Skiving

Oh bollocks to it - I have awarded myself a couple of days off! - I'm going to see French and Saunders at the Drury Lane theatre on Thursday with a jolly good mate of mine, hurrah.

Will be back on Friday evening - hung over and no doubt poorer but at this point I'm not sure that I care all that much.

Crackered!

I am working my second Sunday in a row - which is good for the finances but little else.

To tell you the truth after practically jogging around London to see clients at the end of last week , I was hoping to a quiet start to this one - but no chance. Got to be in Chancery Lane at 11am tomorrow and need to be ready for it. And I don't even feel as if I've turned myself around properly this weekend either. There is still a big pile of laundry that needs finishing off and I could do with a weekend in the spa from the look of me.

How to balance this out ?

I am deeply jealous of anyone who has had a "go rip it up" weekend - no chaance of one of those, and I am not even sure that I could stay awake long enough to enjoy it.

Survival tips warmly welcomed!

So who do you want to win Strictly?

Strictly Come Dancing is the only "reality" tv that I watch..I can say with hand on heart that I have never seen the X Factor or Big Brother or anything else but when it comes to Strictly I'm addicted.

Why? - apart from a bit of a Len crush which is disturbing enough in itself. I like all the spangly bits and thinking "with a few lessons I could do that" . It is clearly a girl thing as while the AB and I become frantically excited the TB retreats to his office and works and even a scantily clad Lisa Snowdon can't tempt him into the sitting room.

So back to my question - who do you want to win?

I really like Jodie - I think because she reminds me of a very old friend (who was also very tall and an ex-model) who died very young and who I still miss dreadfully. But with my honest head on she hasn't got much of a prayer.

Cherie I would love to go far, as the standard bearer for all of us who aren't 20 any more.

I think Rachel Stevens may well win which would just be really annoying.

And out of the Tom/Austin stand off - haven't made my mind up - but hopefully I have several weeks of delicious lechery ahead of me before it's necessary to make a choice!

How did it go yesterday?

Well as you ask - not very well.

In the novice dressage test I only got a 4th place - nice try but no rosette. To say that my daughter is gloating over my fall from grace doesn't begin to express the true depth of her feelings.

And then in court I lost, due to the fact, as the judge commented to me in the robing room afterwards, that my client was " a lying little toe rag"..........well spotted Ma'm.

What's New?

Honestly doesn't it drive you mental when people ask that ? My life is not one unending search for novelty thank you all the same.

Actually what is new is pretty scary. The "financial crisis " can seem distant and esoteric but to put some personal spin on it. If the American insurance company AIG had not been propped up by the US government and had folded, more than half of the solicitors practices in the UK would have had to close their doors over night. At least while they found themselves new professional indemnity insurance. AIG is the biggest provider of PI insurance - which is of course compulsory and without which necessary evil no solicitor can work. Fortunatley for now - until they turn out to be the next victim - I'm with Zurich!

Lots of litigation is also funded by after the event insurance - a client of mine has just concluded a deal on a case which was so funded. And this afternoon (3 weeks after it was promised ) we have had to have the "where is the fucking money?" telephone call.

Unsurprisingly I'm not lifting a pen without being paid on account!

Freelancing for the Faint Hearted

Yes it's true, I sit around the house all day, staring at a computer screen and waiting for the telephone to ring. I don't drag into the office on a train, I don't wear a suit every day anymore (just high days, holidays and court days!) and I don't have to worry about having partners in a law firm.

But I still haven't got it sussed yet, although having read the Sunday times this week I'm not as bad as some!

Stuff I don't do;

- take naps
- watch day time televisiosn
- lie face down on the carpet drooling
- sit in my pyjamas all day
- eat chocolate
- spread my work all around the house


Stuff I do do;

- walk the dog every day
- keep all my work in the office
- work odd hours if I feel like it
- ride the horse first thing in the morning instead of going to work
- have a bad addiction to celebrity gossip websites - mrpaparrazzi (don't go there, it's just wrong!)
- have a very, very tidy office with fresh flowers and scented candles - you sad indulgent bint Lippy!
- cook nice dinners every day (did this malaysian salmon recipie last night - stole it out of the hairdressers copy of OK magazine and it was yum! maybe I should post it?!)
- go out to business networking events at least a couple of times a month

Stuff I wish I did;

- went to the gym every day instead of a paltry couple of times a week
- understood my own tax returns instead of just bursting into tears and throwing the envelopes at my accountant - but he's a nice man and his wife is a lawyer who does exactly the same thing so he understands.
- really kept on top of all my legal research so I didn't have to rush around like a nutter trying to get all my CPD points in the last 3 weeks of the training year like everyone else.
- have enough self discipline not to leave all my really horrible phone calls until 4pm thus ruining the rest of the day!

C'est la vie de Lippy!

Freedom

The flexibility of being freelance is mosly lovely, but it can lead one to make appointments in a fashion that may strike others as well, frankly, a little bit mental.

For example next Friday I have a dressage test in the morning and a fast track trial in the afternoon..........................hmmmmm

Autumnal

It is very definatley autumn isn't it. And no sign at all of that Indian Summer that we all convinced ourselves we were going to get, on the basis that, after such a lousy August - WE DESERVED IT!

The weather God clearly disagrees.

The mantra for everyone seems to be "spend less and save more" - and it's certainly true Chez Lippy, in a fit of thrift I promised the TB that I wouldn't buy any new clothes for the next six months. As I've gone down one jeans size and am well on the way to dropping another this could be pretty interesting. So far I've stolen one of his belts, punched new holes in it and am adopting the baggy "boyfriend jean" look.........this isn't going to work quite so well with the suits that I wear for court. I may have to negotiate a "new frock for court" exemption and a "new suit disclamer" - but I'll allow the financial weather to make up it's mind first.

Even more disharteningly all the really crazy clients have decided that "Lawyers are not an essential business spend" . I am overwhelmed with nostalgia. Oh for the heady times when client's would fill their next door neighbours sewage outflow pipe with expanding foam (just in time for Christmas), the case of sunken floating restaurant which was owned by an insolvent partnership both partners in which promptly died, the grandmother who , when her son died, discovered he had been ripping her off for years and promptly (before the funeral) issued proceedings against her grandsons who were the executors of his estate. Ah well.....those were the days........

Quarks and Strangeness.

Well a couple of 5.30am starts this week (to get to London for 8.30 am meetings) led to some falling off the waggon. Having got myself to Liverpool St for 8 am I awarded myself a Cafe Nero skinny cappucino, twice - oh dear! And whilst I still haven't had any bread - a bit of pastry but no bread. And bizarrley with the cappucinos and some large glasses of white wine, and only going to the gym once - I've started losing weight again! Hurrah! But how weird is that - apparently tight lipped, hanging on in desparation is a self defeating posture to adopt. I suspect though that unless I climb back on the waggon pretty sharpish the gains will soon turn into losses.

Talking of losses - I can't actually worry about money at this point. I've taken my disaster on the chin and I'm carrying on. My poor Mum and Dad are very concerned as they have pensions and investment income only, quite a lot of it in the Halifax. But hell, if the worst comes to the worst, we've got a big spare room they can sell their house and move in. It would have to be pretty hairy for them to volunteer for that though - whilst we get on pretty well it's an exceptional family that gets on THAT well.

How was London? London was fine, very good meeting, very good conference. Ended up in a rather fabulous pub just off Kensington High St. It looked like a spit and sawdust boozer from the outside, but inside was all blonde wood and squashy leather sofas. We fell into conversation with a former "Miss Teen New Zealand" and her rich English boyfriend. The boyf had , like my brother before him, acquired a full on South African accent on the strengh of a six week stay in Cape Town and as a result was virtually incomprehensible. Almost makes you glad you are not rich enough to fritter your life away in Kensington Boozers every day.

Planet Legal

Well here on planet legal insolvency is the hottest game in town and let me tell you it's not much fun.

I am a litigator, all of my client's are therefore, by definition, unhappy people. As things stand in the world of business many of them are also desparate people. And there are limits to what can be done to help.

If your business is looking shaky don't hang around hoping that things will get better - chances are they won't, draw a line, call a halt, get some help. And keep chasing your debtors hard - very hard and if you haven't got the knackers to chase hard pay me and I'll do it for you.

So keep your costs down, and your product development up - and don't ask me how to do those two things simultaneously, I've spent a small fortune on training updates for myself this month which is what passes for "product devlopment" in my profession....well that and going to the gym so you don't have a heart attack in the court room. I do sometimes wonder whether the old school litigators had it right, the ones who had to be fetched from the snug at the Dog and Duck when it was time for closing submissions. On the other hand the last one I knew who had survivied chirossis went bankrupt.............

When John McCain dies it's going to be very bad!

Well you may think it is high time that I took my head out of my arse and had a look at the outside world...and you would be right.

Oh dear I know Barack Obama had many reasons not to want Hillary as vice president but I think that is a failure of nerve that he is going to live to regret for ever.

