Avril Millar's Blog

My son, David, came to dinner last night. It’s a real treat as he lives abroad and, although he comes to London pretty frequently, he’s usually here for multiple work things and I end up hopping over towards him to catch him for a quick drink. Last night was one of our ‘deep’ evenings. We used to talk late into the night over way too much wine, but last night lasted only till about 11pm, and wine was consumed but not to ridiculous excess. We’re both older and a wiser now. I’m pushing 70 and he’s 43. Much older and a little wiser, as I say.

We talked, as does everyone just now, about this bloody virus that’s sweeping the world, but also about the toxicity of social media, the destruction of the planet that is our home, the economic and political upheavals around us, the deaths of children in Yemen and Syria and elsewhere, global leaders with neither intelligence nor conscience, the dumbing down of media commentary, the uncertainty that seems to be all-pervasive.. We both recognised the emotional toll of feeling helpless in the face of enormous and seemingly endless problems over which we have no control, but which can and will impact our lives and those we love.

And I got angry. Angry that of all the things going on now, the most damaging of all seems to me to be the attack on free speech. I believe wholeheartedly in young people growing up now. I think they will fight and push for a better world; I think they are as brave as any who ever have fought for women’s rights, gay rights, equality, diversity, acceptance, opportunity for all. They have more conscience and more awareness than we had in my youth. But they are living in a world where people are shouted down for disagreeing; bullied - literally - to death on social media for expressing an opinion; threatened and abused for trying to keep the world safe for all; abandoned by politicians who are chasing vote share. not taking a stand that might cost them office.

I think - I know - that I still have something to offer. Decades of work and life have given me some wisdom and I am still sought out for it, in business and in life. But the best thing I can do now is fight for that freedom of speech and opinion. So when David said, ‘Start writing again, Mum.’, I thought, fuck it. I have nothing to lose except my self respect for staying silent. And so I am joining the manning of the barricades against censure, silencing and no-platforming with those braver than me who have never stopped.

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It’s a pretty thing, a corona; a crown, an ethereal cloud formation, a chandelier with flickering candles.

A virus.

And this virus is ugly - beautiful under the microscope but deadly to many. In theory, I fall into the ‘at risk’ group - an older woman, with an immune suppressant illness controlled by medication. I’m doing the best I can neither to catch it (much hand washing and general avoidance of PDAs - not that I routinely snog people) or to over-worry about it. I have a friend who is telling me repeatedly that we should be more worried, which I find an interesting approach. Worry is just the anticipation of something you don’t want to happen, so why bring it into your life now when it may never happen - and if it does, all the worrying will have done is wreck your peace of mind and sleep, and make it harder to fight the disease? So, no, I’m not going to worry.

Like all events, Covid-19 is bringing out the extremes in human behaviour, and - health professionals apart - it’s not been especially heartening. Shelves being striped bare of loo roll against an illness that does not cause the runs, dried foods being stock-piled so that the greedy and selfish can barricade themselves in whilst those unable to either reach the shops or spend above a weekly limit are left to do what? To go without? To venture out when they might need to stay in? To starve, lying in their own shit?

We are all truly in this together. The person next to you is as vital to your well-being as you are to her. The more we care for the health and care of our neighbours, the safer we will be. If we took our focus away from protecting ourselves beyond basic cleanliness (which seems to be a rarity to a surprising amount of people, who knew?), and instead focussed on protecting everyone around us, we’d all be safer.

Its called community care. Try it.

I have now seen several posts on Instagram from parents of (roughly) 4-year olds ‘graduating’ from nursery school. It’s that time of year.

Yes, they looked charming in their gowns and caps, clutching their graduation certificates. Their parents are, to my certain knowledge, hard working people with not a lazy bone in their bodies. If anything, they work TOO hard, too frequently away from their children, deferring pleasure of time with their kids in order to provide for a brighter, more secure future. These parents understand the concept of delayed gratification and hard work. They know that most good things take time and effort and that rewards come after work, not before.

So why do they think its cute to pose with their kids who are posing with all the paraphernalia of a university degree, just for turning up to nursery school? It’s not even as if the reward, praise and ‘day of centre of attention’ was for getting themselves there themselves; there was no option. Mummy/daddy/ the nanny got them out of bed, into the car and threw them through the nursery school door every single morning they weren’t actually covered in chickenpox or coughing their lungs up.

The single most important quality to teach kids is the value of work and the genuine pleasure of that effort being recognised and rewarded.

So, no prizes for the parents or the schools I’m afraid. But lots of pretty photos, of course.

Cute but daft.

