Category: A bit of fun

302 and 303

Apart from the colour they looked quite similar. 303 was a creamy white while 302 chestnut brown. They had two friends, but we couldn’t see their numbers. At our first viewing up the drive from our holiday house 303 seemed quite taken aback and aggressive. it didn’t look like they had too much in the way of human interaction.The curious leaders

They were good looking cows (however you measure looks on a cow I’m not sure!) and were pretty happy in their field of grass, flowers and weeds.

Next time down the driveway, same thing, 303 was on full alert while his mates showed some interest then went back to their grazing.

Each time was much the same, so we called 303 the “boss”.

Once we stayed a while once. Curious. Which is what 303 was. A little aggressive at first, probably unsure, but he seemed just plain curious about us.

Curiosity. Something you want in your leader.

Service

Forty-nine year old Steve Carell apparently noticed how hard out the Pizza restaurant he was at, that he donned an apron and spent an hour serving, answering phone calls and mucking it up in the kitchen.  In Jeff Hadens 9 Beliefs of Remarkably Successful People  number 6 is Volunteers always win (yes take these quick lists with a grain of salt but if it works you know!).

I saw the movie Cafe de flore today. It’s too early to process what it’s all about but it’s a bit about exorcising some connections that don’t work where they are and embracing new ones or old ones in a new context.

I’ve been too flat for blogging recently, writing an article for a magazine in the weekend was really hard, but the movie, some great conversation over the last few days (even thanked someone for an involuntary coaching session it lifted me so much) I feel back, as Jasbindar Singh would say, in the groove.  And listening to the song Cafe de flore.  Very groovy tonight.

Simple pieces of service to others can lift them and you immeasurably.  I’m thinking of a Conversation at a Cafe with like-minded people on leadership stuff.  I’ll mention this in the next day or three and get it going.  Service to each other to lift our spirits and our business too.  Sound oblique?  Could be, but just roll with it.  It’ll be fun.  Especially if you’re 49 or think you might run into someone interesting who is.

Stephen

Blistering Barnacles! It’s a new year

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have done a fine job with The Adventures of Tintin. Every Tintinophile including me will recognise the mixing and mingling of original stories to create this first of three movies. Some missing bits and some bits merged. The important sentiment and sense that has been Tintin for me for almost 5 decades is brought to life with fine humour and non-stop action. I’m pretty sure Herge would have been proud.

It’s day four of 2012 and there are rumblings of people back to work – you can feel it – actually you can see it in the emails being replied to after a respectable pause over the break.

That Holiday Sense for me

What is a holiday? Driving in the country today a herd of dairy cows walking in a line sharply brought back a memory of a boy-time holiday on dairy-farmer Uncle George’s farm. That was a real holiday! The surf, a barbeque, reading a new and interesting book on a new and as yet unexplored topic all mean holidays for me too. I struggle to get that sense to start with and I don’t mind admitting it hasn’t quite arrived yet, but I feel it might tomorrow. Really!

I’m back to work – or should I say off to my new work – on Monday week so that holiday sense better get here pretty bloody soon, or else. Christmas has been and gone – I enjoy the anticipation and the 26th even more! I visited my parents in Christchurch, somehow missing the worst of the recent quakes and connected with family as best as I could on a brief visit. I’ve done some work and although there will be a little more to do, the sense of the holiday is upon me.

That invisible feeling of being on holiday that means reflection, true perspective on what matters and a genuine recharge of the energy. That’s right a run tomorrow! Second of the year.

Like making the Tintin movie, you just know when you’ve got it. I hope you’ve had or are having it. Otherwise, blistering barnacles, go and see Tintin with Captain Haddock. That’s a holiday feeling definitely here, thinking about that!

Stephen

Eight Christchurch Parks

I headed off from Mum and Dad’s place for my last run of the year. You’d hardly notice it in the car but it’s downhill towards the city from near Burnside High School. Like a gentle back wind you don’t really notice it running either, until you turn around. It was a quite a gloomy day, drizzling and quite cool, especially for late December.

First park was Mona Vale, just past 67 Fendalton Road where I remember helping Dad as a pre-school boy when he was a landscape contractor. Well I’ve always assumed I was helping! Mona Vale is beautiful, with well groomed houses on the other side of the Avon – I’m told the Hadlee residence is there somewhere. The Mona Vale buildings are fenced off, wrecked from earthquakes. The gardens are strangely immaculate and the highlight has to be the Gazebo with its beautiful stained glass windows. Out the back of Mona Vale into Christchurch Girls’ High School, where two of my sisters went, though at the previous Cramner Square site which is now just the site, empty, thanks to earthquake damage. Across into North Hagley Park I was greeted with the sign “Watch for Golf Balls”. Okay, I’ll keep my eyes peeled but I reckon by the time I see one worthy of being cautious about it’ll be over rover. So a large park essentially kept as a golf course near the city. My third park was the adjoining Botanic Gardens, scene of many a Sunday visit after Church where the perils of walking too close to the grass edge were instructed, to preserve the lawn, which Dad with his senior position in the Park’s Dept felt personal responsibility for at all times! Exiting the Gardens by the Peacock Fountain, left past the Canterbury Museum – one of the few old stone buildings functioning – and back up and over to Little Hagley Park.

Into Helmores Lane and it suddenly had a Wuthering Heights feel about it. A gloomy day with more than a few now derelict, boarded up houses wrecked by the quakes. Seems to me living by the river isn’t the best thing to do. I got the feeling that the occupiers behind “Resident’s Cars Only” signs might have wished for “Any Car Welcome, just bring some life to this place!”.  Over to Fendalton Road and a lap of St Barnabas Church where the famous and latterly infamous for his bouts of shoplifting Canon Bob Lowe presided. He’s apparently a relative although having updated the family tree while I’m here in Christchurch, he doesn’t appear in the 35 Lowes in the Tree.  Park number five was Fendalton Park with University of Canterbury qualifying as number six. I had to dice with danger by running a taped off area but I survived. Ray Blank Park in Ilam was next. Who Ray Blank was and why he had a park named after him, I didn’t know but you can find out here! The final park was Westburn Park, its claim to fame being a miniature street system complete with signage and road marking for kids on bikes, scooters etc to practice. Feeling the need to signal my last turn at the tiny Give Way it was right then left and back to Mum and Dad’s. See the map here of my 14.5km, and that’s my running done for 2011.

It hasn’t been the best running year, though a couple of marathons with a minimum of training, but I finish feeling more confident of cranking it up over the holidays again.

It’s the holidays. Do what you feel like. I am!

Stephen