Sarah Palin is clearly a bloody nightmare ; doesn't believe in sex education in schools (doesn't look like the parents did a very good job in her house!); doesn't beleive in global warming; has never travelled any further afield than Canada and Mexico. And has all the empathy and intellecutal depth of the moose heads she sticks on her walls. But she clearly has the "Daily Mail" factor going for her in spades. Putting the governor's private jet up for sale on ebay was a political masterstroke. If you don't think about her policies for too long they almost sound sensible - "We are importing a lot of oil - that's bad" "We could dig up Alaskan oil that would be good. And so if a few polar bears die there's plenty more and this global warming stuff is a myth anyway."

I admit that she gives me hives. But I think part of what makes her so scary is that she represents the America that none of us card carrying lefty Europeans want to admit even exists. The red necked bit in the middle. We've seen Deliverance. We know they are out there - looks like they are coming to a White House near you very soon.

Doing something right?

Our lovely French exchange student goes home next week. We will miss her she is so sweet. And she said "I am really going to miss all the lovely food you cook when I go back to France.."



So I'm not totally hopeless!

Head down...but doesn't that leave your arse exposed?

So how is it all going? The family are OK - TB is working hard as his factory gears up for their annual insanely busy phase. AB is back to school and loving everything about school apart from the actual lessons. She tried "forgetting" to do her homework on Thursday, nice try, but it only resulted in her being woken up at 6am and having to finish it before school, don't think she will try that one again in a hurry. Her father never shouts at anyone but he is really difficult to argue with.

As for me, I have stuff to do..which is good. But I have a confession...........although I work hard for my clients I don't have a really giant legal brain (although when I go for the complete head and body transplant I'm going to ask for the brain augmentation chip as well, might as well get the whole package). I had an interesting trial in Manchester on Monday where although I won I did come out thinking "Lippy not one of your best performances, in fact face it babe you were more than a bit shit." Client is happy enough but I am really really not.

I want to be on top of my game and doing my best work, but I seem to be skidding along from one fire fighting job to the next. And my confidence in my own abilities is pretty low to say the least. Added to which I am having to go out and "sell" what I do in a competitive market and what I really want to say is " actually, I'm a bit shit at the moment, I would go and see someone else if I were you."

Oh well, keep trying eh, it's never going to improve if I give up.

Diet and fitness wise , I'm also at the point where I have to stop moaning and just accept that it will never get any easier. I've lost a stone since the beginning of the summer and am a fairly respectable size 12-14 (except shirts, I think I just have to give up on shirts, boobs and shirts are just never going to be comfortable together, at least not with all the buttons done up!). I walk the dog every day for 40 minutes, ride twice a week and go to the gym three times a week so not too shabby for an old bird. I kind of feel as if I'm getting nowhere - I've entered the loan horse and me for a local mini hunter trial in October and another dressage competition. But she is the sort of horse where you have to work for every stride so if either of those is not going to end in disaster I need to be fitter!

Back to School

I always liked going back to school for a new year - new pencils, new uniform, nice new exercise books. And it's even better now that it isn't actually me who is going back to school!



But in sympathy with the atmosphere today I made sure I cleared off the lingering nasty cases last week so that I could attack some new ones today with vigor! And low and behold a couple of new cases turned up to be attacked , hurrah! And went and did the marketing thing at lunch and networked my little socks off, then had payback and went for coffee with a friend . She is off to do research in Egypt for 10 weeks the lucky thing.



Anyway came home, finished the accounts and did some admin and everything is still looking shiny for tomorrow.



In other news - don't look now but I've been coffee free for a whole week, shhh , don't jinx it. White tea with pomegranate and a blueberry yoghurt fruit tea - in other words just drinking vats of hot water.

Letting the side down...

I have to say that it is very difficult to lecture my child on being a responsible citizen when between them her aunts, uncles and grandparents have variously;

- run off to join the circus,
- been the bodyguard of the president of an African Country,
- been sent to prison for telling a judge to fuck off during their divorce case,
- had 5 children by the age of 23,
- had the pub close on the day of their funeral because it had lost it's best customer
- travelled overland from London to Australia in a Land Rover pausing only to have a baby on the back seat en route
- defended a charge to a public order offence on the basis that none of the witnesses had seen them or they would have mentioned the naked man with purple bollocks.

There is no hope, or at least.............very little

Credit Crunchie

So Lippy - enough of the eating habits, how is the business going?

Well the summer has been very patchy to tell you the truth. Some work, but not what you'd call steady and while we won't starve we won't be booking a Carribean cruise any time soon either. It seems that work is picking up as we move into September but there is a common thread of people with very horrible problems who are at a high risk of not being able to pay my fees. So am i offering them a no win no fee deal? No I AM NOT, in the interests of self preservation I am making them pay on account. If they want to take stupid risks they can do it with their money not mine.

But I've not been able to avoid the universal problem of the bankrupt client - unfortunatley i had stupidly instructed a barrister to act (because I had known this client for a long time) and now I have to pay £10k of barristers fees out of my own pocket....ho hum...........that will learn me.

What's to be done then - two things really, head down and do the work, and get out and meet the people who have the work to hand out.

And at the end of a year of moaning about being self employed would I go back to being a salary slave - NO!

I would really really like

Really really really like .. a cup of tea and a slice of a victoria sandwich (with jam and fresh cream).

I am developing a dreadful masochistic streak and have taken to watching the Hairy Bakers just to torture myself with their tales of chocolate chip cookies, scones and home made bread...........

Testing my resolve!

I have now completed four whole weeks of this no wheat no dairy thing, and I'm sort of getting used to it and some of the choices are becoming more automatic. Always the salad, never the sandwich , black coffee, no ice cream for me thank you - oh,and definatley no cake *sigh*.

I'm gearing myself up for another major challenge in September - the caffiene has to go! I am down from 8 cups of coffee a day to 2 anyway as I don't like it nearly so much without milk so hopefully the last effort shouldn't be too bad. And the diet coke and the dark chocolate - those little life rafts in a pure water sea have to go too.

I may well sink in a sea of self pity this week - I am being abandoned, the AB has gone to my Mum's for a week and then her Aunty's for another 3 days after that. And the TB is off to France with work - ho hum..........I shall hit the gym (re-assessment session booked for 9am on Tuesday in a rare fit of enthusiasm), ride the horse, swim and walk the dog until his little legs fall off. I shall do lots of work and my office shall be a shining beacon of efficiency and toil. Either that or I shall be slumped on a sofa watching Casino Royal on DVD until the telly screams for mercy!

Summer Reads

Lippy reccomends books to see you through the rest of the summer and into the autumn ;

1. A Bit of A Blur - Alex James (didn't like him but a good read)
2. The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo -Stieg Larsson (I love Swedish Crime writers and this one is an absolute corker)
3. The Steep Road to Garbdale - Iain Banks (son of Crow Road and none the worse for it)
4. The Bellini Card - Jason Goodwin ( I love love this series - fascinating)
5. Garden Spells - Sarah Addison Allen (drippy chick lit with more than a nodding aquiantance to Practical Magic, for when you want to turn your brain power down to "low")


I couldn't finish Sepuchure by Kate Mosse, or Down River by John Hart both of which I found tiresome and utterly predictable! Today's Waterstones haul is Exit Music - Ian Rankin, Ghost - Robert Harris and The Draining Lake by Arnaldur Indridason ; I'll let you know how I get on!

Beaming with Pride!

"Hairspray the School Musical" starts it's run on Sky soon - why do I care, because the director is my gorgeous and hugely talented junior relative Katfish. (No I'm not telling you how we are related we just are, and no I'm not her mum!)

She has been working so hard that I haven't spoken to her for ages, apart from a few voicemails telling me that "Denise is lovely"

So do watch, and do be nice.

I'll be sure to pass it on when she comes to crash in the country for some much needed R&R!

Landlady from hell?

I don't mind house guests, really I don't, but for the last couple of weeks I seem to have been running a small boarding house!

We have the permanent residents; me, the TB, the AB (who is becoming markedly less Angelic as teenagedom approaches but that's a different post) and the French exchange student.

Additionally in the last 7 days we have had at various times, my best mate and her daughter (all the way from the Philippines ), my sister, her husband and her son (all the way from the West Midlands) and the FES's boyfriend. And it has been lovely to see everyone - shame about the monsoon weather that the brought with them. But goodness it's hard work for the catering staff - i.e me. I have done the full reportoire of roasts, lasagne, chinese noodle things and now I am truly running out of ideas. I suspect a few evenings with the cookbook collection are in order.

And whilst we are on culinary matters, having given up almost everything my chilli consumption has gone through the roof - I've moved on from chilli sauce ( bit girlie with all that sugar) and on to Capstan Full Strength Sri-Lankan chilli oil. It's so good it should probably be illegal!

Purity Update

I completely understand why people walk out of rehab in a strop after two weeks. In week one you get the instant payback - quick 5lb weight loss, better sleep all the nasties from your initial habit start to fade away. Week two brings the set backs - I didn't fall off the waggon don't get me wrong but yesterday had major "attack" - hideous bout of pain, in the middle of a shopping centre 30 miles from home, I had to sit down for half an hour and wait for the horse pill pain killers to kick in. And that raises all the "what the hell am I bothering with this for?" questions.

