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Sounds exciting ...

In your shoes, I'd be thinking "Someone else must have done something similar somewhere else - can I grab any of their ideas and save myself their mistakes if I check what they've done (eg by googling)?".

Ordinary people who behave very much better than I think I would in the same circumstances. Examples:-

Miep and her colleagues who between them managed to hide and feed Ann Frank and her family, under the noses of the Nazis and their Dutch collaborators. They did this for years while knowing they faced death if they were caught and being constantly hungry, cold and tired.

Nan, Lornie and the other carers on Talking Point with seemingly endless powers of altruism and endurance to call on while caring for "their" dementia sufferers and battling all the obstacles the social care system, NHS etc put in their way.

The people who put together organisations to successfully right social / welfare problems they've stumbled across - eg Oxfam was founded by some students (I think) and The Samaritans by a vicar.

While I've met many business people whose skills and characters I respect, I don't "look up to" any of these in the same way.

I think the UK may have far more retail businesses than our economy can support, especially when so much shopping can now be done online. There are lots of "me too" clones within walking distance of each other. OK, the proximity keeps prices down (a bit) but doesn't seem to extend the choice range much.

Individual businesses seem to be able to defy the odds though. In our village, the same butchers premises have been occupied over the years by 3 different owners. The first 2 owners never made a go of their businesses, the third seems to be consistently busy even though we're not a "posh" village and he sells upmarket meat at prices to match.

It was wonderful! And sometimes scarey too for a sheltered English child.

Just behind the apartment we lived in, there was a forested area that went on for miles - we were warned not to stray too far because if we got lost we might not get found again (being kids we believed this!) - and things like poison ivy, snakes and rabid foxes to avoid.

I went on my first ever organised summer camp in the Laurentian Mountains - canoes on the lake, mountain walks, singing round the camp fires in the warm evenings, crafts activities, etc (didn't want to go home!).

I learnt to be less parochial in my attitudes and assumptions, definitely A Good Thing. Being welcomed by the Canadians so kindly has made me try to follow their example when I meet strangers.

Canada did wonders for our social confidence too. The other kids thought it was special to have an English accent!

I learnt to value England and family much more than I would if I'd never left them.

Though you wouldn't expect a child to feel strongly about landscapes, I really missed the hills, green and beaches of England. It felt very odd and sad not to be able to visit the rest of our clan as we'd normally have done - we used to see different family members and long term friends about 3 times a week in England.

Our lives would have been much the poorer without that 10 months away. You might think of it as an early "gap year"!

But they're supposed to break up monopolies Steve!

I wish they'd get round to breaking the power of the print and online media moguls though.

As a pre-teen, yes - does that count????????

We spent around 10 months in Quebec. I got narked having my pefect English spelling corrected (eg "tyre" was wrong and "tire" was right) and worried about disappearing for ever down snow holes but it was a life-changing time and I'm so glad we went.

It's lovely to hear of expansion and a bit of courage in times like these - hopefully you'll inspire those of us who feel more timid!

They don't have a clue, do they?

I'm surprised there are so few good (or even new) ideas in politics.

The budget seemed like a non-event to me.

It was touted as a jobs growth budget but I thought it failed to live up to its billing.

I'm climbing back onto my soapbox again ....

What we need is a national campaign sustained by government to find out HOW we can get back to decently paid full employment in a global economy. This is government's responsibility, not that of business, because it's business's role to grow profits, not well-paid jobs for everyone to do.

We've been losing well-paid jobs overseas for years and haven't found anything like enough replacements for them. Income levels for the middle-range and lower income ranges of society have been dropping consistently; that's damaging to social cohesion and makes the economy more fragile than it need be.

There've been umpteen twiddly little initiatives to even up access to the existing jobs "cake" but nothing's been done to grow the size of the cake. So far, politicians have carefully avoided the whole issue of jobs growth and I'm not expecting George to break with tradition on Wednesday.

What we need (and are unlikely to get) are professional marketeers to tell UK PLC what overseas markets want to buy from us at a good price and at high enough volumes to keep us all in work.