Diet update

Haven't given up or anything, still stuck at 12lbs down - due to cold/ girl stuff and business lunches (which no matter how hard you try are fattening)

Still , I set myself the target of losing 12lbs in January and I've done it. I aim to lose another 9lbs in each of Feb and March would get me to where I want to go!!! - lets see if it's possible.

A tale of country folk.

I really do live in the sticks. Overheard in the pub;

"They say that your urine should be the colour of straw" *takes long slow draw on his pint* "but whether that's wheat straw or barley straw them don't say."

Flu

I feel so ill, my chest hurts, my throat hurts, I'm cold and i can't get warm. It's only ten to seven in the morning and I've already had one of those Vicks Vapo baths and a hot toddy.

I really need to go back to bed - but I've got three meetings today and I can't miss them or something will go horribly wrong.


Somehow (zinc lozenges, vitamin C, beecham's powders, strepsils) I have got to stay on my feet until Friday - then I can collapse for two days at the weekend.

In the movies when a class action kicks off the lawyer is slightly bored, in rude good health and completely up for it.

Guess what? Class action kicked off yesterday - I have flu, a full diary and I don't need this!!!

Life on the move.

Why are huge handbags so popular? Despite threats of dislocaated shoulders?

Evidence:

Contents of huge Lippy bag;

purse, keys, ipod, A to Z, tissues, beecham's powders, make up bag (size of a housebrick on it's own) , cheque book, paperback, business card holder, phone, pens (we'll come back to the stationary fetish later), throat lozenges, sunglasses, bills waiting to be paid, snack tea for the AB.

Buggering Bastards!

I'm a poncy middle class curser. You know my type, lots of words and not much venom, the "shit, bugger, bollocks, fuck, wank, tit!" school of swearing.

I quite like the immediacy of "Fuck!" but if you are not very circumspect it stops being profanity and turns into punctuation.

The kids I used to teach in WA said "Fuckin Oath!" which was not only strong but brought it's own definition along for company. Which I thought was cool. Their other line, for anyone who had been misled or fooled was "Sucked In..and Off!" which I thought was pretty awesome but never dared use in anger myself.

The TB has been heard to refer to an inanimate farmyard object as "fuck struck cunt!" which always sounds pretty scary.

My mother, on the rare occasion that she utters a profanity oscilates between the predictable "Bloody Hell Fire!" and the far more colourful "Hells Bells and Buckets of Blood!".

This could easily turn into a PhD thesis don't you think?

Didn't get a job I've been hankering after for years - may have blown it on an all time basis. Pretty pissed off actually.

Eating Out

Wirelessly and Remotely (the post not the food) Lippy Reccomends:


The Thai Cottage
D'Arblay St
Soho
London w1

Not a posh Thai restaurant - but who cares about plastic table cloths and keeping the cutlery between courses when you get great food and speedy service.
The chicken satay starter was spot on with a good hot satay sauce (hot will become a theme here!)
The rice was fluffy and the waiter suggested two portions between three girlies (good man)
I had chicken stir fry with red curry sauce which was perfect, with crispy veg and lots of spice. Alternate main courses of Jungle Curry and stir fry Squid were also highly praised.
The Singa Beer was ice cold and it all came to less than £50! - and this is the West End!

I do reccomend that you retire to Paul in Old Compton St for your coffee afterwards even if the rather lovely Italian bird behind the counter is a bit surly. And bear in mind that I resisted the cakes so you can too!

Girlfriends

A day in the life:

"Hi Baby, I need to run something by you, I want to change my company name."

"OK, what are you thinking, but babe, I'm just on my way to the station to get the train down to the smoke so reception my not be so good."

"I'm thinking The Style Doctor explains what I do, how I look at your premises. I'm sick of Fingerpaints Ltd everyone thinks I'm a bloody nursery not an interior designer."

" I like it but I can see the confusion. Go with Style Doctor, Style Doctor it is."

"OK then Style Doctor, are you back Friday to look at your website proofs?"

"No sorry - got 4 houses to look at in Suffolk on Sat morning - back Sunday, in court Monday. Oh and I've got your ball tickets."

*phone cuts out*

This people is a short extract from the life of me - and put like that sounds a lot more interesting.

Super PA needed - excellent package ???

I'm doing the cash flows for the new practice and trying to work out if I will need a PA straight away or if I can manage on my own for a bit.

The problem is working out what sort of a package I would have to offer someone to tempt them into what is going to be a very strange job. They would be working just for me, there will be external accounting and IT provision contracted in and I do freelance lecturing in addition to fee earning work which also needs to be supported.

