A Tale of Two Recruitments

When I tell people I’m leaving my current job, the question they tend to ask (normally following a sharp intake of breath) is, “how long have you been here?”. The straightforward answer is that “here” is the only place I’ve ever worked. That sounds very old fashioned. Like I’ve been stuck in a rut for nearly half my life. But that’s very far from the truth. I believe I’ve spent my time fruitfully, undertaking several different roles and grabbing every development opportunity that came my way.

The Liquorice Dilemma

As a child I had an eccentric honorary auntie (doesn’t everyone?). She liked tall drinks and even taller tales. She once told me I had a chin like Audrey Hepburn. Incidently she knew this because Audrey used to come round her house for tea when she lived in her native Belgium. Or so she said. She called everyone Darlink in her thick accent, as she fussed over her guests, cooking them meatballs and setting out an endless array of Tupperware tubs filled with snacks.

Mind Games

My interest in how the mind works has it’s unfortunate roots in the fact that my mother was struck with incurable brain cancer. Her rapid deterioration into a childlike state would have been fascinating had it not been devastating. This in itself underlined the extreme delicacy of our internal systems which may, unbeknown to us, be working to destroy us at this very moment. Alongside this, the pervading reality that the mind is everything. It is our only reality. The brain is responsible for memories, imagination, thinking. When it’s functioning well we experience the World as we were meant to. If this vital organ is damaged or impaired it is often very confusing and sometimes even frightening.