Thursday 23 July

A poetic distortion, in fact outright untruth, yesterday. Forgot that in the morning, before that long drive home with Lear etc, we had taken advantage of the exceptionally low tide to go to a favourite rugged and rock-strewn beach, uncovered only when the sea is out, to gather mussels, swim in the wild sea, rescue over-excited dogs from slippery rocks. Gives me an excuse to produce a final Cornish photograph:

The bleak beauty of Tregardock
(Tip: if you click on the photos they open
in a big window. This one worth it)

Put on a suit and caught the 8 o'clock from King's Cross to Edinburgh. Delightful journey. Train half full, 4 1/2 hours of reading, writing, some of it while listening to music (Elgar, Dream of Gerontius, do you know it? Magnificent).

And deep body relaxation. If you don't do this, try it. In 30 mins you get the equivalent of 2-3 hours' sleep, an energy boost, a mind-rebalance. A trance state, hypnotic, between sleep and full consciousness (nearest equivalents day-dreaming, prayer (I'm assured, must do more), meditation (ditto)). Easiest if facilitated, CDs available (eg Paul McKenna, Glenn Harrold, the incomparable Brian Roet). Amazon will get you there.

In Edinburgh for the meeting of the Council of Fairbridge in Scotland, where we have a sibling charity. A constructive, mutually-supportive, idea-exchanging harmony prevails between the Scottish and English organisations and we share the things it makes sense to share (eg our finance function, design and communications). The Council itself has eight highly impressive members, all patently infused with the Fairbridge magic.

The Magic of Fairbridge (7): training and development

This rare Anglo-Scottish harmony makes coming here a pleasure, enhanced this time by arriving early and finding that a refresher course on working with challenging behaviour is under way for the staff of the Edinburgh centre. I need this as much as anyone else (managing my own behaviour is quite a challenge in itself) so join in and learn a lot.

The course is led by one of our Training and Development Managers, the incomparable Mal: gentle, positive, wise, hugely experienced and with wicked lightning Geordie wit. Fairbridge believes deeply in realising the potential of young people, that's what we're here for, and also of its own people. We invest more in this than the great majority of companies. There are schemes to encourage and assist (in time and money) with gaining qualifications, and when people leave to do bigger jobs we are sad and celebrate simultaneously. They are taking that magic with them, and very often stay in touch.

A cool £140 today, creeping towards the revised target, £11,753.33