If we weren't relocating I would know exactly what to offer and about three or four people who would want the job. But moving into a whole new area with different pay and fee rates is a different problem all together.

If you know a PA/Legal Sec from the east of England who would tell me the info please let me know. I'm more than happy to provide beer/vodka/chardonnay in return for information.

Working Too Hard

You know you are spending far too much time in the office when (like I just did) you send your husband an email, with six bullet points, setting out the things you are still seething about after last nights plate throwing argument.

And also flag it so you can see whether he has opened it or not.

Hitting the Wall or is it only A Bump in the Road

After losing weight really fast for a couple of weeks the rate of loss this week has slowed to a measily half pound in 5 days - and that's with no change, no cheating and plenty of exercise.

I'm hoping that this is just a stubborn metabolism shift that can't resist my efforts for too long. In other words rather than just losing fairly recent gains I'm now on to the stuff that has been hanging around my arse and my thighs for far too long. I'm also hoping that once it starts to shift it will have the decency to shift at a reasonable rate!

I suspect there is also a bit of a learning curve about what I can and I can't do - so this week a real effort on the "replace half of the coffee intake with green tea" particularly because I'm going to be working away in London at the end of the week. And no doubt my Starbucks habit will try hard to raise it's ugly head. On the other hand, it's a good opportunity to try to walk between all my appointments and go for a swim before work.

This is more of a post to record for my own purposes what's happening and to review what might help than anything else. Apologies if I'm boring for England.

Work Mode

I have a completely undeserved reputation for working hard and being really driven. It is time that the truth was known. Yesterday afternoon I had a script to write for a training video. The working pattern was as follows;

1. Switch on itunes and browse through the 1000 or so tracks on there, decide there is no suitable background music available and mosey over to the itunes store to download a few more. Make new playlist with both new tunes and old tunes and put on to play.

2. Go to blogger, read all the blogs I have links to, and all their links pages and then start to try to compose a new post.

3. Leave post in draft and actually open work document.

4. Before typing anything turn on Skype to see if anyone is about and fancies a chat. If they are have long chat with either best mate in Mumbai, other best mate in Melbourne or baby bro in Mauritius.


5. Repeat step 3 and type introduction.

6. Repeat step 2.

7. Go and make a cup of tea.

8. Repeat steps 1 to 7.

9. Go to amazon to check books reccomendations and make an order.

10. Go to figleaves and buy new undies.

11. Repeat steps 1 to 7.


It has to stop people!!!! I'm going to end up blocking my own work access to blogger and shopping sites and that would be ridiculous! I am hoping that when I have more power to organise my own time , so that if I finish a job I can take the dog for a walk or go to the gym, then the efficiency will improve.


Oh and yeah - I did finish the script - but not until about 10 last night!

The Bitch is Back!

There is nothing that binds cultures together like a bit of good old fashioned snobbery. Have just had the best mate on Skype from Mumbai. Her view on the Big Brother debacle is typically superior , she is the snob to out snob them all and I love her for it.

I quote

"Jade is just unspeakably ignorant and common, and Shilpa Shetty? Well of course she is just a B list Bollywood actress, if she was a real A list Bollywood star she wouldn't have time, to be in the Big Brother house."

It doesn't make for a quiet mind

I have two hearings to attend in London next week, and so far (despite innumerable nagging phone calls from me) neither client has actually sent me any papers???


What is a girl to do?

I mean I can busk it with the best of them but this is actually a bridge too far - in order to riff you at least need some idea of the subject matter.


HELP!

Moving on Up.

Now I have finally resigned from both the partnership and the practice I need to get stuff in motion ready for the freelance business to go live on 1 July.

A lot of it is easy, the insurance guy is coming with the proposal forms today. I need to register as a professional practice and for data protection, buy an accounts programme, a new computer, a few books and Bob's your dog.

My mate Vic is in charge of the marketing - she used to do the marketing for Pepsi and owes me a favour or several. How to describe the Vicster, Lilly Allen's blonde, bigger chested , posh older sister perhaps? She's well ahead of the game with logos and notepaper and all that stuff. Also looking at free editorial in a couple of "country life" style magazines - that's a bit alarming.

I'm thinking about green credentials for the practice and also some sort of charitable donation from every fee. And then the website can have a link page to the effect that - please note that not all lawyers are money grabbing bastards....

Diet Bore

Time for the weekly weigh in and as of this morning - 10lbs down.