We all have bad spells. Sometimes minutes - you thought you'd lost your phone/purse, dog (but found out you hadn't). Sometimes days or weeks or even months - you lost your job, your partner left, your dog died. Some people suffer from depression - in fact many of us will at some point in our lives. Happily, it's slowly, slowly losing the stigma it once had but for those whose black dogs stalk their paths, appearing uninvited and unwelcome for no apparent reason,  days or weeks or months become a dark place of no hope. All that can be done in those periods of sadness or depression (and they are not the same thing) is to be patient, to sit it out and wait for things to improve, the clouds to lift, for waking to be unsullied by a heavy heart. Which, usually, they do, thank God. 

But what if you had heard the worst news of all? What if the Grim Reaper's arrival had been announced and was now in your calendar? I suspect we all think we know how we might react; some in terror, some in despair, some with grim determination, some with abject denial. 

I doubt many of us would meet it like my friend Lucy who met it with a courage and joyous energy I am bereft of words to describe. So I shan't try. I shall let Tom Utley do it instead.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/~/article-4255062/index.html

And just as Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy - who was a childhood heroine of mine and a real, early feminist role model - brought joy to so many in small and huge ways, so has Lucy. And that never dies. 
 

I am a huge fan of the graffiti artist Mobstr.

My piece 49/50 is his, as is this. (So many creative minds...)

49/50 really caught me as it totally expressed my attitude to life and my background and work as an educator. To me, it's all about recognising that I'm good at what I do,  but knowing that there is always work to be done. Its the permanent reminder as I come into and leave my home that every day needs some work to improve. But also being brave and confident enough to know what I'm good at.

His clever, subversive and insightful work - often carried out over a period of many months in public spaces - challenges thinking and invites dichotomised arguments. I helped him stage his first indoor exhibition in The Old Truman Brewery some time ago.

Ride London was great: London on Prozac.

Did any of you do the Prudential ‘Ride London’? I did. Not
the hundred mile thing, obviously. I’m not mad. Or that fit. No, the eight
miler (which became twelve by the time I had ridden two miles there and two
miles back). Once you had walked, half-ridden and wiggled your way down the
jam-packed Mall, it was a total delight. It felt like the Olympics all over
again – strangers smiling at each other, hordes of helpful volunteers, sun and
spontaneous applause and laughter. London on Prozac.

Afterwards, a few of us had passes for the Mall to watch the
road race finish from the luxury of the stands. For an hour before the
professionals came in, the last of the amateurs crawled up the Mall, some
hand-in-hand in glorious, exhausted delight at beating the cut-off time; some
arms aloft with weary victory; and some barely a breath short of cardiac
arrest.

Joy was the name of the game. Joy at completing a challenge,
especially for those who never really did the training they had thought they
might do. Somewhere around Box Hill some of those will have expected their legs
to fail before their lungs did. Or possibly the other way round. They’ll have
wished they had hauled themselves out on their bikes during those wet evenings
over the endless winter and gloomy spring when they chose the TV or the pub –
or work – over the chilly, lonely trek through dark streets and menacing
traffic.

But, even if they walked for a bit up that hill; or slowed
to a crawl; or their legs screamed to stop and their lungs ached to take in
just a little more oxygen, their minds refused to give up. Whatever their
bodies were shouting at them, their minds were louder. Maybe just a fearful
whisper to start with – ‘Just to the next lamp-post, the next bend, the top of
this rise’, then a growing murmur of determination, then a roar of bloody-minded
fury to not be beaten – and pulled out - so close to the end.

And in the end, their legs and lungs didn’t carry them
across the line. Their minds did. Their minds heard the screams from their
hearts and lungs, felt the pain of exhausted muscles cramping with lactic acid,
and, having heard and felt, chose to ignore them.

The purpose with which they had set out – to finish – was so
embedded that even in the greatest fatigue, they did the seemingly impossible.
They controlled their bodies with their minds.

And as they closed in on the end, the final stretch, the
fatigue floated away on a wave of applause and shouting and support from a band
of unknown spectators. Their encouragement and delight, their energy -  and, dare I say it, their love – recharged
the weary cyclists and gently pushed them up the Mall to an accomplishment they
had barely dreamed of achieving.

I know this all happened two weeks ago now but in the face
of the challenges and fears that sometimes beset us all – some of which I have
seen recently - it’s worth remembering:

Any goal we set ourselves takes work to achieve. (You knew
that)

It’s probably going to be harder and take longer than we
might have thought, or hoped. (You know this too, you just try to pretend that
you will be the exception to the rule. You’re not.)

A little setback is just that: a setback. It requires a bit
of compassion for your own human frailties and regrouping. It’s not the end,
it’s the process in action. (Get over it. If you can find something to laugh
at, all the better.)