I hope it's just things "shifting back into place" rather than getting any worse - but fuck me it's depressing and it's raining, and it's August so nothing much is happening....well apart from a constant stream of visitors. Best mate and child last week and sister, husband and child arriving on Monday...which is nice, hope it stops raining so we can go out somewhere.

Sorry to be such a miserable git.

Wrong phase of the moon????

I can't help but feel that the first week in August is not my luckiest time of year.

This time last year I was in hospital, on a men's ward .in the next bed to a convict who was chained to a prison warder - being pumped full of drugs that I didn't need for an illness that I didn't have!

Splendid!

This year I'm short of work and stuck with a bunch of slow paying clients. I really hate threatening clients with bankruptcy proceedings but when you know they could pay you and just won't - even though they were more than happy with the work, then breaking point does arrive. So the first threatening letter has gone with another to follow shortly. There are only two thank goodness, that are really really taking the piss.

I know I am in much better financial shape than many, I don't owe anybody anything (no loans baby) and I have savings.

I had one potential client on the phone today who almost made me cry - working their ass off in a pub business and making less than £100 per week - because the brewery are taking all the profit. I am not sure there is much I can do, I'll certainly try but I think they just signed up to the usual brewery shit deal.

Whatever you may think of me - promise me one thing - never ever take on the tenancy of a pub.

Purity Sucks!

I have been wheat and dairy free for just over a week now. And the early morning craving for a Venti Latte with a double shot and cinnamon syrup is not getting any less...but I persevere. Honey and lemon juice isn't the same at all.

Caffiene and sugar are a much bigger problem. I am still drinking a black coffee with one sugar at least once a day - a huge improvement from my 8 cups a day habit but too much caffiene non the less. This is next weeks mission - lose the diet coke and the black coffees and drink lemon tea instead. Vile stuff I know but frankly anything that can help the pain levels here...things are pretty desparate and desparate measures are called for.

I am hoping that at the end of two months I can move on to a slightly less restrictive regime which will allow me to have weekends "off" - I've found a chocolate almond cake that I intend to bake on my very first weekend "off". Meantime Indian Food is pretty much my salvation - a wheat and dairy free treat with plenty of chilli.

Feral and Partially notcturnal.

Work is still deadly quiet, I hope something turns up soon.
In the meantime the work I have I'm doing early in the morning and at night,

Otherwise in the lovely daylight hours I've been riding, been to lovely Holkham Beach (twice) unfortunatley not with the horse (that would have been fantastic) I love love that Beach, white sands for miles and pine woods behind them and lovely clear water. Swimming in the sea wasn't actually all that cold. Swimming in the river at St Helens in Thetford Forest was THAT COLD but beautiful all the same, and you get a view from the middle of the river when you are swimming that is so different and so much better than what you can see from the bank.

I did do one thing I went to a business networking coffee morning - there are so many business networking organisations that you could go to an event every day and meet more web designers and reiki practitioners than any one would need in an entire lifetime, but sometimes they throw up a good lead. The thing is to work out which opportunities will work for you and which won't!...it's a puzzlement.

10 things I've never done

As I'm a bit short on inspiration. Things I've never done;

1. Kissed a girl ( or any other sort of girl on girl sexual activity)
2. Been arrested
3. Taken illegal drugs
4. Been in a fight
5. Been in a car accident
6. Been to Disneyland (or world or any variety of Disney theme park)
7. Fitted into a pair of size 8 jeans ( at least once my age was in double figures!)
8. Been in a rock band
9. Done a parachute jump
10. Drunk Tequila

I realise that makes me sound terminally boring, so a few things I have done;

1. Eaten kangaroo ( and shot it first)
2. Milked cows for a living
3. Surfed on beaches with no Shark nets
4. Been on a night safari in Natal
5. Dived over coral reefs in the South China Sea
6. Spent the night in a bothy on Rannock Moor
7. Sailed a yacht across the channel over night
8. Climbed the Pyramid at Chichen Itza (back when you still could and the pyramids of the Sun & Moon)
9. Run down 5th Avenue to get the last elevator to the top of the Empire State building last thing at night. Way better at night........
10. Applied to be a judge ( and got knocked back!)
11. Taken too many degrees!

Still sound like a boring fucker!

I should have done this ages ago

It only takes 6 weeks to break a habit apparently.

So, it a bit of a last ditch attempt to aviod any more surgery, I am doing what I should have done 12 months ago and cutting wheat, dairy , sugar and caffiene out of my diet completely.

I already eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg and red meat only a couple of times a week so those things aren't a big problem. The meat I eat is organic so no hormone issues there.

However for a "venti latte with two shots and cinnamon syrup" junkie like myself this is horrible. Thank goodness it's really hot so that I'm not missing my mid day coffee but mornings are a bit rough.

Still if Ronnie Wood can do his de-tox without keeling over or giving in I can do mine!....at least I can still have a couple of white wines on a weekend!

Other people's lives

Do you ever long to know what it is like to be someone else or is it just me? Judging by the proliferation of celeb magazines and websites it clearly isn't just me, but I'm not just fascinated by famous people.

I find myself on the train into Liverpool St, looking at the windows of all the flats in Bethnal Green and thinking "what do they all do?"

At school I was fascinated by a girl at school,we will call her Tracy, who lived in a big glass sixties "pad" complete with white shag pile carpets and a swimming pool, her Mum drove a lotus and looked quite a lot like Farah Fawcett Majors. I didn't actually like Tracy that much and we were never particular friends, but I just wanted to know what her life felt like, mostly because it was so different from mine.

Currently I have the same fascination for Alice who keeps her horse at the same livery as mine, and I suspect is how Katie Price would be if she had never been Jordan - i.e normal chest size, really good rider (pushing at the boundaries of international standard), extremely pretty and married with a couple of kids. Also very good company. I like her a lot more than I liked Tracy!

That's part of the fascination of blogs isn't it? The insight into other people's lives, or at least how other people perceive their lives to be - which may be something quite different.

Reverse Phsychology?

Work is still a bit quiet, ticking over , but hardly busy.

So, as yesterday was the hottest of the year so far, I packed up the kids and the dog and headed for the big sands on the north Norfolk coast. And I have to say it was lovely, blue sky, blue sea and soft sand. We picniced and I did fully intend to swim in the sea, but between walking the dog up the beach and reading Alex James "A Bit of A Blur" I never got around to it.

I had left a message on the office voicemail to say I could be contacted on my mobile phone ...I lied, Orange mobile network coverage in Cromer was patchy to say the very least. This had the heartening result that after a very relaxing day I then felt loved and wanted (in the professional sense) due to a barrage of voicemails and incensed email messages! Hurrah!

It is all in the timing.

I am a morning person, and whilst in it's own way this is all well and good, it means that I don't really do evenings. At least I don't do them well. It's as much as I can do to eat my dinner, drink a couple of glasses of wine , read a bit of a book or watch a bit of telly and then pass out on the sofa about 10 o'clock.

Don't misunderstand me I can work of an evening - in fact some of the best legal work gets done when you can tune out a few of the multitudinous channels in your brain and just focus on one. But proper evening activities - classes, going to the pub, exercising in an evening are all a bit...well beyond me really.

My mother is a complete night owl and has always found the fact of my early bedtimes a matter of intense annoyance. In fact when I was a child she used to come to my room and wake me up and make me do things - like tidy up and bake cakes. Apart from the fact that this was clearly slightly insane behaviour it also made me even more intransigent in my view that evenings were for sleeping.

Later on they became for sleeping and sex...obviously. In fact once I had found someone that I could have sex with at home of an evening , without all the hassle of going to parties and copping off, I pretty much stopped going to parties. Which is a bit sad as I was only 24 at the time. But frankly I really hadn't been much good at parties, hardly the life and soul, usually I was either trying to cop off or had given up and was asleep under a pile of coats in the corner.

I do like dancing though, but it's better in the afternoon. And I like talking to people..and I can be quite chatty and charming ...but I am way WAY better company at lunch than at dinner, and at breakfast when no one else wants to talk at all...I'm a wow.

Mamma Mia

Towards the end of the movie, my daughter whispered "I'm really glad Daddy isn't here, he'd have been grumbling This is drivel! all the way through the film!

He would.

But we loved it - it was sunny shiny happy and had lots of Abba songs, and Meryl Streep looking fab and having the option of getting off with a selection of (only slightly) younger blokes - hurrah!

It also gave rise to a phenomenon not seen since lines of kids were practising the Saturday Night Fever dance routines on my Mum's lawn in 1976. The trying to copy the movie ...only this time it involved me jumping on the trampoline trying to do the "Streep Splits" to Dancing Queen. I am happy to say that I did manage it at least twice and that nobody had to call an ambulance!

Chav Central!

Took the day off and went to Alton Towers with the fam yesterday. And enjoyed the very fast roller coaster, (Rita Queen of Speed) but this thing "Air"

Made me feel so sick and giddy that I couldn't walk, eat or see straight for the rest of the day - yuk!

