Picking yourself up — Do we talk about failure when we are actually failing? Or do we wait until we have overcome the failure to share it? I have and do fail at many things. There are areas in which I am failing at the moment. I don’t write about it contemporaneously, because it…

Reading The Iliad as an adult — I grew up enamoured with mythology. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse. All the mythologies built on intricate and imaginative tales filled with excitemen and glory. The rage of Achilles — sing it now, goddess Stories of heroes and heroics have a universal quality and I was no different from the billions…

I am a social worker. Wherever you are located, and whatever experiences you may, or may not have had, that statement will draw assumptions, just as it would if I were to say I was a nurse, or a teacher, or a solicitor or an insurance broker. Sometimes, though, I…

Kindness — what do we mean when we talk about it? It can be interpreted as a simple act or it can be a state of mind. Many years ago, I encountered an act of kindness I did not expect and it has had a considerable impact on me. The…

“Just as water. over a long period of time, reshapes the land through which it runs, so too we are formed by the habit of reading good books well” I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I started this book. I have been reading a variety of books, and…

I try not to look backwards, because it doesn’t bring me comfort. …

A couple of things happened to me over the last few weeks that have caused me to examine a number of deeply held beliefs which I have and which I have assumed to be part of my being. …

Reflection and what is it didn’t come easy to me. I am an inpatient soul. I wanted to ‘do’. That was, to me, anyway, why I chose social work and not psychology or talking therapies. In my mind, as far as I knew it, I wanted to do practical things…

We often, in social work, or at least in my experience of social work, talk about professional values. They are evident in our professional standards and codes of ethics which are provided by various regulatory bodies and professional associations but sometimes, it feels — to me, at least — that…