It's been some time since I posted one of these. I have been surprised to learn how many people have missed my daily photos both here and on Facebook. Primarily the combination of the volume of work going on in my dissertation and the worry about my son's girlfriend's health have been sidetracking me.I am on day three of an induction workshop on a new contract, and this pic was taken at lunch time int he atrium area of the Regus offices in Southampton.

I have John Zurovchak to thank for the link to this video. A well known song, but just see how the choir has used their bodies to recreate an African storm at the beginning. So creative.I was deeply touched that the piece made him think of me! It fair choked me up.

Sometimes what one person thinks is bad news can strike another as good news. A forecast of rain might be bad news for the holidaymaker and great news for the farmer. It's all a matter of perspective.Today, the geneticist told me I will be placed on an increased risk register and screened annually for breast cancer. Is this bad news? A doctor may have thought so.For me, it's great news.When we first moved to the UK a decade ago, I expected to able to have the same screening I had had in South Africa. There it had been elective, but my medical insurance had gladly paid for it. So, once a year, I had a mammogram and a professional palpation.On the NHS, elective screening is not on offer, and I didn't have the money to opt for private screening. I explained my family history to them, but they were not convinced that this constituted a sufficiently increased risk to warrant screening over and above the standard provision of a three-yearly mammogram between the ages of 50 and 64. No palpations are made at all. I'm not sure what happens after 64.The doctor who broke this news to me was puzzled that I didn't receive it cheerfully. Didn't I understand that he was telling me I was at no greater risk than the next person?In the intervening years, additional events within my family have meant that I am now being offered the annual screening. I am delighted. The doctor who broke this news to me this morning fully understood this. Perhaps it helps that this time it was a woman.Can you say safety net?Perhaps we ought to bear in mind that perspective/paradigm can have a significant role to play in how the material we include in a learning resource is received by the learner. With this in mind, it is so sad that the learner is so seldom involved in the process of the development of new learning materials in the workplace.

I recently heard a radio interview with Anna Sam. If you haven't already heard of her, I suspect her book is going to be a corker. I'm looking forward to reading it. To quote The Independent,shewas part of a legion of 170,000 French women who are, in her words, "omnipresent but invisible". She was a "beepeuse" (a woman who beeps) or, more officially, a "hôtesse de caisse" (till-hostess). In other words, she was a supermarket check-out girl. She began to blog about her experiences, and, when her blog gained stellar popularity, this was repurposed as a book which is about to be translated into seven languages.Her experiences should have us all playing closer attention to the way we treat the 'invisible people'. During her interview she shared how mothers often tell their children without attempting to lower their voices, that, unless they work harder at school, they're going to wind up stuck in a dead end job like this.My children encountered similar snootiness at their previous school, where teachers frequently told kids that, unless they put in more effort, they would wind up flipping burgers at [insert franchise name here].All over the UK at the moment immigrants from Latvia and Poland (among other places) are stacking supermarket shelves and picking and packing in warehouses. They are diligent and conscientious. Relieved to be working when so many are out of work. Some of them suffer abuse from their neighbours who hurl insults (and worse) at them for "coming over here and taking our jobs." Trouble is, said neighbours didn't want those jobs to begin with. To accept work of that nature would be to take on a label they were too proud to accept, because their parents and teachers told them that those jobs were beneath contempt.Surely the burgers need to be flipped, the bins emptied, the shelves stacked and the merchandise picked and packed? Why should there be shame associated with providing this service? Admittedly, these are not highly paid jobs - they are not particularly highly skilled. But what of that? It's an honest day's work, which is more than can be said for some of the wheelers and dealers in the world of blue chips.It's an odd society which doesn't want to do the work, but doesn't want any outsiders coming and doing it, either.