I shouldn't be rude about the Towers, having grown up spitting distance from them, but if you want to feel thin and well dressed in comparison to everyone else who is there it's the place to go! Lots of fat people in tracksuits eating burgers and drinking bottomless cups of coke.

Anyway - the kids all enjoyed it, and my sis had got free tickets for us, so it didn't cost £93 per family as it should have done. So guilt assuaged and job done.

I prefer my adrenaline of the horse riding or sailing variety really. Heights and me are not a good match at the best of times!

Those of a delicate disposition look away now...

This is all going to get a bit medical and yuk so you may want to skip this one and come back tomorrow.

The reason that I only have one kid is because I have severe endometriosis, this means that the lining of my uterus has gone walk about in my pelvis, where it bleeds randomly causing some pretty severe pain. This is not so bad.

However, my endometrium (uterine lining) has also set up shop in my ovaries, where the bleeding doesn't dissipate but causes cysts - think giant blood blister the size of a grapefruit - now these babies hurt like a bastard. And if you've been hanging around here for a while you may remember that last May there was some surgery to try to dispose of them. And while it worked for a little while there, - THEY'RE BACK!

And it hurts to the point where I have to take two giant co-codamol tablets before I can get out of bed in the morning , this is boring.

The only option is more surgery - more radical this time, as in take an ovary out. Yes I know you can't see it and so it doesn't seem real, but it's mine all the same. And having gone through all of this a year ago, I don't feel like doing it all again - the oxygen tube up your nose is SO not a good look when friends come to visit.

I feel bad boring you with all this again - you were bored with it last time. I like my girl parts, even if they don't like me and I don't want to have them or any bit of them removed. I suspect I will wimp out yet again and go for the "minimum surgery " option. And face the fact that I may have to go through all of this again , again.

They try to make me have a hysterectomy I say NO NO NO!

Relentless

The trouble with pets; husbands, children, horses, dogs...is that they are so demanding! Not only do you have to work to make the money to pay for them, but then you have to feed them, wash them, exercise them and clean their houses out. It's relentless! And then after you've done all that - you're expected to look after yourself! Shine up the house and still have neat painted toe nails and non- hairy armpits!!!

Still have managed to tear myself away from the never ending chorse to do a few other things. So far this week;

Work is still quiet - a few new enquiries so as this is the second time around with the "bumpy work" scenario I shall try to be cooler about it.

I got to the beach! - yay! And then it went cloudy - boo! But now that I live only an hour from the coast. I can go again, whenever I like all summer! I haven't lived here for a year yet so all of this is still a novelty that I am getting used to.

Came 4th in dressage competition - bit dissapointing but we had gone up a level from "preliminary" to "novice" so it wasn't too bad, AND it was the first time we had done an outdoor competition and poor horse was a bit spooked by the white boards that form the boundary of the arena. She tried really hard though bless her.

Going to Alton Towers on Friday - thanks to little sis coming up with free tickets. It's bound to pour with rain but who cares.

C'est tout!

Weight loss

Well team, I may have finally cracked this one.

The secret is - work out every day, ride and swim and walk the dog and in an ideal world go to the gym and do yoga. AND only eat the same amount of food as the 22 year old French lodger.
Works a treat - lost 5lbs in a fortnight and she is here for 3 months! - hurrah! Tell you what though I am a bit pooped with all the exercise, not sure I am getting any fitter just more knackered.

It is summer - you can tell, because between the torrential rain and the thunder storms the sun does actually come out, and I have a shocking "farmer's tan" from riding in a v-neck t-shirt, red neck, red arms and terrifyingly white everywhere else! ewww!

Still , I seem to be going to parties and barbeques, listening to dodgy folk groups, having friends in camper vans staying on the drive and saying endlessly "I'd like to go to the beach" without ever actually getting there. Lets hope for progress in this area soon!

Observation

It is always one of those clients who reject my advice, and insist that a case follows their agenda.
(which one of us went to law school Mr Client? - hey that would be me. And the Legal 500 entry, oh what a shocker that's me again!)

It's that client who then sacks me and complains that the costs in the case spiralled and no progress was made. Has it not crossed your mind numb nuts that if you had followed the advice that you paid for things would have turned out differently?

Obviously not! - so hey, I will just send you a final bill and make myself feel every such a lot better!

Fishing

We want to go to the coast and have a morning's mackrel fishing ...how hard can it be?

Well according to the internet pretty bloody difficult, looks like there is one boat, it's a bit of a serious charter and it's booked for 8 hour trips every day until September. There has got to be something a bit less hard core than that hasn't there?

I will ring tourist disinformation this morning and see if they know anything. Otherwise may just have to content myself with a swim in the north sea! Boo!

In the spirit of "holiday reading" I bought "The Beautiful Game - a WAG's tale" . I knew that it would be bad, but good God it was appalling! With the life of the heroine being SO boring why did the author chose to go into lots of detail about the endless beauty treatments and not give any detail at all about the sex, "we shagged lots" - well don't we all love, but I've paid £6.99 and I want to know a bit more than that!

Well.............. Actually I didn't pay £6.99, this year I've bought all my law books from Waterstones and collected the points on my Waterstones loyalty card. As my annual law book spend is about £2k I've got lots of points and lots of lovely free books! Thank goodness this was one of them.

Holidaying at home!

We took a family decision to go feral in East Anglia rather than taking a break abroad this summer - maybe we will go away in the autumn, maybe we will change our minds and head for Spain at the weekend? Who knows!

For now the TB and the AB are both knackered and mooning around the house like zombies.

I'm trying to finish off some of those "nagging boring" jobs that have been hanging around for ages, writing articles for newsletters, finishing instructions to counsel for learned associations who aren't paying anything - all that demotivating stuff that you have to do to try to make sure that the next paying job does turn up. I am off to a business women's networking lunch tomorrow for the same reason.

If the sun does come out then I'll take the dog for a walk and may even go for a bike ride!

Just you watch, the sun will come out and the office telephone will start ringing!

Older, wiser and more beautiful? - I wish!

Today is my birthday, I am 46 years old, not an age you dream about being but what the heck I'm fit, solvent and pretty much living the life of Riley so who cares?!

I had a lovely day today; - flowers, cards, presents, 14 people round for lunch , which admittedly I cooked but friends brought pavolva and wine and stuff so it was really nice. And I'm too old to think that "nice" is a bad word, it's a good word, and it was a good day. The adults drank wine and Pimms and the kids had a water fight in the garden. I overcatered massivley so we have a freezer full of food and a beer fridge full of drink. A beer fridge in the garage is one of the useful things that comes around with age, that and a really good king-sized bed.

The technology gives a whole new dimension to birthdays too - I've had cards, texts, facebook messages and emails ! Yay.

Hedwig lives down our way.

This morning after I crossed the river I could see a large white bird, it's wings flapped slowly...it can't be..........I got closer, hoping that the dog (who being a Jack Russell has no interest in anything he can't eat, fight or shag), wouldn't scare it off. But the bird was too busy hunting.

And I was right, a large white snowy owl was hunting in the water meadow at eight o'clock this morning. It looked well, magical.

Insomniac I wonder or just hungry? Or after the adder that the dog tried to pick a fight with yesterday morning?

Anyway - thank you Universe, white owl against bright blue cloudless sky , what a sight to have seen!

Your Actual Fun!

I actually went out at the weekend - twice in two days, good grief!

Friday was a long lawyer lunch in a west end restaurant, so long in fact that when we finally got turfed out at 4pm we went around the corner to the Dover St Wine Bar and carried on until closing. The thing is with the whole "responsible professional" gig is that you can't go out and get mortal unless it's with really old mates or with other lawyers. Other lawyers is the safer option as you know that none of them are going to grass you up to anyone else. So yes, I drank solidly for eight hours and felt fine - which probably says very bad things about my liver.

On Sat morning I was up early and off to Liberty's sale, having made the effort to be there at 9.30 am you would have thought I would have bought something, but now. Even hungover £175 for a pair of jeans didn't seem like a good plan. The mate I went with though spent £600 in two hours, her old man is never going to let her go out with me anywhere, ever again.

Then on Saturday night I went to a ball, which was lovely, large country house , big tent, nice food, lots more wine, three rock bands (including the most amazing Motown Tribute group ever!), a trad jazz band, a string quartet and a disco (different rooms obviously) - I listened to them all, and ended up bopping away to northern soul in the disco tent at 1 in the morning. Up at 8 again to collect the AB ...and then at 11 the French exchange student arrived. The most impressive aspect of the whole weekend was that I managed to speak French!!! - didn't do a fat lot of work on Monday however.

Am I A control freak? - I dunno, yeah, probably.

I've been pondering the question of "Am I A Control Freak" for a couple of days.

I'm not sure it's true.

What is true is that I cannot be doing with people who create unnecessary drama out of a straightforward situation - loads of people thrive on doing that. They must be bored, but for heavens sake, get a hobby, buy a dog, don't get your kicks by making other people's lives a misery. Life is genuinely hard enough. Strive to make it simple.