Knights in the Early Morning

A guy I used to work for about ten years ago is now a public figure. It's not surprising that he has been so succesful, he's funny, clever, charming, totally driven and incredibly (for someone at his level) not posh. He was an autocratic boss who completely split the firm into those who really liked him and those who really hated him - but I was on the like side and he helped me out a lot at the start of my career.

Even so, he was not someone who I had any sort of a crush on. So having a dream that I was in bed with him, was enough of a shock to wake me up and have me shake the TB awake too;

Lippy "I'm going mental I've just been dreaming that I was in bed with Sir F"

TB "Calm down shut up and listen."

Lippy "don't tell me to calm down and shut up, something really awful has happened to my brain."

TB "no really, shut up and listen"

So I did, and listening heard Radio 4 and there was Sir F being interviewed by the Today programme which had burst into life as our radio alarm about 10 minutes before.

The Meaning of Fear..

The Angel Baby is threatening to begin her own blog called "Stuff My Mum Does"

It will apparently include everything from doing the ironing while watching old Sharpe DVD's to being far too competitive when playing "Brain Age" games with her eight year old cousin. Eating mint sauce sandwiches to refusing to have my photograph taken. So far nothing she has said sounds particularly flattering!

I am hoping that she loses interest .....

My weekend and family disputes

I've traveled to the other side of England and viewed 9 potential new houses in 2 days.

The moral of the tale is do not let the bitter divorced husband show the potential punters around the matrimonial home which MUST be sold in order to facilitate the divorce settlement. Quotes included; "this is the gas cooker SHE said she wanted"
"this is HER stuff in here"...I could not get out of there fast enough!

The barn conversion that I thought I would love I didn't.

And the fixer upper which is on the most wonderful half acre plot, is just too far into deepest Norfolk to be a realistic prospect.

So we will make an offer on the super sensible option (nice kitchen/breakfast room, good office -and the owner works from home already so that I know the broadband internet access works properly) which is close to town but still in the country, close to TB's office and AB's (fingers crossed the entrance exam was Saturday) new school and the by-pass so I can burn down to the station and get to my London clients in under an hour. Which is all cool.

We managed to have big family row in the car about where to go during the Easter holidays. The Toy Boy and the (Less than Angelic on this subject) Baby both want to go to Florida. I don't. I have no objection to them going without me, but I've been to the States and there are other more interesting places to go. To summarise my objections;

1. US Immigration - I have committed no criminal offence so if you think you are taking my finger prints you can fuck off. I've seen now mangled official files can get and my confidence level in your ability to keep this information confidential is less than nil.

2.Guns

3. Just not interesting enough - I've been to New York and it's OK, a bit like Manchester with ruder less trendy inhabitants.

4. I would rather spend my money, carbon footprint going to ; Istanbul, Marakesh, Dehli, Hong Kong, Rome, Sydney, Paris, Lisbon..almost anywhere in fact. Probably not Jo'burg, been there too and I'm not the RSA's biggest fan either.

Theatre

Since I spurned her Sapphic advances my theatrical contact has stopped speaking to me....

And I'd really like to go to see a theatrical performance when I'm working in London in Feb - have a particular yen to see Patrick Stewart as Prospero in the Tempest "make it so Caliban" but unfortunately that doesn't open until the day after I need to come home - boo hiss.

So I need reccomendations people.

Of the current batch I have seen;

The History Boys ******
Wicked *****
Guys & Dolls *****
Chicago ***
The Woman in Black ****
The Lion King *****
We Will Rock You - CRAP unspeakably dreadful


Thinking About

Don Juan in Soho - at the Donmar
Coram Boy


Nothing else grabs me at present but maybe I'm missing something amazing - if you know do tell..

Becoming completely random

It's January, everyone is on a diet and so I thought that I might as well join in. It's been a regime of fruit and yoghurt for breakfast and soup for lunch, no booze, no chocolate and something lightish for supper. I'm having green tea instead of coffee every alternate cup - which as I have an 8-10 cup a day coffee habit (white one sugar) is a start at least.

And so far - lost 6lbs! OK I hear you say, that's the weight you PUT ON over Christmas how about ditching the other 2 stone you are always bitching on about. Alrighty! - and yes this is going to be the hard part, but having seen some result, I'm going to stick with this for 3 months and see what happens. The worst result is nil change and that's better than putting more weight on.

So off to do my yoga CD! And yes I do walk up the stairs to the office, and I went to tap class last night and (just for you Beast) belly dancing starts again on Friday.

Legal question of the day - why was the client who sold his transit van on EBAY surprised when it turned up in Prauge stuffed full of hash?? Moral if you sell a vehicle on Ebay (well first of all don't) send the log book to the DVLA immediatley. Saves a lot of heart ache and long conversations with the Czech police!


