Thursday and after a poor nights sleep I get up in time to have breakfast and take a call from a friend before going to my first meeting of the day. The meeting was relatively brief but fruitful. I was left with some admin to do but most of the morning was used up by sorting things out and doing chores. At lunch I down a large dish of soup and then I am into my afternoon meeting. I join a group of therapeutic community people to talk about the issues facing them at this time. There were people from India, Japan and America as well as England. It seems that there is a resistance by the nhs to invest in the non physical or pharmacological interventions that vast numbers of people require. The waiting lists in some places means that many people are never able to access the services they need. It seems to me that currently the medical establishment is too burnt out to face the challenge of attending to the psychological needs of large numbers of people in the community. Logically the onus for the provision of such services needs to be moved from the current system to a much more co produced community based system that offers safe space where people can firstly find safety and then to enable them to evolve into milieus for change. It means applying relational practice to a wider range of spaces and people services. The meeting ends and I send a LinkedIn invite to someone who is battling to preserve a local service in Leicester.

Having exercised my brain its time to exercise the body so I head for the garage and the rower. My body aches from yesterdays session in the gym but I need to keep going. I manage the half hour and a reasonable distance.

I retreat to the sofa to record my session and to catch my breath. Not for long though as I drive my eldest daughter to her circus skills session. During this time I start to read Early One Morning by Virginia Baily. Its a Times best seller, so I had high hopes but I found it… overly wordy and implausible. I will of course finish it as it might pick up but I am not hopeful. At the end of the session I drive home and eat tuna pasta and settle down to watch English football teams either lose or struggle to hold their own. Its a depressing view and I am glad when it is over so I can get on with the blog for today. I am tired but tomorrow I have a day with no commitments so I can get some Shed and gym time. My biggest challenge is to control my diet and not to comfort eat, my biggest enemy is my sweet tooth.