This Friday's Friday post . . .

Happy Valentines Day my Criminal Justice System Colleagues. If you are in to such things I hope that goodies came your way, or that your goodies were well received and appreciated!

For those of you who do not have a valentine, please take this as my valentines card to you!

I hope you have all had a good week. I have spent this week in a trial. One of those trials that you dread as you have a difficult trial, long days, and a busy home week on top of work!

As it happens my week was actually rather nice. The recorder hearing the trial was an absolute joy. Let the advocates get on with it, kept things moving along to a decent timetable and only intervened when absolutely necessary.

The Court staff were amazing, helpful, on top of everything and utterly unflappable when (as is invariably the way) things had potential to go squiffy.

My opponent was fun out of the Court room and prosecuted in a calm and classy way. So really there was very little to worry about outside of the trial itself. Which rather got me thinking. It has been a while since I had an effective trial. The last few trials I have had have been full of issue after issue. This trial was relatively straight forward however in the run up to the trial I found myself inventing complexities and reasons to worry myself.

Thank you to those of you in the Crown Square robing room this week who have calmed me down, patted me on the head or provided me with a coffee and a biscuit.

There have been some lovely moments of levity in the robing room this week when everyone has joined in just having a fun five minutes. By far my favorite discussion was about the ancient art of drinking different beverages through biscuits.

Please bear with me, there are no doubt those of you who have experienced this yourselves or were in the Crown Square robing room on Wednesday afternoon, however for the rest of you you will need a twix (or copy of the same from lidl, aldi or wherever). You will also need a hot beverage, this will need to be tea (builders) or coffee (preferably black) - fruit teas will simply not do! Right off you go to get your ingredients, I'll wait!

Ok you're back with your cuppa and twix finger. First bite off the very top and bottom of the finger of twix. No that's too much! Eat that one and use the other finger but only bite off a very small bit (5mm is fine!) top and bottom. Now use the remining bit of twix as a straw for your hot drink.

Ok, I should've said, don't drink too much as it will melt eventually! But how nice was that!

If you are feeling daring, an eminent KC suggested drinking cola through a Cadbury twirl or spira (if they are still doing them). I will try that this weekend and report back.

It's these little moments that make you feel a part of something special, a real community of friends supporting each other and all prepared to take 5 minutes to release the pressure of the day to day.

Lets keep that in mind next week, as we hurtle through our day to day, finding the issues that need to be dealt with and trying not to get bogged down in the ones that we put in place ourselves. Everyone around you is in the same boat, facing the same insecurities and dilemmas, the same stresses and pressures. We will get through it all, together.

As a final valentines treat, here is a vision for you. I was offered some training on Microsoft teams by one of my lovely colleagues. We have moved most of our comms to teams and it makes sense now that we have all got the hang of it. It seems to be be the lovechild of email and Whatsapp but it works and I've finally got the hang of most of it. The only bit of it I really can't stomach is the phrase "I'll teams you" - really!?!?!?

I have attached a picture that was taken of me getting the training, see if you can tell that I have just heard the phrase "I'll teams you"*

Have a great weekend, hope you get some rest and recharge a little, then lets hit next week at a run, or at least a brisk walk.

lots of love

Damian