

Perhaps implicit, but could be made explicit, is the need to belong to something - to be part of a family and by extension to be part of a community (lifewide education).

The other feature about my sense of wellbeing is my need to achieve the things I value - the purposes that I have defined for myself. In this way it is intimately related to my lifewide learning and ongoing development as a person.

12 Is there anything that is important to you missing from the list?
My sense of wellbeing is an integral to the way I feel about myself and the life I live. It is not a static thing.. It is continuously evolving and has to be sustained through the things I chose to do and the way I try to do them. Because it is influenced by many things it has to be viewed holistically and evolving. I did not mention spirituality but perhaps our sense of wellbeing is what nurtures our spirit that carries and sustains us on our journey through life.

My activities this week have been mainly focused on three areas of my life - my family, my work (ChalkMountain book project) and LifewideEducation (launching our Award). 

1 Chalk Mountain - Last week I talked about how difficult it is sometimes to make a start. The chapter I have been writing has been a struggle over a long period of time. I put it off and put it off. I did bits here and there and generally hated doing it which is very unusual for me when the task involves writing. But eventually, when I couldn't put it off any longer, and having missed my own deadline twice, I did knuckle down and did it and the result was okay. At least it got us to the stage where we can see where to go next with it. This was in complete contrast to the experience I had writing another chapter the week before which was a joy and just flowed from my mind... I am not sure I learnt much from this struggle but I did get valuable feedback on both chapters which means I can now shape them to make a better fit with what the institution wants.. So the learning is reinforcing what I already know about the need for feedback in order to produce work that is useful.

 2 Lifewide Education - My biggest achievement this week was to launch the Lifewide Development Award on the 28/09. I spent time preparing a slide show for the introductory talk and gave the talk to students on the MA Human Resources Management course at Southampton Solent University. I have worked for a long time to reach this moment and done much work to create the guidance and the website infrastructure. It gave me a real sense of satisfaction in talking about what we are doing and explaining the strong positive ideas that underpin the practice.

 'Making' the slide show was enjoyable and I felt creative. It  resulted in some useful materials to help me explain the background, purposes,  structure, process and tools underlying the scheme. I realise that this slideshow is an important tool and I can see how I might produce a podcast for the  website from the materials. I think this was an example of 'learning by making  a tool'. It's always hard to judge what participants are thinking but my sense is that they found it interesting and I am hoping they will want to participate.

 In putting the materials together I came across the old African proverb - it takes a village to raise a child and recognised the wisdom in this and its value to LWE as a concept. It is a great metaphor for thecommunity-based enterprise that will have to underlie the Award if it is to be successful.  I'm delighted that the on-line Community Forum I established two weeks ago is working really well and I hope that we can draw in the learners to share their experiences.
 
3 My third area of activity relates to my family.. At the weekend my wife and I took our daughter to university. Not surprisingly she was  apprehensive and anxious moving away from home for the first time.  We had prepared her as best we could and she had prepared herself by spending three weeks in France - her first independent holiday. After an emotional farewell we left her to get on with it. A week later she tells us how hard it's been - surprisingly she is 'having to juggle loads of things' and
'it's been so frustrating spending three days trying to get logged on to the university system' and 'everywhere is so big and it's easy to get lost' and 'the buses don't come and I spent an hour waiting for one in the rain'. This is why
going to university is good for you - it's a nice (protected) wake up call to the real world after years of timetabled familiarity..

My oldest daughter is very much in the real world with one child of 5 and two month old twins and a husband in America.. So I spent some time trying to help.. I was even left for 2 hours by myself with them - that was quite an experience and only filled me even more with admiration.  But at least I can feed them both at the same time now and I am growing in confidence and experience of how to look after them.. Incidentally, she is also two thirds through on OU degree trying to
fit in the assignments around babies and no sleep.. Its quite humbling...

 So an interesting week in which I think I have achieved in three areas of my development plan..

Learning in passing -I clicked a Linked-In Learning without Frontiers  link to a blog by Gaurav Gupta http://agoodschool.blogspot.co.uk and discovered a lovely little blog site called the Good School site..In it I
found the it takes a village to raise a child proverb and I contacted the writer (an Indian) with an invitation to write a short piece for Lifewide Magazine which he is doing.. I feel its a good example of useful knowledge and relationships emerging by just following links.

Putting the first mark on the paper is a scary thing but I know once I get going it's not so bad. The psychological barrier we have to confront when we make a start can be very hard to overcome. I recently spent 6 or 7 weeks prevaricating over a
chapter I had to write that I knew was going to be hard. Sadly, when I eventually started it was hard and I find it very easy to put it to one side  and start (and finish)something else. Not a good habit I know but I have managed to convince myself its part of my creative process and that because it's at the back of my mind (actually playing on my mind!) I'm still working on the ideas. So my question is do other people suffer from this problem and if they do have they learnt any strategies for
dealing with it. Generally once I get going my attitude changes and I become more positive so something obviously happens in the mind once a start has been made. 


