The light this morning made the 35-minute cycle to work down the river, over the lock and up the hill well worth the extra 15 minutes it takes over the ring-road route.

Coming back in the rain and the dark I had no choice but to face the ring-road's oncoming headlights but was happily surprised to discover that the glare lit up the water on the cycle track rather than just my retinas so for once I wasn't cycling blind.

In between times I was phoned to arrange a time to meet and discuss the 'individual learning plan' I was forced to spend 30 minutes doing several weeks ago in order to attend a 3-hour course at the 'Recovery College' a month ago which was the only way of finding out what it does. No. Enough. I asked them to email it to me so I could complete it and email it back. The form asked me what were the 'positive outcomes'. I asked why they didn't want to know about the neutral and negative outcomes. I had another little rant about smart objectives. Polite this time, in the vain hope that my feedback might be read and acted on. (Hah. Naive and optimistic to the end.)

By the way, for those who know about smart objectives, can anyone explain the difference between 'achievable' and 'realistic'? 'A' used to be 'agreed' which I could understand but agreement, it seems, no longer matters.

Black and white in colour 71