And that is where the potential control freakery comes in - I accept that nothing in life is certain, it is going to throw me a curve ball. Therefore I try to be ready for the shit life is going to throw at me. So that, when the next pile of shit it arrives it will find me clean, sober, reasonably fit, wearing prisitine knickers and knowing where all the invoices are to fill in next year's tax return. I enjoy the illusion that this level of preparation gives me a fighting chance.

Scruffy, Sad Loser

Am I alone in this or is anyone else devleoping a bit of a crush on Rhys Ifans, Sienna Millers recently dumped ex? There has been a lot of drivel in the press on the lines of "she's hot and he's not!" and whilst he may not exactly be pretty, he's pretty sexy, in that long loose limbed don't give a shit sort of way.

So Rhys if you are thinking of a change from equisite 26 year old blondes to *ehem* "older" curly haired redheads, then, walk this way...................................(as this is strictly in my dreams the TB need never know!)

Lying to the Dentist

Do you think that everyone lies to the dentist?

I know I do. Today was the 6 monthly check up and polish, and so of course my consumption of cups of coffee with sugar in any 24 hour period was duly trimmed back from 6 to 2. And my flossing history was similarly upgraded from a truthful "most days when I remember" to a frankly fraudulent "morning and evening your honour, without fail". Still I haven't done too much damage, still got my own teeth, albeit with fillings, and no nasty gum disease. Goody good.

So who else do we routinely lie to?

Traffic wardens; obviously "I was just going to get another ticket to put more time on !"

Husbands; "Of course this isn't a new dress, I've had it ages" (but frankly they ask for that, if their powers of observation are that feeble!)

But no one else really, not Doctors or Accountants - but is that because they can plainly see the truth of the situation for themselves? Hmmmmm

Father's Day Catering

Well, we thought the TB deserved a bit of spoiling for father's day, so went full on with the catering;

Tea in bed with the Sunday Times followed by the full English breakfast - sausage (Newmarket natch) bacon, tomato, egg, beans and toast (home made bread)

Followed by a nice walk with the dog before lunch

Baguette (home made bread) with home baked ham and mustard

A short nap, a swim and then for dinner

Roast Lamb, new potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas, mint sauce (with mint out of the garden)
Lemon meringue pie (made by me from scratch) and cream
Coffee

And he seemed pretty pleased with it all ! (Smugness rules OK!)

Occasional Restaurant Review - Indigo at One Aldwych

How perfect was this meal?

I ordered lime and soda from the bar while I waited for my guest ( lady guest, client it was work - honestly your mind!) and got fresh lime juice with a small dash of sugar syrup and club soda. Beautiful - so beautiful in fact that I will be squeezing fresh limes to have at home. The restaurant is upstairs overlooking the lobby bar so great for nosy people. And the eavesdropping is fabulous - I do know for example that the woman at the next table had just told her husband that she was never going to share a bed with him ever again. If she talks that loudly at night I bet he was quite relieved.

Anyway food - The most fabulous baked bream with new potatoes which had been slightly crushed and mixed with crab meat and green beans. That was it with a glass of rose and it was just fabulous. I may have been ruined for the foreseeable future. Or at least until I save up enough money to go to Indigo again.

Jordon's Glamour

Well Jordan (Katie Price) competed in a preliminary unaffiliated dressage competition at Hickstead last week - and because I am a nosy git I looked up her score - and she got 153 which to be fair to her is pretty good for a first time out. The same score in fact which I got for the same test in an unaffliated dressage back in October.

So, apart from being 15 years older than her and not having £60,000 kicking around to spend on a couple of top flight horses and the kit...I'm have the same chance of competing in the 2012 Olympic dressage as Jordan......................i.e. none!!!

Social Pirana! (yes I know it's Pariah but face it no one wants to hang out with a Pirana!)

Honest, I'm becoming a fucking hermit, I mean really. I have not been out socially for MONTHS.

This is a bit of a toxic combination of the TB's naturally antisocial nature, his habitat of choice being a shed. Although to be fair if you can actually get him to a party, two beers in he turns into the life and soul, and everyone is throwing me evil glances for keeping him locked away in a dungeon. Because that is the reason he gives them for not having been out for months. When the truth is he has been in our sitting room, drinking whisky and saying in a whinny voice "but I'm reaallly tired and I reaallly don't want to go out...."

And lack of funds ...or fear of insufficient funds to pay the tax man. Having had a bit of work recently this fear is now resolving and we are going to a ball in a couple of weeks - which could even be fun...........I'll need a new frock, and shoes................that could be even more fun!

Des Billets

Finally we are agreed. Due to lodger and lack of funds we aren't going to holiday in the summer break -apart from weekends and the coast and stuff.

Instead we are just going to go feral in our home county, swim and catch cray fish in the river, jump on our trampoline,have picnics at the beach , go for bike rides and play with the ponies. The TB even has a yen for a spot of sea fishing out of Aldeborough.

We are also going to go to see Crowded House in the forest, and go to Latitude and I have clearence from the Financial Director (the TB) to book the tickets today - way cool!

Occasional Gastropub Review

The Beehive, Horringer, Suffolk

I had wanted to go here for ages. We went for lunch today, and I came home gutted and consumed with guilt for making the TB spend his money taking me there!
It really isn't a good sign when you struggle to find something you want to eat on the extensive blackboard menu, but I did.
I finally settled on:

Bruschetta with goats cheese, honey and walnuts - which was actually very nice
Veal schnitzel with new potatoes - which didn't actually taste of anything
and
Swiss chocolate ice cream - OK but boring.

So a resounding 5 out of ten. All a bit too pretentious and not yummy enough - when there is nothing you would kill for on the desert menu it's probably a sign to think better of it and go home.

Although really it probably is a sign. Our S, has taken up triathlons. This is not a kind thing to do to your slightly older, slightly fatter but still taller same sex relative. And for me at the minute stamina is a real issue, to the point where it is preventing me doing this I want to do (NOT THAT!) just jumping longer show jumping courses and working on bigger cases. So I looked up a beginners triathlon training regime. JC on a bike! Well OK me on a bike. I think I should have a go, I don't run so we will ignore that bit. Otherwise it prescribes, two swims, one bike ride and two sessions in the gym. I can only ride the horse once this week so it might even be do-able.
I can feel my brain slipping into "but if I only do one swim, one bike ride and one gym session that will still be good" - it will be good but it will be the sipperly slope to nothing again.

I'll let you know how it goes. For now I have to finish the ironing. Oh and to assist the ironing I've rented the DVD's of Weeds - how did I miss it for so long! Shoot me I am a cultural disaster!
On the upside I get to watch it all now.

And so far I love Greek, - got to finish the ironing before episode 2 at 8 on BBC 3.

Laters babes!

Holiday Weekend

Well it was a long weekend and we were set to go and do healthy outdoorsy things, cue torrential rain and really strong winds. So we ditched the proposed canoeeing and tandem riding and contented ourselves with a very soggy walk around the Forest of Dean instead. The good thing about wet soggy walks is that you can use them to justify to yourself eating steak and kidney pudding ( yes PUDDING with SUET CRUST) in the pub at lunch time. I have in point of fact eaten loads of crap this weekend and drunk heaps and managed to come home 2lbs lighter - hurrah.

We did manage tp get home, but very very slowly due to huge amounts of water and traffic, only to find the electricity had gone off over the weekend so the burglar alarm was driving the neighbours mental and the freezer had defrosted..there is always payback.

Sister's can of course be guaranteed to ruin any moment. Particularly if they are ( is in this case) the local detox nurse. As we drove over the hills and looked at yet another stunning view, she calmly informed us that; "Ketamine is really big around here, we think they've got a supplier in the ********( name of institution with held for legal reasons) , it reduces you to a vegatitive state you know, why would anyone want to do that?". Although it would be one way to deal with the rain, personally I'll stick to steak and kidney pudding and bottles of red wine.

Yoga ...OMG

And the next commandment is this....you shall not skip yoga class from February until May and expect your hamstrings to be more than 1/2 and inch long!

Ow ow and ow! Did my first yoga class for almost 3 months yesterday, and due to sporadic yoga practice and much horseriding my hamstrings are now a stretch free zone. God have I got some work to do if I don't want to be asking someone else to paint my toe nails sooner rather than later. Crap!

Off to middle sister's for the weekend (the nurse) and she has big plans apparently - including a spot of caneoing on the Wye. Cross your fingers for good weather as she will press on regardless!

Will be lovely to see her though.

Cross-Country

We did great! OK we got around without the horse falling over or me falling off, but we were slow, so slow in fact we might reasonably have been called ponderous. But never mind. Both in one bit and all the fences also in one bit ...hurrah.

And in another bit of horse news I passed the riding element of my NVQ level 1 in horse care this morning so I can ride to the requried standard - also hurrah.

But enough horses. The TB and the AB now want to take up scuba diving so I'm off tonight to find out when the next PADI course is at the pool cross the road. I could fancy it, in fact you know, I could fancy myself as a bit of a female Indiana Jones - bit of horse riding, bit of sailing, bit of scuba diving!! But no snakes...............I really really hate snakes!:)

The Horse

I have a horse on loan..which is a bit like burning five pound notes but more fun, mostly, and a lot more messy ...and smelly....and...oh well anyway.

