Imagine 50 new students in a circle, with the horrendous introductory task of telling a joke to break the ice. To. The. Entire. Circle. My initial smugness at being stood right next to the lad going first, quickly soured to fug of anxiety and rage as I realised they were going to go anti-clockwise instead. As if that's an actual rule? It so is NOT. Anyway, you'll be surprised to hear that this inner pedantry lasted pretty much until my turn, by which time two of the two jokes I know had been told. Along with 47 others. A wave of nausea. A surge of butterflies. Maybe I could just nip to the loo? Again? And then a sudden (and man was it welcome) ray of light, from the deepest crevice of my brain where unwanted Christmas cracker jokes get painfully stored away for use when trying to deliberately embarrass my children: "What do you call a man with a rubber toe?" in the tiniest of voices. And...breathe.
Well ice-breaker nightmares aside, I'm planning to share with you some little morsels of green hope to inspire you in your own quest for health and wellbeing, which I'll put in the blog below. Or here. Or wherever the website decides it goes. I'm basically leaving it to fate and hoping not to make a complete balls-up of it. And there'll also be some smaller quicker ideas in the Not-So-Secret Diary. Maybe some small changes we've made at work that have been really quite ace. Or something that I've persuaded my rowdy household to adhere to that hasn't ended in tears or chaos. Or maybe even a suggestion from one of my patients. That's right folks. Your words, ending up here. Luckily the compulsory mask-wearing at work means patients often can't recognise us, and I happen to have similar hair colour (though currently many more greys) to my lovely colleague and friend Dr Nicky Ioanna, so if you don't like my writing, I can craftily blame her. And I also have a guest writer who'll be reviewing some of the best books on green living and healthy minds and bodies (alive ones), for adults and kids!
So welcome, friends past present and future, enemies, casual passers-by, my employer (yikes) and accidentally-stumbled-upons. Put up with my tired wit, which, I might add, is particularly fresh today seeing as it's Groundhog Day and I get a lot of my best material from that sacred film. Anyone who's had the joy of walking next to me in a puddle will be only too familiar with the reflexive "Ned Ryerson" uttered with a gleeful fortissimo! But really, all that remains is for me to assure you in the most fervent language of my intentions to provide some thought-provoking, fun, and wholly-positive ideas for making your outlook on life that little bit greener.
Oh and the punchline is of course: 'Roberrrrrrto' :-)