Very busy at HMcH HQ

Lots of Hs (aitches) involved there! But it seems like abbreviating things is the only way to get through all I have to do these days.

The phone has been red hot over the past fortnight and I have clients desperate to see me. So much so that it's tough to fit them all in. Tempting to book my son into a few more after school club sessions so I can accommodate them. But in a week where UNICEF has published a report condemning the British way of life for not giving our children enough of ourselves and our time, it's kind of put me off.

One thing that is not being abbreviated is my fitness sessions. My gym session with a trainer this week was so hard that I had the jelly legs and the flashbacks to my very first training session at my first unit in Germany. It was the fittest unit in the Garrison. The other subalterns had looked at me with pity when I told them which company I was joining. I was the only girl... And I was desperate after only the warm up! What a shock being thrown into circuit training with these fit young men, I couldn't quite believe how fast they were, how strong. I was a minnow in comparison. 12 years later I was diagnosed with asthma! What a laugh.

I could write something really clever now about mental toughness and how to develop it; about how to look on the surface as if nothing is a problem when all the time you are peddling like mad just to keep afloat; and about how EVERYONE is far more nervous and unsure of themselves than they look. I could write about how many of those incredible, tough, fit young men ended up crying on my shoulder. And then I could write about how many of my phone calls this week were from young men who get anxious and blush in meetings, presentations and interviews.

So what am I really saying here? That everyone gets anxious and nervous, everyone has at some time or other been tongue tied and that everyone just acts it out when they need to. So if you need to pretend, then do so. And if you get tongue tied, the person listening will have been in exactly the same place, and more than once. We're all human, all of us, all of the time.