Put some honey on your tongue

I was listening to a psychologist on the radio the other day. It could have even been in the middle of the night as I often use podcasts when I can't sleep... I simply can't remember. She was talking about how usual forms of research such as questionnaires or semi-structured interviews were flawed. It's simply because they are formal, thus, the participants act more formally and tend to overly consider their responses. Much better just to listen to people interacting.

'Put some honey on your tongue' I heard her say. A fat West Indian lady was chatting with her friend, as I ate my dinner in Eighth Day . They were talking business and wanted to sweet talk a client. I smiled.

I needed to smile. My plan was to go swimming but was feeling overly fatigued. I've had a tough 3 days of training: a 6km non-stop swim in prep for my 10km in less than 2 weeks, 140km on the bike on Sunday and a 10 mile time trial last night. Tuesday swimming is always preceded by coffee at NTP and Jules convinced me that I needed a night off. There is a fine line between missing a session because of a bit tiredness and missing one because of needing to. It's an important distinction though because get it wrong in either direction and you either become lazy or chronically fatigued. I think I made the right choice.

Wayne and Jane are off on holiday so both Katie and Jules were barista-ing together. It was certainly entertaining with them doing a dance that wouldn't have been out of place in an Austin Powers film. Katie then produced a perfect latte for me with a beautiful love heart on the top because "I love you Andeee". I complimented her on the pristinely formed micro-bubbles so Jules banged the cup on the table to make them quickly dissipate. This was followed by a stick out of the tongue. Meoooowwww.....

Jules hates getting her photo taken, so I took her photo....with you seeing the result. It's the best cafe on earth. I get abused regularly, give abuse back, the customers are on the right side of being hip and their drinks are the best in Manchester. Jules is leaving soon though and I'll really miss her both cheery and grumpy face.

After North Tea, I decided I couldn't be bothered to cook so went to Eighth Day for dinner where I eavesdropped the fat West Indian lady. "Put some honey on your tongue" she said.