Countdown

So, tantalisingly, CBC News this morning reports, quoting the Independent on Sunday, that Tony is going to resign next summer, but the Guardian is still saying 'if'. Both are respectable broadsheets - even if the format of the Guardian has now become tabloid, it isn't one - so both are worth taking seriously. I suppose that he will have to hand over soon if he is going to hand over at all.

Not however the countdown I am concerned with. Just five days now until we fly to Britain and it seems as though I have a lot to do.

There is another countdown this week though, at the Nature Park, Joanne will be leaving for the summer to go and work for Parks Canada in Tofino. It's something she has wanted to do for a long time and has been selected from quite a list of candidates. She will be excellent, but a huge loss to our Park. Lori and Jo are one of those teams that you come across every so often in your life, where the energy created as a whole is more than that of the sum of the parts.

But life is like that, you come across people, teams, moments that are golden and shine for a while and then like cloud patterns, have to change and move on.

When I taught adults, there were some classes that just gelled perfectly, others, fewer fortunately, that didn't gel so well.
When I moved into secondary school teaching, my first head of department was so professional, taught me so much that in many ways she remained with me through my own practice always and I think, I hope, that I passed those ideals on to people who worked for me and who were trained by me.

And then there is Tony Blair. I can't imagine there ever again being years as golden as his regnum, but then they said that about Churchill and Lloyd-George. I don't doubt that Gordon Brown will be a very fine helmsman, but will he be able to capture the Zeitgeist that Tony has ? And that's the point, cometh the hour, cometh the person. What Gordon Brown needs to do is use what he has learnt from working with Tony Blair, but think of his leadership as being a different era, to be aware of the needs of his own times.

Golden Years. Sometimes we see them whilst they're rolling out, and sometimes we don't see them until we are plunged into darkness and looking back.
Sometimes the patterns in the clouds or the reflections in the pond reform to make something different but just as beautiful. Sometimes there is a 'Frasier' out of a 'Cheers', but sometimes there's just a 'Chachi loves Joni' from a 'Happy Days'.