Last week we won the local Riding Club dressage competition - which had become a bit of a mission after this comment from the AB the day before;

"there is still time to pull out of the dressage competition Mum, I mean, you don't know the test very well and you don't want to look like a muppet!"

Needless to say the large red rosette saying "1st" is now stuck in the MIDDLE of the kitchen notice board.

So tomorrow - I am going to attempt to ride around a cross country course for the fist time in ten years. If there is an illegilble post from an intensive care unit on dodgy hospital wi-fi on Monday you will know that the attempt went horribly wrong. I shall endeavour to fall on my arse and not my head but we shall see!

Amazing Weather

I live in what is , statistically, the driest county in England. But the weather at the moment, even taking that into account, is fabulous.

There hasn't been a cloud in the sky all week. And althuogh the BBC has informed me that the temparature has been a sensible 22C the thermometer in my front porch says 26C in the shade!
And according to the forecast it will stay like this until Friday - fabulous!

No excuse for eating anything but salad and for not taking plenty of healthy exercise.

The business is still going through an unsteady patch - work is coming in. But I got bullied into writing off a bill (I had done nothing wrong) because things had gone badly for the client and they wanted me to "share the pain". They send me a lot of work (all the 5 new jobs in the past two weeks have come from them - potentially around £6k of work) , but the bill was £900 that I can't really afford to give up. So? I gave up. What a complete wimp.

But, to be fair the mortgage and school fees are paid, there is glass in the windows, food in everyone's belly and clothes on thier backs - so in the scheme of the world we are fortunate indeed.

Sit. Report

The not blogging actually didn't mean that I still had no work, had gone bankrupt and slit my wrists.

It did reflect the fact that I got food poisining at a business dinner and felt like I'd been poisoned for a week - also lost 5lbs so it's an ill wind that blows no good.

So yes , I have work, hurrah. And a few people may even pay me shortly, even more hurrah. It would be helpful if they stumped up some cash as I have to pay the VAT man at the end of the month.

The weather is just stunning - so the pre-work dog walking is not the chore that it was in sub-zero biting east winds back in January. I'm contemplating working in the garden. The wi-fi stretches that far, it would mean installing a couple more programmes on the lap top and the lap top is no where near as nice a machine to work on where there are big documents. So I'm thinking about it - lunch and coffee breaks in the garden is pretty good!

We had a very lazy holiday weekend - just enjoying the lifestyle really, go to the market, buy nice food, come home and cook it and eat outside. Go for a walk by the river at the back of the house or go across the road for a swim....what's not to love. Oddly no one is particularly fussed about going away on holiday this year.

Still nothing!

I admit it - I am panicking now. Still nothing!

It's not that one week of no work is an issue, it's the fear that it will turn into lots of weeks of no work. Which I can't afford. Added to which a client is going bankrupt on me. Which means i will lose out to the tune of about £5k. I realise that hearing I've got a financial issue is a lot like hearing that Kate Moss has put on 3lbs, but I don't have £5k to spare in the first year of trading on my own account. And yes I do have some savings but £5k will be missed. Hey ho.

And an admission - it's Tuesday afternoon and I haven't been to the gym yet! - I have been to the stables, for the whole of yesterday morning and this morning and mucking out and riding is good exercise. And the dog has been walked for an hour each day ..and I've done yoga for an hour each day and yes.................I'm making excuses!!!

The Profitable Use of Downtime

OK it's day one of "no work week" and so far, walked the dog for an hour, and done horse stuff for the rest of the morning.



A normal person would do housework or laundry now - but was so panicked at the thought of a work free week that I did all of that yesterday. And I cooked a huge piece of pork for supper last night and so have a request for cold cuts and mash tonight. Hardly time consuming.

I admit it, I am completely freaked by having nothing to do. My littlest sister has suggested "yoga and meditation" and everyone else I know has just laughed.

Oh well, peel the spuds for mash I suppose and then go to the gym !

Hopefully the devil will find some work for these idle hands!

For the first time since I became self employed last July I am facing a "real freelancer week". In other words I have no work. Added to that, everything is up to date, from the filing to the accounts to the archiveing. Even the monthly client newsletter has been written and sent out. I literally have nothing to do.

Hopefully the lull won't last for too long, there is stuff allegedly "in the pipeline" and a couple of ongoing cases where nothing is happening just at the minute. I am finally doing what I should have done last August and signing myself up for every business women's networking lunch and chamber of commerce breakfast in this county and the three neighbouring ones!

It's my own fault I should have hit the marketing pedal a lot harder last summer - back then I was happily engaged in ongoing cases (which have since settled successfully for everyone) or writing for training providers (who have since hit financial worries of their own and stopped employing freelancers).

So - what to do this week. The plan is to go to the gym every day. Ride on as many days as I can scrounge a horse to ride ( so far 3) and do some yoga. The ironing is all done, the house is spotless ... ......I've even baked bread this afternoon.

Help!

Brain wired up wrong!

I was obviously very bored last week, as I got onto a train of thought along the lines of "who would I fancy if I was a bloke or a lesbian?"

Well my male side/lesbian alter ego, clearly goes for forthright women with big gobs. And I clearly am incapable of going for anyone under 35 , because my list went;

Amanda Redman

Catherine Tate Nigella Lawson

Strangley the people my alter ago would go for, don't co-incide with my dream donor for the complete head and body transplant (ie who I would love to look like) who would be Kate Hudson. Well you would wouldn't you? Look like her if you had the chance?

Stuff in the News

Well dears, the weather is still dreadful. It rained, hailed and snowed here yesterday, I wish it would make it's mind up and do one thing well!

But, all the same, much has happened since my last blog entry.

The McCartney divorce and all the hoopla that surrounded it for instance. I didn't really give a monkeys about the McCartney's themselves but some of the surrounding press comment was just .......just..... infuriating! In particular, after Fiona Shakleton's soaking there was an opnion piece in the Times, by a bunch of women wishing they too had soaked their ex-husband's divorce lawyer. Why? Because the female divorce lawyer was apparently "stroking my husband's ego after everything he had put me through." After I had finished screaming "Oh FUCKING GROW UP" at the newspaper, I realised two things;

1. I hadn't been halucinating when I heard my MALE DIVORCE LAWYER colleagues telling their FEMALE clients that "wow, you look really fabulous today" , "how are you , you're looking a little pale, things getting to you?" "That hair cut is wonderful!" - no ego stroking at all going on there then????

2. That the person they really wanted to throw water on was the husband's mistress - but that would have been assault. The lawyer can only laugh and prentend it means nothing.

I do remember why I gave up the laughingly labelled "Family Law" once I was allowed to when I qualified. Despite all appearences that the press would like to give to the contrary, it isn't very lucrative (bit of a girly ghetto, the big fees are in commercial work darling). And also it's very very dull. All splitting up couples say pretty much the same thing about each other, he says "she's never worked a day in her life she isn't getting a penny out of me the lazy cow!" and she says "he made me give up work he's ruined my life".

And truthfully, I got fed up of being a punch bag, and did memorably one day utter the unforgiveable line "well sorry darling, I don't care how much of a shit he/she is I didn't make you fricken marry him so res ipsa, not my fault!"

Spring Break!

My parents are coming to stay for 3 weeks.

The AB is nicking off to France on a school trip for 10 days of this.

The TB is stressed at the mere thought of it so there may be a divorce - alternativley there may be a lot of long walks.

There will almost certainly be a blogging hiatus!

Libel

The thorny topic of libel is once again hovering like a dark cloud over the blogsphere.

What is it? How does it happen? And how likely is it that one day someone will sue you for something that you say in a blog?

What follows is a short introduction to the concept and is in no way intended as a subsitute for proper legal advice from your own lawyer.

Libel is a written statement that is defamatory. The publication of a libelous statement entitles the person who has been libelled to damages without having to prove that they have suffered any actual financial loss as a result of the libel. This is different from slander, or spoken defamation which (other than a few specific cases such as impuing someone's professional reputation or the chastity of a woman) requires a real financial loss to have occured before the right to damages arises.


So what's defamatory? "A statement intended to lower the stading of a person, or persons in the sight of right thinking people."

And which statement amounts to more than "vulgar abuse"

So "Lippy is a fat cow" is not defamatory it is mere vulgar abuse.
"Lippy is a crap lawyer and I wouldn't trust her as far as I could spit" is a libellous statement and actionable.

Let's get a grip on reality here - libel cases are prohibitivley expensive. £85,000 for costs to trial is not a top end quote. It is to put no fine a point on it, a rich man's hobby. And there is no legal aid available for cases to be taken in either libel or slander and frankly quite right too. If that became a bottomless pit of public money for defamation lawyers I'd be first at the front of the queue to protest against it.

Libel damages are ridiculsously high in comparison to personal injury damages for one reason - personal injury cases are heard by a judge alone, and he works from a price list for the damage caused - e.g. broken arm - £2000.