Saturday 15/09 - my mums birthday- 86 today

Today I have a good example of making a start. One of my goals in my current development plan is to create a memorial garden for my first wife Jill. Immediately after she died in 1999 I spent 3 or 4 months building a water garden. It gave me a lot of comfort and the physical toiling under a hot sun helped me work through my grief.. Since I moved house I have felt guilty that I have not created a physical space for her. But it's one thing saying you are going to do something and another to do it. Anyway its a lovely sunny day and I have been in the garden chopping down trees. I decided to move one of our
benches into the woods.. We have 3 acres of woodland and apart from the paths it just runs wild.. As I was carrying it down to the woods I decided I'd like to put it in the middle somewhere and as I started looking the idea of the memorial garden came into my head again.. There is a sort of drainage channel through the middle with lots of reeds and in spring there is a swathe of forgetmenots.. which flowers in early May - the time Jill died... I know my daughters also share my delight in the forgetmenots so I decided that the naturalistic 'garden' just had to be there.. so rather than prevaricate any more I worked out a route
from the existing path, cleared the bigger logs and drove the tractor in to make a start on the pathway.. Standing back from the particularities of the situation I think my goal is to create something that I, and my children will value. I had a vision of what it will be like- pretty and natural like she was and surrounded by wild woodland but in the more open spaces where the light comes shining through and the wild flowers grow in spring. While my vision and enthusiasm was still in my head (and ignoring the other jobs I was in the middle of) I began creating a pathway towards achieving the vision.. I know its just a start, and
there will be a lot of hard work ahead, but it feels already as if I am a significant way towards my goal. I took some photos before I started so I can see the changes I make. I feel quite positive about it having made a start.
Sunday 16/09

Knowing I had a busy day ahead of me I got up at 7am and went down to the woods and spent several hours laying out the pathway. It was laborious work cutting through fallen logs, lugging fallen trees to line the pathway and trying to dig through the chalky rubble to fill in some of the hollows. I fell over several times as my foot caught in the brambles and got stung by nettles. Altogether it was a sweaty exhausting process but I could see the progress I was making so that spurred me on. I could see that although I had a rough idea for the direction of the pathway and the detail was designed as I went in order to miss trees and stumps that I hadn't at first appreciated were there because they were overgrown. It made me feel bad when I realised that the 4' wide pathway was going to destroy a lot of plants in the middle part of the new pathway. After thinking about if for a while I decided that I would only use the lawn mower in the middle part and have a narrow pathway through the reeds and bracken. I recognised that this was a better solution.

Monday 17/09

I should have been doing other things but I spent a couple of hours in the woods. It was hard work filling in valleys and fissures in the path and there is a lot of this to do before I have anything like a proper footpath. When I'm walking in some out of the way place I often think of the people who must have made the path originally. Making paths for future generations of people to follow seems to me to be a special task in life and it can be used as a metaphor for leading others. Today my woodland work was inspected by my mother and father in law who are visiting us. They love walking and they could see what I was trying to do and they recognised it as a good thing. We talked about how gardeners don't just make things for themselves they are creating something that other people can enjoy in the future. My insight today was to do with design - now that I have done what I have done I can see much more the potential in what I'm doing. Its only after you have got someway into a project that this potential can be appreciated.
Tuesday 18/09

Well I think I have found a solution to my bumpy path problem. I went for a walk around the garden and behind some fir trees I found a pile of builders rubble which I had put there 4 years ago when we had a garage conversion done. The only snag is it's a long way to hump it down to the woods. So I have to convince myself the exercise will do me good. I spent a couple of hours humping the rubble down - altogether I made 4 trips with a full barrow.. fortunately its downhill and the last one I got a puncture and ended up having to pull the barrow. This is the slogging part of the process with little joy. It took me two hours to grade 2 meters so I can estimate that there is a couple of weeks work if I try to stick to my two hours a day. It was sunny though and paused to imagine several times what I could do when I start to create the woodland garden.. The results are good and I covered up the rubble with woodland soil so it looks fairly natural. Today's reflection is on the role of 'sustained slog' in trying to accomplish anything of significance. Once the initial enthusiasm of starting is over there is usually a lot of labour which is not very rewarding emotionally. I'm going to use John Cowan's idea of finding two hours a day to keep chipping away at the 'problem'. I probably won't make any more entries until I get to the next stage.