Do you remember your first pay cheque? What extravagance did you indulge in?My elder son has a summer job working in an office. Today he received his first pay... well, it wasn't really a cheque, it was paid in by BACS transfer, but you know what I mean. He's had part time jobs before, but this is a full time, if temporary job. Rather well paid, too, for a lad of seventeen.So how do you suppose he spoiled himself?A box of 10 chocolate eclairs from the bakery, for the princely sum of £2.He has always been careful with money. When he was little, he would ask for something such as, say, the Beano comic, to which my husband would respond, "Sure. You can buy it with your pocket money. That's what it's for." My son almost always chose to do without.He does plan to take his girlfriend out for a nice dinner, but other than that, the money is earmarked for a car when he goes to university.Shades of his paternal grandmother who grew up in the great depression and tends to turn a penny over five times before deciding to put it back into her pocket. It obviously skipped a generation, though - my husband doesn't have that kind of fiscal discipline!

We've taken advantage of the UK govt scrappage scheme and scrapped John's old banger. We also traded in my car and consolidated to get one brand new car. My first one. Ever. John has twice had brand new cars, but they have always been company cars, so it's a first for him, too. Apologies for the poor focus. My camera couldn't cope with the LCD.

I went to the hairdresser today for a long overdue haircut. The woman who owns the salon tells me that business is on the up and people are starting to book colour treatments again. Apparently, just a short while ago, people were doing their own colour treatments at home and only going into the salon for a cut and finish. Is this a sign of an increasing optimism? Has the recession bottomed out?'scuse the photo - I'm not great at self portraits.

CIO magazine has a list of forty great time-wasting sites for a Friday (you have to sit through a bit of an ad first, more's the pity). This one generates comic strips, but there are all sorts of other fun things to while away a Friday afternoon instead of working.

For anyone who has not yet cottoned on to why our current, conscience appeasing way of delivering humanitarian aid to Africa isn't working, please read this book. It wasn't written by a rock star or a Hollywood celeb. It was written by a Zambian economist called Dambiso Moyo.This is one girl who has her head screwed on right. What a pity the big wigs aren't listening to her... yet!

As longer term readers will know, I had a bit of a bumpy ride on the journey to adulthood. Divorced parents in an age when this was uncommon. A permanent shortage of money which meant that I went without a lot of things my peers took for granted. Add to that some bad choices both on my mother's part and mine, and you have a recipe for disaster. The fact that my life is far from disastrous today, is something for which I am permanently grateful.On a recent trip home, my Mom told me "You did a good job of raising yourself," which I took as an apology for the choices she made in respect of me. And it is true that, by and large, I did raise myself. My childhood was neither easy nor happy, but over the course of the last 24 hours, I have come across two different stories that put things into perspective.This story in Cape Town's Cape Argus newspaper tells the story of a boy of 15 called Tapiwe who left Zimbabwe after the death of both his parents in search of a better life in South Africa, only to find that the streets were not paved with gold, after all. He became one of Cape Town's many homeless people, sleeping under a bridge. He worries about his little sister, whom he left in the care of neighbours back in Kwekwe. He hopes to be able to find a way to support her, but is unable to get work in South Africa because he is under age. The Adonis Musati Project is trying to help him complete his education and improve his chances of securing a decent job.Last night, our church heard from a young man called Minjun from North Korea whose father died in prison when he was only 9 years old, after the authorities learned that he was making trips into China to earn money to feed his family. Because of his father's criminal record, he was unable to get into a decent school. At 17, without daring to tell his mother, he left North Korea for China and from there made his way to South Korea to start a new life. He struggles with guilt for having left without telling his mother and he worries about the treatment she will receive because of his 'betrayal'. He told us of the many people in N. Korea who are dying of starvation and of the poor medical care provision which saw his little brother die in early childhood of TB - an eminently treatable disease (my own father had it and was successfully treated).What hammered these two stories home to me is that my elder son is the age that Minjun was when he fled from North Korea, while my younger son is the same age as Tapiwe. I am so glad that neither of them needs to have to face a journey like this, all alone.