The support of others is priceless. (Ask for it, thank people
when they give it to you. Set an example by being supportive to others
yourself)

So, there I was on Saturday, in Tesco, still in gym kit five hours after I had cycled back from said gym. I had a weekend of chores to do and frankly couldn’t be bothered to change- but the chance to get to Tesco for a big shop in a friend’s car - without a bike, basket in front, panniers behind and courier bag strapped to me- was irresistible. 

I don’t have a car any more as I live in West Kensington and am so near everything it makes no sense. That, plus I used to really resent looking out of the window at my car costing me money just sitting there. If I’m going to waste money I can think of several more fun ways of doing it. But if I need big heavy things, my centre of gravity shifts inexorably upwards and makes a return trip a ride of death with the merest hint of a pothole likely to careen me into the path of passing lorries.

Now happily trawling the aisles (it’s amazing how a big supermarket trip can seem like a day out in my position), my phone was chirping off its metaphorical hook. Texts were coming in a rate of knots from all sorts of people, some known and dear, some just known,  and some probably known (well, they had my personal number but that’s not rocket science as it’s on my website) but not stored and thereforenameless. 

The reason for this flurry of attention was that it was Stage 14 of the Tour de France and my son, cyclist David Millar, was off with the break, and it looked like he might repeat last year’s Stage win. He didn’t - but it was a valiant effort and it got his friends and fans into a frenzy of interest. Once they knew I wasn’t at home glued to Eurosport (I can’t bear to watch so much these days, especially when I know he’ll be trying for a win) everyone – and I mean everyone – decided to keep me up to date with minute by minute commentary and questions.

All of which explains why, when invited to a garden barbecue by someone I knew through work but had never visited before, I thought I might as well go. It was sunny, it was full of cycling enthusiasts and I’d catch the end of the Stage. What’s not to like? He had only put his first name and the initial of his surname but I knew who it was. So I got home, changed, scooped up the neighbour whose car I had purloined and we drove off to said event.

It was, all in all, a nice proposed end to what had been a fairly dreary day of chores and discipline surrounded by sun and cheery families. And even though I am not drinking just now, a late afternoon in a garden with convivial company would be pleasant. The fact that I mused very briefly to my neighbour, jokingly, that I hoped it was who I thought it was drifted out of my head as fast as it had drifted in.

So you might be able to imagine what it felt like when the door was opened not be the person I assumed I was visiting but by someone else altogether – who I barely knew and had met only once. It was a surprise I pulled off – just – apart from mouthing to my friend that this is not who I expected. To be fair, she threw herself into it with passion and he was, I think, none the wiser.And the moral of this little story? If there is one at all, it’s that we tend to make up our minds about things based on what we cobble together as ‘data gathering’.

A bit of knowledge (I knew someone with the almost exact name and certainly the same initials); a common affiliation between me, the expected host and the unexpected one (cycling) and a general tendency to continue to believe what we originally believe; and, most importantly, a blissful disregard for gut instinct combined with acute embarrassment to admit uncertainty.

So, this was not a serious situation. Indeed, it has already moved into the ‘hilarious tales of summer 2013’ catalogue. But it has reminded me that I probably ought to tune in a bit better and definitely ought to ask questions, even if they seem silly. Just in case next time it’s someone I don’t like.

Well, it’s been a challenging fortnight. Quite why I hadn’t anticipated that is beyond me. Still, it’s nice to know I can still surprise myself I guess.

The challenges have fallen into two areas: people and – of all things – food.

Let’s start with food, if only because it is in the last few days that I realised what an impact this was having. I am on a diet.

Along with, apparently, over 60% of the female population. I am on a diet for many reasons but there’s no point in kidding myself – or you – that it is not actually mainly vanity. I have this notion, which may be proved wrong, that my little book might get some measure of success in attracting attention. Which may lead to an interview somewhere obscure. Which may in turn lead to a photograph of me taken in a way that I can’t control – as in not gently back-lit and taken by a photographer both skilled in photoshop and standing on a chair to get my most flattering angle.

So there was nothing else for it. Fat had to go. And, given that I had left this rather late in the day, it had to go fast. So I am on a  medically supervised, ridiculously strict diet which started relatively easy in that my body is sufficiently used to sporadic attempts at cutting back to be sufficiently nonplussed at this latest one as to assume that it would end pretty sharpish like all the rest.

But no. I persevered, and it has got harder to the point of torture.  And as I got lighter, my temper rose and rose until even I thought I was being unreasonable. I have lost my patience with anyone and everyone and everything. My cat all but left home after I shouted so loudly at my iphone for having poor reception that the neighbours came to ask if everything was all right.

And the cause (apart from wanting to eat my own arm)? Potassium deficiency. So, the upside of a medically supervised diet is that at least you get to find out why it’s horrendous.

