Month: April 2021

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Coaching Conversation: Episode 9

This conversation with my guest, Suzanne Ford, covered her experience as a coaching client and was recorded two years ago at a picnic table in an allotment in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Listening back to it was poignant; little did I know then that two years hence I would be longing for the simple pleasure of a conversation at a picnic table.

Suzanne has two work roles as a dietician; one is with the NHS and the second with the National Society for Phenylketonuria (NSPKU). One of Suzanne’s reflections is that,

Coaching enabled me to reflect constructively about things where I was stuck, analyzing it quite fully in a constructive way; naming the fear, saying what I was frightened of or felt threatened by something and just exploring different ways of viewing that, different perspectives and then moving forwards to exploring different ways to proceed.

Suzanne describes how the coaching has made a sustained difference to her working life and leadership, as she juggles two roles, one in the UK’s biggest employer, the other for a small, specialist charity where she is one of just three employees. It offers vital support to families of children who have inherited Phenylketonuria  a rare inherited condition.

Mentioned in the podcast

NSPKU website: http://www.nspku.org

Phenylketonuria  is a build up of phenylalanine in the body. Phenylalanine, is a natural substance, a building block of protein. However, excessive amounts can impact on behaviour and if untreated – through a low protein diet – may lead to brain damage. PKU is looked for in all new-born babies in the United Kingdom by measuring phenylalanine levels in the heel-prick blood test. All babies should have this test as it allows treatment to start early in life.

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Poem for March

It’s birthday time and this poem from 4 years back is the one to post.

Dundee Cake

I made a cake for mum today

a Dundee cake from her

Radiation Cookery Book 1940,

it’s pages stained, parting

from the sombre, dark brown cover.

Nineteen she’d have been,

In that year the Blitz began,

as she read its recipes and guidance

for model housewives.

Did rationing affect her cooking?

Did she stand in line,

wicker basket on her arm,

a headscarf tied, Queen-like,

beneath her chin,

to purchase sugar, butter, eggs?

As they creamed into yellow softness,

not by my hand but in the mixer,

I swear Mum whispered in my ear,

“The water, is it boiled for almond blanching?”

Ah no, I had forgotten.

I was allowed that helping task,

enjoyed the roll of almond in its softened skin,

its play between thumb and index finger,

the satisfying popping out of white nut flesh;

I sometimes finger-licked the cake bowl clean.

Time alone with her was scarce,

came through sewing, she was ever patient,

knitting, when she’d work her needle magic

picking up dropped stitches, making good;

those tables turned a year or so ago.

Growing plants was another of her gifts:

sweet peas twining tall from seed,

their scent heady with summer,

and fruit, currants, red, white and black transformed

into pies and pickles, jams, wine, sometimes cassis.

Who’s going to send me birthday primrose now

garden dug, damp paper wrapped then posted?

Some held a travelling worm or two when opened.

Hand it on, that’s what I’ll do,

send primrose to her spring born grandson.

“I suppose you could,” she whispers, ever understated.

Her independence was that way, untrumpeted;

her money was her own, she always worked,

believed in education, spoke her own political opinion.

She stood by my life choices, even if she disagreed.

So many gifts she freely offered

the last to teach me patient sitting,  

expect nothing, just be present sipping tea

while she talked of home, become a fluid place

straddling nine decades and more of life.

How inadequate these words,

thin slivers of love to you who gave me life.

“Don’t you bother about that, you’ve done your best,

that’s all that matters. Is the cake alright?”

“Yes mum, it looks just like one of yours.”