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Uh its my 36th birthday coming up. I feel old, two kids, a job, a hubby who plays golf at the weekends, life is lovely but the daily eye masks, similar to blindfolds, and facials are not working to keep the wrinkles away, I was saying to my two best friends over a glass of pinot grigio the other day. It was a quick drink after work, as had to be home in time to cook spaghetti hoops and smiley faces for tea, and that’s just hubby’s favourite dish! I was bemoaning to my friends.

I need some pampering, some TLC, some loving and care on long forgotten toenails that resembled the hide of a tyrannosaurus these days, I told them. Well I finished off my salt and vinegar crisps and headed home.

My birthday morning came and it was a bowl of cornflakes lovingly made by hubby and porridge faced kisses from my children…..but wait, here comes the postman. A few cards plonked onto the mat. Most cards were from those lovely friends who think it is funny to poke fun at my growing age, saggy boobs, baggy pants and grey hair, hmmpph.

But shinning like a golden willy wonka ticket on the mat was a card from my friends……I opened it, my face showered in the golden, warm glow of the expensive card announcing a day at a spa, pampering, pleasure and perfect skin at the end. Yippee how exciting!

The day arrived and dressed in my best outfit which hadn’t seen the light of day since my 35th birthday, a little tight around the edges and a stubborn mark of baby sick on the collar, off I went. I arrived and was huddled into a big fluffy robe with my ‘best outfit, bundled into a corner, a look of distaste on the perfectly manicured beautician. Still I am sure she knew what she was doing as she led me to the room, put me on the couch, covered my face in gloop and put the required sleep mask on, ‘do wonders for these suitcases under your eyes my dear’, as she started with the bold pink nail polish on my fingers…..that was the last glimpse of myself as the eye mask came on, and I drifted off to the sound of whales and dolphins.

Back home feeling a million dollars……ok the pink nails were a little pink, wish they had let me keep the sleep mask as I wasn’t sure if the bright neon light from them would keep me awake tonight, but heh, to see hubby, frantic, two toddlers destroying the house with what looked like squashed banana on my new painted wall,. Hello dear, he said, what’s for tea? I am starving, and top gears on, on seconds thoughts I am off to the shed. Off he went. Oh well I liked my nails.

It was a recent work conference weekend that I started to appreciate the value of team exercises, which bosses are so keen for their employees to participate in. It had been an average two day conference with too much coffee and too warm in the room with the overriding desire to fall asleep all to prevalent. It was typical work conference for so many places of work.
It was the least speaker that made the candidates sit up and take real notice. His expertise was communication and how best to utilise it. It was during his talk that he made us participate in an activity using blindfolds. Simple yet effective, the exercise involved sitting around in a circle blindfolded. Everyone was given a shape of plastic Perspex some of which had different shape holes in the middle. The idea of the exercise was that the group had to work out which piece did not have an exact copy someone where within the group. It really was a test of our communication skills. These skills are ones that we use everyday without even thinking about it. Sometimes this is successful sometimes its not. By removing some senses we were all in the same situation, and had to have a chance to explain ourselves thoroughly, for a chance of group success. This is something that our work team are now doing on a daily basis. We have removed many assumptions within our lines of communication and the office is thriving.