Today was my ‘big day’. The reason why I was in Nice. I had the task of presenting the launch of the new service that I, along with a dozen or so of my colleagues have spent the last year designing. The project took me to Barcelona in the autumn, Munich a couple of weeks ago and now, Nice.

No pressure. No pressure at all…..

Well, not if you don’t count the fact that the audience was the eighty or so top managers in our organisation, from all over the world. Oh and not if you don’t count the fact that every time it got mentioned before I stood up, I was told ‘this is the most important presentation of the two and a half days’. Oh and not if you don’t count the fact that we’d been making changes to the presentation at 8am this morning. Oh and not if you don’t count the fact that I’d been asked to make sure the audience all went away fired-up to sell this thing. AND not if you don’t count the fact that I’d been up until 2am the night before. Finally, the fact that the subject matter was, well, a bit on the dull side really – I had to explain why we’d designed it, what it is and how our clients can use it to a bunch of highly experienced people, many of whom are very cynical.

So, when I stood up to deliver this thing, I was a tad nervous to put it mildly. I cracked a few jokes and larked about a bit and ……I think I got away with it.

After I’d finished, I felt as though I’d been through a mangle. I’ve not yet recovered at all. I don’t remember any details from the rest of the day at all. I know people asked me to do stuff and I know I agreed. But I can’t remember what. Ah well, I suppose if they are important things then sooner or later I will get reminded of them.

Afterwards, I got myself in the cackie. I was talking to my boss – the head of the company and she said to me……. ‘Linda, you need to be the person to do all of the training on this for all our sales teams in each country’. That means two days plus travelling time in each of six or seven of the major markets and that is just for starters – as we roll out elsewhere, more countries get added. So, I’m caught between the devil and the deep blue sea – I didn’t want to let down my colleagues this morning so I did my best and my reward is yet more of the one thing that I hate about my job. More travelling. That’s rough justice.

This photo got taken after my presentation, while I was standing on the balcony of the restaurant at lunchtime - I wish I'd had my wide-angle lens because the whole vista was amazing.


Last year my fat bottomed girl was getting chased.....and my sister was lamenting NOT getting chased!!!