And finally... sent to Coventry

Nobody really knows why we say that - though the deliberate exclusion of people who have been 'sent to Coventry' must interest us in the PD programme (although we only have about 30 hours left of our existence). A little research into these matters (courtesy of good old Wikipedia) does again immerse us into the medieval history of middle England. The first recorded use of the term was for a 1765 fox-hunter who clearly did not have modern communication skills:

John Barry having sent the Fox Hounds to a different place to what was ordered was sent to Coventry, but return'd upon giving six bottles of Claret to the Hunt

Today, we managed just half a bottle of Cava in a cafe near the station, to celebrate the end of our trail. But the city itself was also famous as the home of Lady Godiva in the eleventh century, and for being a major area of inland devastation following World War II bombing in November 1940. But we were definitely not impressed with the spaghettoid nature of the ring road, and the way its intricacies were unsolvable by a sophisticated modern GPS with a sophisticated modern operator (who felt she was losing her sophisticated modern demeanour as we realised we were going in circles). But all was resolved in time for a punctual arrival and warm welcome.

The ship-shaped modern architecture intrigued us: symbolising modernity and careful control in all its internal arrangements (like artfully chosen framed pictures firmly screwed to the walls, soft furnishings untainted by six years continuous use, and and ever-more efficient use of limited therapy and administrative space). But the overall curved-and-straight lines of the building did make us think of increasingly fanciful analogies - of flexibility and control, chaos and order, soft and hard, feminine and masculine, yin and yang...  Perhaps they had already engaged the Feng Shui consultants.

After collecting our data (and being given a handsome sandwich lunch), we were shown round. The most irregular feature of the whole builing, we found, was the large bug-eyed dayglo-coloured fluffy cat sitting peacefully on the desk of a staff member who was away. When we learned that the cat was frequently flung around the building, or at least around the open-plan office, we were reassured that things were not so very different from anywhere else.

The photos for the blog were easy to choose and agree. The Olive Tree itself symbolises the beautiful analogy of needing to appreciate nature as it is, rather than demanding it be different; some of the paintings are used in the elegant brochure with which the service explains itself to outsiders; the masks symbolise the dramatic impact of the programme's psychodrama sessions; and the abstract painting in the reception area, we were convincingly assured, was an angry portrayal of Kermit the Frog.