In other news our new secretary left because she thought we were horrible and unfriendly - yes the one who was slagging me off to the entire office. She also claimed that our nasty treatment of her clearly stemmed from the fact that the head of team (not me!) had told us all that she was a menopausal lesbian. Poor head of team can't win - not only has he had to explain at length that he didn't tell us, but we're all livid that he didn't!

Water!

The river is in flood - again!

It's now such a common occurence it's quite dull, unless of course you were one of the poor souls who left their car in Frankwell carpark while they went Christmas shopping and came back to find it under 4ft of water. The flood also backs up the drains - and as some of them are medievil - it makes the whole town stink, and some of those smells are of a medievil nature themselves.

Torrential rain is also not the best when you have an office with a 16th century leaded stained glass window - it leaks, obviously. So as well as being cold, I'm damp.

Its very easy to get cabin fever when you live in the country and can't go outdoors. All this fizzing, useless energy which is impossible to channel into anything sensible or productive. I'm looking at holiday websites! It helps a bit.

Funeral Blues

It was my friend S's funeral on Friday. I say friend and maybe that's presumptious of me, she was a client who I hoped would turn into a good friend when the case was over. As it was, there was never the chance.

She was diagnosed with oesophogeal cancer which turned into bone cancer before the case was finished. In the end we didn't get a bad result - but it doesn't matter.

She was lovely, clever, scarily tall and slim (was a model when she was younger) and the best company. A couple of ex husbands and more than a couple of ex lovers were at her funeral, all in tears. The church was packed to the gunnels and the whole of the hotel was taken over for the day for the wake - she would have approved! The weather has been horrible all weekend - cold and wet and dark. Lots of people said that a light had gone out when she went. They were right.

I'm glad that the suffering is over for her but all the same,I miss her.

New Boots and Panties!

All this Januaryness didn't stop me hitting the sales!

I bought a great pair of boots, knee length, cowboy style heels, with buckles up the side, made of distressed brown leather ..yummmy!

Pale blue undies for some reason - reaction to all the black elsewhere?...maybe.

Did you watch the Sarah Jane Adventures? New Dr Who spin off -no, unless you have a 10yr old kid you probably didn't - but if anyone knows where SJ got her handbag from tell me, bloody lovely..........

Worrying

Worrying is not only inevitable, I do it,you do it, everyone does it to a ridiculous extent. It's stupid, for lots of reasons. The most compelling is that it's not the thing you've been up all night worrying about that comes out and kicks your arse, it's something compleltely different which you didn't notice at all because you were too busy worrying!

Do you see?

Anyway that explains why I'm in the office on a wet cold Sunday morning - having been hit at 2am this morning by a cold sweat panic that I'd missed a deadline. On checking the file the deadline is over a week away - but I'm here now so I may as well do the work.

I must tidy this office as well before I leave today, it's not a mess of piles of papers. I'm far too anal for that! It's just a bit dismally uninspiring - with those bits of paper and old files, out of date business cards, DEAD people's business cards (Jesus!) that don't actually mean anything anymore, they just take up space.

I'm taking my pictures down this week too - we're selling the house and need something funky for the hall way so my Chigall poster is headed for the upstairs landing. It will be missed on a cold, wet, Monday morning.

Back to the Slaughterhouse!

Well to be honest I've been back in the office for two days already, I just didn't have the heart to talk about it. The life of a corporate mushroom is not the stuff of which fascinating blogs are made. It's cold, it's dark and everyone is on a diet so there is no point in doing anything other than joining in - particularly as the alternative is sitting in the pub at lunchtime all by myself!

Hopefully this time next year I will be in my own little office, with a computer that works properly, some nice music playing and carefully selected clients - viz, no more boundary disputes ever again !! Scarily I'm still waiting to hear from a few contacts who, whilst not strictly necessary, would make my self-employed life a lot easier, I'm hoping that they are just slow rather than completely uninterested.

I would love to say that it's been a slow week as people are just drifting back to work and getting themselves together but so far (and it's only been two days) I've petitioned for the liquidation of two companies, issued a fraud claim and defended a particularly spruious claim for rent (which is an unlawful eviction in party clothes pretending to be something else)...

I need a new belly dancing teacher- bored with this one. Hmmmm

So that's why.

Today is the answer to "why do we bother with Christmas?"

The answer being - because we need it. In the middle of winter we need an excuse to stop work for a week, get some daylight, be forced to socialise and eat a hot proper dinner.

And having done all that - and walked the dog and dusted off my bike - I feel so much better.

Hope you do too.