Viral Spain Blog 25th November 2021.
Bananas, yes bananas, they are an important part of our life! Yesterday morning I popped into the greengrocers. I asked what bananas they had and was pointed to some short stumpy ones grown locally and two euros a kilo. We are on a buy local drive at the moment so I bought some asking for one or two ready to eat next day and felt pretty pleased with myself.
What is it they say comes before a fall?
This morning porridge was made, lightly cooked bananas within, mmm breakfast on a cold morning! No! The banana had a sort of green taste. Sarah says floury. Anyway they were barely edible. We will see if they improve with further ripening but Sarah might buy some standard bananas this morning just in case!
I find life to be like that, if not full of the unexpected, at least with a healthy measure of it. Take last weekend, we had a men's group training weekend. It was due to be about designing our initiation. We had two highly experienced trainers over. On Friday morning our parent organisation in the UK phoned to say they would not be releasing their Mentoring Handbook to us. There has been a chequered history of the UK people helping then not helping us, their Spanish off shoot. We were not therefore very surprised. And being adaptable our trainer team decided to give us a weekend on mentoring instead.
It seems we are finally severing our UK connection.
Anyway it meant I had a weekend learning about mentoring which to be honest I don't know if I would have opted for. I was a probation officer in the UK for 22 years and latterly took part in training at least a dozen student probation officers, even did a lecture or two at Exeter University. There are also my 40 weekends of Psychotherapy training lurking in the back ground. On Friday I was not sure how relevant my old experiences might be to 'mentoring'. Also my career did finish 21 years ago. However by the end of the weekend I began to feel a growing surge of confidence, even competence!
On Sunday afternoon we looked at our current motivations and life purpose, something we might work on with mentorees. First though we need to look at ourselves and ask 'what makes me get up in the morning with a smile on my face? '
The answer for me is a mixed bag of activities and plans that do not comprise a fulfilling whole. We have been set the task of finding our current life purpose in the next four months. I have some work to do.
One question is how different is it if one is retired and nearly 70? Tell me what you think older readers! Meantime my dear friend and daily correspondent in Australia is saying I have more to offer because of my age. He lists the qualities and experiences I can bring to my life purpose. I shall spare my blushes (and maybe yours ) and not list them here.
This all may be true but certainly bucks the societal trend, as I perceive it, that the old be put out to grass and largely ignored. Maybe I will be testing that norm.
Now though it looks as if it might have warmed up a bit out side and I shall hop on my bike for a stimulating 40 minutes of pedalling in the sun.
Thank you for reading this far. Do put an emoji to show you have read it. I value my readers! Go well.