Libel cases are the only remaining civil cases which are heard by a jury - and the jury also sets the level of damages. So they tend to be more "american" than is common in the rest of the UK jurisdiction - think up your own examples of people in the public eye who have been given far too much money for being referred to as a too specific type of twat.

In conclusion - if you slag off your ex in a blog can he sue you for libel. Yes. Is he likely to sue you for libel? Unless he is a bored millionaire with a chip on his shoulder who wants, for reasons of his own to put you in the bankruptcy court - No.

Working Day

My morning walk is normally very beautiful, as you can see, it was lovely this morning just pouring with rain - freezing cold and sideways!

But it is part of the utter luxury of homeworking - that the day goes;

8am - School Run and dog walking.

9am - At desk starting work.

3.30pm - Finish work and go to the Gym

I want toys too!

At my sister's party on Saturday her friend was complaining about her homeworking husband. It seemed most unfair to me but the essence of her complaint seemed to be that he wandered around the house, doing the house work whilst doing mega deals on a blue tooth headset!

He makes money and makes the bed! - how cool is that guy, I mean really! He also cooks.

His wife has clearly twigged that the whole female population would like one of those and has moved him out of London and away into the wilds quick smartish.

What I really want however is a blue tooth headset for the office phone and Outlook for the lap top so that I can work in the garden in the summer as I'm pretty sure the wi-fi hub goes that far. Watch this space for further improvements to this girl's life of Riley.

And woot - I have new clients....

Bless My Cotton Socks I'm in the News

Along with the rest of the free world I'm glued to Ashes to Ashes. I know it's not as good as Life on Mars, but I didn't actually watch life on Mars because I find John Sim hugely irritating - not his fault, just his face.

But back to Ashes, I'm as sure as I can be that I didn't spend 1981 wandering around with one bra strap hanging out. And cowboy boots...........wasn't it pixie boots? I distinctly remember many pairs of suede pixie boots being in evidence. And yes to skinny jeans, but no to the leather jacket -it was all fake fur round our way, but maybe that was because it was Scotland and the coldest winter on record even the toilet froze up that year. But sadly the dodgy eyeshadow is spot on.

In 1981 my very rich flat mate drove one of these babies, a black Golf Gti, which we all thought was the coolest form of transportation known to man.

I've just been to a marvelous party!

Honestly - what an old bag! So full of flu self pity I forgot to tell you about the parentals Golden Wedding Anniversary party.

It was fabulous. We knew it had begun well when mother phoned the night before; "Sorry darling, can't really talk, 15 of us are going out to dinner!"

We had arranged a lunch party for 50 people at a really nice country house hotel that a friend of ours owns in Shropshire. He did a stunning job, because we had chosen a Friday we had the place to ourselves, with lots of champagne and lovely food. The top table comprised the original top table from 50 years ago, only my uncle ( who was Dad's best man) was missing, poor love died four years ago. But his wife was there and one of the bridesmaids had made the trip from Western Australia.

We had an outstanding "house band" for the day - we couldn't have afforded them normally, but because the sax player is our friend's , husband's brother (yes I know it gets complicated) we got West End jazz musicians at mate rate. They played anything anyone wanted without missing a beat - and get special bonus points for the "South Pacific Medley", South Pacific being the film Dad took Mum to on their first date...sweet!

The Speech wot I wrote went OK.

And the handmade chocolate truffles (made by my cousin with the chocolate factory and normally sold at Fortnum and Mason) went down even better.

Everybody seemed to have a blast - the adults could talk all night (and did) and the kids could run around the garden and climb trees with all the cousins they only see from time to time.

And sis and me were quietly chuffed that we'd organised something that went so well.

THANK YOU NOBODY GIRL

Big thank you NG - I now have a room for next week at the Fox. It sounds divine, and I'll let you know how it works out.

Sorry for the very public thanks but I can't get your email to work or read your blog so this is the best I could do.

Ta a million once again for being such a sweetheart

L xx

Fluey Thursday

Still got flu, if it doesn't miraculously dissapear by tomorrow I am going to miss;

1. TB's work's party - they work on shifts all through Christmas so have a late, late do now. And because it's so late and no one is bored of parties it's usually good fun.

2. My sister's party on Sat, she's 40 but because she is a leap year baby, it's only her 10th REAL birthday - so it has to be a BIG deal.

The dog is sulking at me because he hasn't had a walk in two days (he normally gets a couple of miles a morning between school drop off and starting work, it's such a nice start to the day) and the horse is sulking on radar ( and via the AB) because she is being ridden by someone who makes her do as she is told and doesn't give out undeserved polo mints.

And this flu virus is horrible - its as if it finds every weak spot and every sore joint and aching muscle you've ever had in your life, it gets into them and makes them throb all at once. VILE.

The World is Against ME!

Honestly it is, let's review the evidence;

1, I have the flu, proper boiling hot to freezing cold with bone breaking aches flu - even the Doc says it's flu!

2. I still don't have a VAT number 6 months after applying for one - what is the Revenue playing at? Am terrified this will in some way turn out to be MY FAULT and cost money!!

3. The Hoxton has declined to extend my corporate account because I only stay there 2 days/month - bastards! And after I stayed LOADS when they were starting out. Can't even find me a room for next Wednesday night. This feels a lot like one of your mates who you really like turning round and saying "I don't want to be your friend any more" - very playground and five years old and it still stings!

4. Work still slow. Good job at moment - see point 1.

Nothing to tell...

There is nothing interesting to tell just know. Same old, same old. Losing weight is a long, slow process - I've lost 6lbs in the same time everyone else has lost a stone and a half, and boy is it disheartening.

Family party tomorrow - speech to give, may yet throw up and interesting and well written blog post...stranger things have happened.

Clean Living

It's true, I lead a blameless life in the country. I ride my horse, walk my dog and do my work. My house is very clean and shiny and so am I. I don't smoke, I don't do drugs and as of Ash Wednesday I DON'T DRINK..............this is true, in a shocking development chez Lippy I have given up the booze for Lent.

Now to get my kicks I either have to jump over very high fences or go to the gym and knacker myself out, or have sex with the TB of course, (haven't given that up for Lent.)

Talking of high fences, a horse at the point to point, threw it's rider, left the rest of the field and promptly jumped over a huge fence and on to the road. It broke it's leg on impact, the hobbled three legged to the forecourt of the petrol station. When it arrived it shook off the shattered broken half of it's foreleg leaving a bleeding stump. Fortunatley the vet arrived at that point and shot it, creating much trauma amongst the assembled townies topping up their cars for a nice drive out in the country. And the moral of this story...the person who told you that horses have an inate sense of self preservation was lying. People do, horses don't.

Anyway - the point of this post was to say that after Easter I am clearly going to head down to the Smoke, install myself in the nearest divey bar and make up for lost time. I just need to assemble a few co-conspirators for the occasion.

Hard Lesson

I know I spend to much time on the gossip pages, but don't deny a girl simple pleasures. Anyway, whilst perusing the same, I see that Lily Allen's boyfriend one Ed Simons has now dumped her.

But then, Lily love, if he's 38 , not married and still looking to date 22 year old girls, then chances are he has the emotional range of a concrete slab and if you opened him up the words " I am a selfish cunt" would be running through his middle like "Blackpool" through a stick of rock.

Take your cue from brother Alfie who wants to smack Ed in the head, go for someone younger who will think you are amazing and have this bizarre disire to "take care of you." - it takes a bit of getting used to I'll admit but it's fun.

Families

Families, the TB's and mine, still cause endless rows, hilarity and our most rock solid "it's them or us" moments.

The TB's old man liked a drink, so much so that his liver packed in and he died aged 62.
So I do get a bit nervous when the old "corporate entertaining" round takes the TB out on the beer once to often;

me : "Don't drink too much beer will you. You can't take it."

(Now that was a red rag to a bull)

him: "Whaddya mean I can't take it"

me : "Well, (trying to backpedal and failing) it's a bit of a weakness in your genetic makeup"

him :"Still don't know whadya saying"

me : "Well, you know, your Dad, drink, bit of a problem"

him : "My Dad wasn't an alcoholic, he just liked the taste"

The TB's birthday

This year it's 20 years since the TB and me went on our first date...everyone say ahhh. And we went to Brown's restaurant in Cambridge for his 23rd birthday. Indeeed, he was but a boy when he got saddled with me the poor dear.

Anyway, co-incidentally having moved house we are now only about 20 miles from Cambridge and so I was thinking that I'd take him back there again.... only this time with an overnight stay at the rather fabulous Hotel Du Vin just up the road.

His usual complaint about being taken anywhere posh is that, "yes but if it's £200 a night I just won't enjoy it!" but now, I can pay it without him ever knowing because I can pay it with the corporate check and refund the business out of drawings. ...and I think I just shouldn't tell him.

It's a bit an expensive time for celebrations though, it's my parents golden wedding party next month ( which their kids are paying for obviously) lunch for 60 at a really nice country hotel, we fixed a fairly tight wine budget and anything over they can pay for themselves! - you know how these pensioners can drink. And the week after my sister's 40th....