World events come in all shapes and sizes but the Olympics - especially when they are hosted by your own country are pretty big and sustained. Of course I love sport and having been sporty as a youth I can relate to what these elite athletes are going through and appreciate something of the dedication, commitment, sacrifice and pain they have gone through to prepare themselves for their moment.

I can honestly say I have been blown away by the spectacle from the opening ceremony which filled me with pride through all the drama as it unfolds. Not retrospective analysis but raw gut feelings to what is happening or has just happened involving the people who it is happening to. Having the time to follow multiple events on the BBC internet service I have been totally enthralled by the drama and the spectacle. I also managed to experience two events - football and volley ball. 

There is no doubt that the media have a huge role to play in engaging people in the Olympic experience especially for people who are unable to directly experience an event. The BBC coverage has been exceptional - through the profiles of the athletes I have learnt about them as individuals - their families, their sporting history and what it means to them and the coaches who encourage and help them perform. Through the events we learn about the different sports and what individuals have to do and of course we witness people performing at the highest level.

I expect I'm no different to anyone else when I witness - albeit through the BBC - someone winning an event in the Olympics. On every occasion I experience a rollercoaster of emotions that begins with willing people on and then there is an overwhelming feeling in which tears well up and I connect with the moment being shared by athlete and audiences all over the world .. It is an amazing feeling of happiness, pride and gratitude for someone who has achieved their dream after devoting their life for this moment. And they share their overwhelming joy and thank all the people who have helped them and made sacrifices too.. And I can't help but be moved and feel uplifted as I experience this wonderfully human feeling over and over again.

                                                 Laura Trott just after she won gold in the cycling rejoicing with her family. 

But what about the downside of the emotional rollercoaster? The side that is not joyful but broken-hearted. Thanks to TV we also witness the total dejection of people who judge themselves to have fallen short of their goal, who perform well below what they are capable of doing or who injure themselves in competition. We see interviews of people who have given everything and were piped at the post like Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase in their dramatic lightweight double sculls final when they led all the way until the last few metres and were beaten by inches into the silver medal position. They were barely able to talk because they were physically shattered and choked with emotion. And our empathetic brains kick in again as we share their utter devastation and empathise with their situation. 

And I'm sure the memories will live on until I can remember no more and just as I was inspired by Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovet in the 1980's many young people will have been inspired by the performances of participants in these games and their influences and effects will be immeasurable. 

Sometimes life is so intense its hard to take everything in. The last 12 hours has been one of those times. It began with a 40 year reunion. Six of us who graduated in 1972 with a BSc in geology from Kings College London University met up in Cheltenham. I hadn't seen three of them since the day we parted 40 years ago. It's a cliché I know but the way we talked and behaved was as if it was yesterday and we all said that while our bodies had grown older, and we had all experienced rich and eventful lives, we were inside basically the same person. We talked into the wee hours of the next morning and swapped stories of our student days, shared our photos of student days, and talked about our lives and our families.  We shared our knowledge of our peers who couldn't join us. We empathised with each other's trials and tribulations and it felt like a very human thing to do. And then it was all over far too quickly but we had renewed our bonds and I like to think we are more likely now, thanks to the technology we now have, to stay in touch.

I only had a few hours sleep that night and I woke before 6 to a beautiful sunny morning. Then my wife called me with some 'stunning news.' In the night my daughter had given birth (9 weeks early) to twin boys. Immediately after breakfast I drove to the hospital and got there at 11am. I've always thought that long drives are a particular space and place in which reflection happens and there have been many times in my life where I have had significant emotional experiences while driving. Today was one of them with the thoughts of the evening before jostling with the momentus events of the birth of the twins and my concern for my daughter, our 5 year old granddson and her husband. My daughter had said in her text that everything was fine but I knew she was trying to reassure me. I can't imagine what she was feeling like. It was great to see her and hug her and see that she was fine and after an emotional half hour of telling me the detail of the nights events (it was all very dramatic) she took me into the special care unit to see her babies in the incubators. I've seen these units on TV but it is nothing like experiencing it. It is a very special place full of high tech gear, medical staff who are checking and administering to the babies and happy but anxious parents and families looking on to their tiny babies. It was simply awesome seeing my new grandchildren for the first time and learning their names.. As she lifted the cover and I peered into the incubator I saw each in turn - they are tiny but beautiful  and perfectly formed - 1.33 and 1.48kg.. I can honestly say I don't think I have ever felt like I did. The mixture of feelings - wonderment, joy, empathy, pride, the past (thinking of my daughter's birth -she was also premature and her mother who is no longer with us) -the cacophony of emotions, memories and the sights, sounds and other senses of the space and the moment are quite indescribable. 

There was a lot more to this day but I'm going to finish it here because it was like no other day of my life - I'm very happy