D-day

An incredible start to an incredible day. This is breakfast in our B&B - yes candlelit breakfast. It was as wonderful as it looks - homemade everything and really delicious. It would've been nice to stay there all day but there's work to be done.

Day one of our training course to be precise - that's Rachel there; my friend and co-trainer. We've been working on this course for weeks and the big day has finally arrived. I hate public speaking but got through it because thankfully we were so well prepared and the course flowed. Rachel soared - she really got into her stride and I realised in the evening that as she flourished I diminished - but only in my head it seems. It's frustrating because I put so much effort into the preparation and design of it all and then feel that I'm not able to do it justice on the day. So I'm afraid I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed today but I'm very glad I did it and was happy to collapse into bed with a cup of tea, Wolf Hall and this realisation about what happened.

I think it's a significant step forward; to recognise that my decline was in direct response to Rachel's rise - I perceived a gap and widened it as the day went on because that's how I saw it happening.

Day two coming up...