Biz, yet varied week.

I've been working in London a bit over the last week, firstly delivering an Impact & Influence Workshop (we covered Belbin's team roles and amazingly there were 2 Plants in the group, I've only ever had one other Plant in all my time of using the Belbin model), amazing.

One of the things that I love so much about my job is the variety and also the opportunity to meet so many people who are all so very different. I met a lovely Greek gentleman on the Impact & Influence workshop, he has lived in the UK for 6 years and described how crazy he finds us all. "Always rushing and running, working so hard that we never seem to have any time to just be".

Then I've been down in Heathrow for most of this week delivering Equality and Diversity workshops. So the latter I had to stay away from home for. It's always a challenge for both me and the delegates when they have to attend mandatory training. On this occasion it was so their organisation was legally compliant. We had a lot of laughter during the days and nearly everyone admitted at the close that they hadn't wanted to be there but in actual fact they'd quite enjoyed themselves and even learnt something along the way - whatever next!

For some reason I never really look forward to being away, the hotel although under the flight path was good. I had an interesting time as for some reason I was located the disabled room, it was so huge we could have held the training in there and still had space! The bathroom was even more spacious, however, having such a low basin was a tad annoying.

The lovely thing though about being away is that you come home, and somehow it seems all the more lovely for being away.

Last night I went late night shopping with my friends 13 year old son - now I shop with a lot of people (male, female, transvestites, gender change, old, young, senior executives), but I've never shopped with someone quite as decisive as he was. He seemed to instantly know yes or no - whether something was right or not, and he also managed to quantify why something was wrong or right "too pink", "too many buttons" etc.

We're all going to a wedding next month and as his birthday is so close to Christmas I suggested he have something new to wear to the wedding as his combined presents. Which he was delighted about but felt I needed to go with him to look.

When I picked him up I suppose I went into image coaching mode and suggested we look at his wardrobe to see what he already had so we knew what we might buy that would go with the things he already had.

We hit lucky in the first shop we went in with a snazzy waistcoat with lovely silver lining on the back, we both agreed that the matching trousers were a little boring. We then moved onto the next shop he literally ran and grabbed a pin striped waist coat and matching trousers off the rack and even agreed to try on a previously refused pink shirt with it, and wait for it.... a pink tie!

Maybe because he never has to dress up that smart he looked even more amazing. As he came out of the changing room he literally strutted up to the mirror at the end like a peacock! He twirled, looked at his rear and turned to me with a huge beam.

Suffice to say the whole ensemble was purchased. He had to put it on when we got home and I think the challenge may be getting it off and keeping it off his back before the wedding in 3 weeks time, I suspect he probably had his breakfast in it this morning.

There's nothing quite like finding an outfit that you just love to bits, and the feeling inside that you just feel fantastic in it from top to toe, the feeling seems to just radiate out of you - a bit like a Ready Brek glow!

Belinda