Therapy

One of the benefits of working in an establishment of (alleged) higher learning is that there are sometimes free lectures one can attend on the pretence of staff development. For example, on Monday, I attended a whole raft of these held by the psychology department. To be fair, they were, largely, enjoyable and informative. Maybe the lecture on environmental psychology, which focused mainly on the benefits of using your hotel towel for more than one day could've been missed. Nonetheless, I learned a lot about childhood disorders which has subsequently made a geat deal of sense in relation to my own famiy.

Aged friend is a believer in a) anything free or recycled and b) anything alternative. At this point, I should mention that aged friend, because she is aged, rarely locks into this blog preferring, somewhat traditionally, face to face comunication. On the off-chance that she eventually gets around to viewing my ramblings, and because I want to keep her as a friend, I would like to make some things clear. Firstly, she is not really aged. At least, she doesn't look the part. But she is unique in not divulging her age. Quite right too. Secondly, I am much drawn to Dickens referral to 'aged parent' which, it seems to me, infers a lot without unnecessary explanation or historical logistics...so that's my excuse. Also, she called me a 'Jonah' the other evening.

Anyway, due to whatever, we set our sails this lunchtime for a lecture on Traditional Chinese Medicine. Or something of that ilk. We started off with a vague allusion to the one finger therapy with which, I feel, we are all consumate. The speaker who, to all intents and purposes, appeared to be English, spoke in a Chinese/Dorset patois. Further to this, he had an assistant: a doe-eyed creature who frequently interspersed with a threatening 'surely there must be a question?' Like good students, we all looked the other way. We were Yin and Yang...all trying to balance our incomings and outgoings. This pair of wannabe Ant & Dec,s were Yang and Yang sharing the same year of the Ox hymn-book.

It was nice. I learned that, due to the location of my earth sign, coupled with the timely predominance of my stomach at the best time of my day, which is between the morning hours of five and nine am, I could expect to spend a lot of time in the loo first thing in the morning. Or something like that. So much for the alternative view. Being a person trained to examine all perspectives, I promtly ignored the Oriental view and took myself off for a pedicure which I always find very therapeutic.