flossing the cat

Last summer, I spent a couple of days at a life-coaching retreat in the countryside. For the most part, it was a happy constructive experience, with time for reflection, a heavenly reflexology session, and sound nuggets of advice from the life-coach, such as YOU CAN’T EAT AN ELEPHANT ALL AT ONCE, which is a metaphor. I think. On the downside, I flipped.   It happened on the second afternoon, during a stroll to the village shop to buy a Twirl. Afterwards, when I was supposed to be listing practical strategies to manage my time and emotions, I wrote an alternative list, a kind of memo to self. This is just an extract:       In future, when you leave the retreat for the recommended afternoon stroll, don’t assume - as you turn on to the High Street - that the posh middle-aged woman tending her garden is ALMOST DEFINITELY thinking “Look, another one of those mentalists from that retreat.”   Do not immediately greet the woman with an over...