  So they supplemented me on more soluble potassium and my temper returned to its normal general grumpiness to the relief of all concerned. I’m still hungry though.

BUT, it brought home in an admittedly brutal way just how important our health is to general performance and mental well-being. So, at the risk of preaching, I would like to suggest that you get your mineral and blood levels checked and that you look at what you eat so that you fuel yourself properly. A few weeks of stress and scrappy eating and for all you know your critical faculties will be letting you down.

I’ll finish on people. For a whole host of reasons I have in the last fortnight been exposed to the most extraordinary generosity and kindness of people. People have volunteered help to promote, sell, market my book with absolutely no benefit to themselves. They have given of contacts, time and talent without my even asking. I am humbled and grateful beyond words.

And it threw into sharp relief those few people who do not find it easy – or sometimes even possible – to help others selflessly. Which reminded me of a story. How do you catch a monkey in the jungle?

You put a bell jar  partially filled with peanuts at on the jungle floor. The monkey finds the jar, spies the nuts, puts his hand in through the narrow top and grabs some. When he tries to pull his hand out, the fist holding the nuts is now too wide to pull out. So he has a choice; hold onto the nuts and stay there (and probably be captured or die)  or let go of his prize and get away. And they stay. Unable to let go of what they have, they sacrifice their greatest prize of all.

Just a thought.

There is enough of everything for everyone - even food.

Sorry I’m late. Really, really sorry. You know how it is:
things to do, deadlines to hit, tubes running late, phone rings as you’re
leaving the office…

Time. What on earth can we do about time? When you’re rushed
there’s too little of it. When you’re sad or lonely, there’s way too much of
it. It really does stretch and shrink. And usually in the opposite direction
you want it to go.

It’s a constant battle, with time winning every time.

Which is why, at the grand old age of 59 I decided to write
a book. The fact that it’s taken me to 61 to finish it is just another example
of time taking over. Everything took longer than I had expected; free time in
which to do it seemed less and sometimes in what free time I had I simply
couldn’t be arsed. The muse had left the building.

Until I heard my oldest, best friend got cancer.

Gill and I used to live near each other. Now I’m in London
and she’s out in the sticks, so for the last few years meeting up has been
sporadic, supplemented by phone calls. Both of us at fault, of course, both
busy, me with work and she with her now teenage daughter.

We used to joke that when we were old we would end up living
on a beach together, two old biddies, toes in the sand, drinking margaritas.

Now we spend a whole day together every three weeks. Eight,
sometimes ten hours at a stretch, side by side in armchairs in the oncology
unity at Hammersmith Hospital, while they pump her full of chemo.

We laugh a lot. I make a picnic so that we are on a
metaphorical beach, the location indicated by the menu.

And I, who cannot be prised from phone and emails, put it
all down and am just there.

I, who hasn’t taken a day off for months and months, who
cancels personal events because I ‘have to work’, block out a day every three
weeks plus the days for scan results and think nothing of it at all.

Gill feels that I have been a gift to her – being there able
to listen to doctors and question when she’s too scared to remember what’s been
said or challenge what she’s being told. To just sit for endless hours of drips
and cold caps and blood tests and results and waiting and crying.

Gill’’s gift to me has been priceless. The value of time.

My entire use of time has changed. Now, I do what I want to
do and need to do with full focus and attention. I don’t stress (so much) about
having too much on. I just get up earlier or stay up later.

I socialise properly and lavishly with people I want to be
with, not half-heartedly with lukewarm wine and tepid ‘friends’.

I consciously ask myself ‘Is this how I really want to spend
of my time now?’ Because when it’s spent, there’s no getting it back.

And I finished the book. The muse still went AWOL quite a
lot so I decided that Dorothy Parker was right when she said "Writing is
the art of applying the ass to the seat."

It’s called ‘The Kama Sutra of Work: Why work is the new sex
and how to make sure you’re getting enough,’ and it’s ready for pre-order now
on Amazon and Waterstones, and is out at the end of this month.

Buy lots please. And then I’ll buy two business class
tickets to somewhere hot with ice cold margaritas for me and Gill.

Toes in the sand…

Originally a Civil Engineer, Avril has had a varied career including
teaching Physics and starting and building an award winning Wealth
Management firm. She has coached senior executives from both a business
and personal perspective and is currently a serial NED and Board Adviser
for companies in various sectors, including FX trading, Wealth
Management, Headhunting, IVF, Music Magazines and Brand Agencies and
Sports Event Management.

On the way she has lost it all through
illness and started again at 50. For 30 years she has studied
consciousness and alternate thinking and combines a solid commercial
background with occasionally bonkers interventions to help people think
differently.

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