Course over at Ansbacher.

I finished the course at Ansbacher today. What a relief, as I am dog-tired. Tomorrow, I shall run the train-the-trainer course and I hope that they will roll out after that.

The course did go really well, though. The reaction sheets are very positive and we got an average reduction in errors of over 60%.

Catherine visited Charles Hoare today and had a very good reception. She believes we will get the business. Abbey has confirmed that they would like me to go to the Isle of Man in mid-December to begin the roll-out over there.

This business is getting away from us! Following a slow start, we are both now working our fingers to the bone and it is clear that we cannot meet the demand we have created without adding extra people - and quickly, at that.

I am really looking forward to flying home on Thursday and spending more time with Catherine. However, the pressure will remain on as we have to drive straight down to Swansea to present to the Land Registry before driving to Winchcombe for our weekend with the Conways. After that, all hell breaks loose! I have to run a course in St Albans while Catherine drives to Edinburgh. I then fly up to join her. We both drive back and then I have to drive up to Warrington to run a course there. I finally get home again late on my birthday.

Still, there is nothing more to do tonight other than to go out for a meal, which I will now do.

Back in Jersey!

It is 9:30 on a Sunday night. I am sitting in the foyer of the Pomme d'Or in St Helier after an all-too-short visit home.

Yesterday I flew home at lunchtime but we had to collect Emily from Ely and it was around 3 in the afternoon before we got home. Mum had come to visit and we had a lovely evening. Unfortunately, Emily had decided to spend the evening with her friends at the Bonfire Night celebrations on Cherry Hill in Ely, so I only got to see her for the briefest of times.

Today flew by and, before I knew it, I was on the Aurigny Saab plane on my way back to Jersey. I only just made the flight as Stansted was a heaving zoo. My check-in desk was dealing with the overflow from an Iceland Air plane and when I got to security, the queue was moving at a snail's pace.

Anyway, I did make the plane. Annoyingly, we landed at Guernsey first and sat on the tarmac for twenty minutes while people got off and were replaced by others.

Tomorrow I begin training at Ansbacher. Catherine assures me that this will be fun and that the group is really delightful. I am sure that is right but I would rather be at home.

However, we have worked out that I may be able to get home on Wednesday night rather than having to wait until Thursday lunchtime and that would certainly make life a lot better, as well as providing a much-needed full day in the office before we both set off for Swansea on Friday. Then we have a weekend with the Conways planned in the Cotswolds before Catherine drives north to Edinburgh and I begin training at Abbey in St Albans.

I now plan to spend a few moments reading through the information on tomorrow's group and then turn in.

I'm whacked.

Finished in Guernsey

At the airport! Am I looking forward to going home! It has been a long two weeks.

The course at Barings was a fantastic success. Not only did we get the best feedback imaginable, we got error reductions of over 50% across the board. I am looking forward to processing the data through my laptop to see how it all pans out.

Going well at Barings

This is an unusual situation. I am sitting in the canteen at Barings in Guernsey in the morning break in my Accuracy course.

It seems to be going very well. We have just completed our look at addresses and telephone conversations and we will go on to Alpha-numerics after the break.

I must say, I am looking forward to getting home tomorrow. This evening will be pleasant with no pressure to prepare for a course tomorrow.

Brilliant result at the Abbey

I have just completed my training course at the Abbey Bank in Jersey.

What a result! Ecstatic happy sheets from the participants and a reduction in measured error-rate of over 75% - my best yet.

On to Guernsey!

Brilliant result at the Abbey

I have just completed my training course at the Abbey Bank in Jersey.

What a result! Ecstatic happy sheets from the participants and a reduction in measured error-rate of over 75% - my best yet.

On to Guernsey!

Unexpected fright

This evening, we flew from Guernsey to Jersey.

We had not realised that the plane would be quite so small! It was a Britten-Norman "Trislander" with seats for fifteen people, one pilot and three propellors. Each pair of seats had their own door, so it was like getting into a rather cramped car with seven rows of seats.

The engines were clearly piston- rather than turbo- prop and the thing flew at about 2000 feet. The visibility had closed right in and it was getting dark anyway and the fifteen-minute flight seemed to take forever. Catherine looked as though she would jump out at any moment.

Still, here we are, back at the Pomme d'Or in St Helier.

The Pomme d'Or was the headquarters of the German occupying authority during the war and there are pictures in the lobby of the Swastika flying over the front door, right outside what today is our bedroom. There are also rather uplifting shots of the British liberating forces arriving in 1945, hauling down the Swastika and hauling up the Union Flag.

What amazing things happen in the world that we know nothing of today!

That reminds me that in Guernsey at the Guernsey Museum, we got chatting to a member of staff who spoke the Guernsey Patois. She spoke some for us and it sounded like a rather Chaucerian version of French. I could not make out a single word and a French lady who was present at the same time said that she could only catch the odd word here and there. The Guernsey lady was born in 1939 and was therefore too young for her parents to send her to England when the German threat became imminent. She spent the first five years of her life under German occupation. She was saying that the German soldiers in the island all missed their own children terribly and were surprisingly good to the Guernsey children. She said that she has grown up with no feelings one way or the other towards the Germans based on her experience of them during the war.

Girl with a Pearl Earring

I am about one third of the way through this fascinating novel. Written by Tracy Chevalier, it tells the story behind one of Vermeer's famous portraits - Girl with a pearl earring. The account is fictional as we have no knowledge of who the girl was or why Vermeer painted her. At this point, I cannot tell where the narrative is going, but the story is a beautifully crafted account of life in Delft in the 17th century and of the relationship between a master painter and his maid.

Scare

Here I am in the Channel Islands, having an apparently successful time.

This morning, I awoke to find a message on my mobile. It was a voice message from Catherine to say that she had collapsed on the floor after twisting her knee badly while packing. She had crawled to the phone and called me, only to get my voice mail. It was 10:30 and I was asleep.

I called her straight back this morning and got our voice mail at home. I immediately started to abandon all our plans for a celebratory weekend in Guernsey and find a flight home. Then I managed to reach her. She is alright this morning, but had a terrible night. Peter (thank goodness) came rushing over when she could not reach me and his sister, who is a nurse, gave telephone advice on how to knock the knee back into position. By about 2 a.m the crisis was over and everyone went home or to bed. And I missed the whole thing.

So, as of this moment, Catherine is still due to arrive here in a few hours.

Initial success in Jersey

I am sitting in my hotel room here in Jersey, feeling rather pleased with life.

For the past two days, I have been running Accuracy training at Abacus wealth management here in St Helier. The course has gone remarkably well and the client seems very pleased. We got a substantial reduction in errors and very favourable feedback.

It is Catherine's 40th birthday today and it is a bummer that we cannot be together. However, she is flying out to join me tomorrow in Guernsey where we plan to have a celebratory weekend staying at La Fregate.

I am typing this on a hotel TV-Internet system with a rather naff keyboard as I did not bring my laptop on this trip.

Implications of a Kerry victory for Britain

Just over 200 years ago, the minority of Americans who wanted independence from Britain chanted, "no taxation without representation". Today, British soldiers are living, fighting and dying under American overall command, yet we have no democratic say in who should be the Commander-in-Chief.

So what would the implications of a Kerry victory be for Britain? Any ideas?