So better do some work quick to pay for it all.

Sectioning Amy

Apparently Amy Winehouse's Dad has asked that she is compulsorily admitted to hospital under the mental health act because she is clearly "a danger to herself"

Unfortunatley for Dad Winehouse - in order to be "sectioned" you not only have to be a danger to yourself or to other people you also have to be suffering from a recognised mental illness. And poor old Amy is bad not mad.

Years ago I acted for a lady whose alcoholic husband would regularly drive his car through her front room window when pissed out of his mind. He was clearly a danger to loads of people. but as with Miss Winehouse bad and not mad, so all the police could do was arrest him every time and throw him into a cell to sober up.

There isn't any law - apart from affray and posession of narcotics that works in this situation. Should there be - should you be able to lock up a drunk or a drug addict just for being a drunk or a drug addict ?

I don't think so actually.

Mediation

The current thinking is that disputes should be resolved where possible by mediation rather than a court hearing. The process itself is a bit of shuttle diplomacy - parties in the same building, often in different rooms, but meeting up from time to time to air their views and a mediator being the UN and shuttling between the parties.

Even when it doesn't get all that far it's very revealing as to the parties motives and preconceptions. In one case that I had a while ago the other side clearly thought our chap had a porsche and a boat where in fact he has a push bike and a rubber band collection.....

If nothing else it's illustrative of the elusive nature of "truth" because all the time what someone else believes to be true is not what I beleive to be true, and we are only telling each other half truths anyway.

Poor girl

Oh poor Lily Allen, you think you are "safe" to tell people at 16 weeks, you really do and then..........as I recall it you are in the ultrasound suite, lots of excited couples having been pushed out of the way and the conversation goes like this

*long pause*

"I'm really sorry Mrs L, I can't find a heartbeat"

and you can't think of one single thing to say back except "it's all right" and it isn't.

And you then have this dreadful procedure to remove what they call "retained products of conception"...............yeah.

And it's really difficult when you have been together a few years - but in a beginning relationship I can't imagine how alone she must feel. Poor poor kid.

Crap day - no sunshine

It's one of those days when my only conversations have been along the line of;

"it's in the contract"

"haven't you read the manual"

"whoever did those land registry searches (me of course) is hopelessly incompetent."


and it's raining and I'm getting a migraine from looking at a computer screen so much and I'm going to have to pay someone else's costs of around £1000 - shit.

Stamina or lack thereof

Endurance exercise or endurance training consists of performing low- to medium-intensity exercise for long periods of time. E.g., jogging or running several miles to hundreds of miles; cycling dozens of miles to thousands of miles; swimming hundreds of yards or meters to dozens of miles or km.
Physical endurance is differentiated from other forms of physical stress in that in endurance exercise fatigue of the muscles and cardiovascular system do not force the effort to end. The need for sleep, the buildup of non-recyclable waste chemicals, the depletion of convertible energy stores and other needed chemicals (e.g., water, sodium), physical injury, psychological failure, or attainment of the goal will bring the effort to an end.

So says Wikipedia - but look at me, two hearings in a week, three days of working full on until 10 o'clock at night and I'm so knackered that I can't remember my own name, let alone everyone elses. Maybe if I could swim a mile I could work harder and more consistently without falling to bits - another suggestion is that I should just go to sleep for a bit.

Kingdom

Oh heavens, I hear you cry, not more inane whittering about Stephen Fry. But we have to talk about Kingdom gentle readers, for you are not going to find a more intelligent, learned and kindly East Anglian solicitor outside the pages of this blog.

Although I must say his case load is very boring, and on the fees he is earning from advising the WI on buying a light house he isn't going to be able to afford to run a Bentley convertable for very much longer now is he?

But it is mental cocoa for a Sunday night and it does speed along the ironing in a helpful manner - for which , Mr Kingdom, I thank you. I am however hopeful that now your wicked, swindling brother has returned from the dead things might get a lot more interesting. And I'm also hoping that , in the interests of artistic verisimilitude naturally - that given the swindling brothers antics your practice is subject to the intervention of the Law Society and that darling Simon is struck off the register!

Old Vic Panto

I went with the fam to the matinee performance of the Old Vic's rendition of "Cinderella" yesterday.......and our reaction to this latest incarnation of the genuis that is Stephen Fry was a hearty, "hmmmmm".

Whilst I was delighted that the obvious love between Buttons and Dandini finally dared to speak it's name, the rest of the show couldn't decide whether it was a kid's panto, post modern ironic adult pastiche of a kids panto, an old style bawdy panto, or a highly intellingent panto for an audience of regular theatre goers - so in the end it was a bit of all those things and not really a good enough version of any of them.

Sandi Tosveig playing Stephen Fry (well, the narrator was clearly the man in himself) made a passable drag king - but was at her best and funniest when adlibbing her own lines. Pauline Collins I loved as the fairy godmother but no one else did. And what was the cake fetish all about?

Oh well, lots of work to do and no more outings for me in the near future...ho hum.

Time Flies when you Are Having Fun!

This time of year all the magazines are full of ideas on how much better your life would be if you "just put aside an extra half an hour a day!" to do whatever it is they suggest. So I thought I'd have a bit of a tot up and see how much time a perfect life actually takes;

Half an hour to cook a nutritious meal for the family ( x 3 ) - 1 hr 30 mins
An hours exercise a day to stay healthy - 1 hr
30 minutes "me time" for those little grooming jobs (nails/eyebrows etc) - 30 mins
Ideal amount of sleep - 7 hrs
If you do an hour and a half housework every day you'll stay on top of it - 1hr 30 mins

(some of this is suggested management time for a law practice)
Chargable hours per day target - 7 hrs
Suggested budget for marketing hours per day for a new practice - 2hrs
Keeping on top of the accounts - 30 mins

That's 21 hours a day, and I haven't had a shower, or driven to the gym or eaten anything myself yet! Nor does it allow for going to the post office or the shops or saying hello to anyone!

No wonder I feel as if I am permanently behind - thank goodness I don't have to commute!

Tis the season to de-tox

De- toxing is scientifically bollocks...but there is something about January that makes you feel spotty and posinous, and it doesn't help that half the world has been stricken down with "winter vomiting virus" - how nice.

I don't even deserve to feel toxic - I've walked the dog for an hour every day and ridden the horse most, and not been to many parties and I still look red-eyed and about to expire from exhaustion! It's not right!! So more water, less caffiene and much boring being realistic, once the credit card has recovered from the sales!

I am trying to formulate a plan for the next little while to market the business. But I do find that business opportunites are rather like love affairs and don't often come along when you are looking for them!

Christmas and New Year

The TB has the flu (again!) so it was just the 3 of us for Xmas, and the most christmassy part was drinking bucks' fizz and playing Cludeo by the fire!

I managed to turn out a top hole lunch of beef wellington and lava chocolate puddings with vanilla ice cream (not together, veg with the beef wellington and chocolate pudding after!) but I am rubbish at shopping for the long hall so we now have no eggs, hardly any bread, no butter and no fruit juice until the shops open tomorrow. It has finally stopped raining so I'm off to take the dog for a walk.

But first, a review of the year - hardly any travelling apart from Naples which I didn't like much. But I met JK, saw Patrick Stewart play Prospero Bought new house, got a whole dress size less fat, became self employed and I'm doing OK. I could use more work but the income hasn't dropped so next year is better they tell me - sounds good! I'm well on the way to having the major health issues sorted and that's a good thing, and doing lots of fun regular exercise, mostly down to the flexibilty of freelancing, hurrah. Notably, made some new friends which I'm especially proud of because the general view seems to be that it's impossible once you are over 40!

Things I am going to do in 2008 ( not resolutions because I've already booked some of them!)
- have an appointment with a professional stylist to go through my wardrobe and take me shopping.
- take a motorhome on a drive from San Francisco to LA via Yosemitie National Park
- take the AB riding on Holkham Beach
- and I'd really like to start a supper club, must think of some interesting people to ask........hmmm

Ploughing through snot

I know, I know it's boring, but honestly I have had this cold since the middle of November and it is starting to drive me more than slightly mental! I am responsible for a hefty slice of the profits of both Kleenex and Lemsip and am really starting to wonder what I have to do to shake this thing off.

I'm taking vitamins that are supposed to boost the immune system, echinacea, saunas, baths with tea tree oil and lavender. Lots of hot lemon and honey drinks. And bracing walks wearing a large woolly hat.

I can't sleep it off because of the whole sore back thing - and one is making the other worse I'm certain of it.

So if anyone out there in the blogverse is keeping the magical cure to themselves- do share, please!

Christmas for the Bewildered

Bloody hell, just tried to order meat for Xmas day and the order book is closed!! - eep so got to go to Butchers this afternoon and buy it, he swears that it will still be fine on Xmas day, I hope so! - eep

Amazon has yet to turn up with the presents so we could have old meat and no pressies - disaster! So much for leaving things until the last minute, but frankly Christmas is still a week away so it doesn' t feel all that last minutey!!

Better get round Waitrose for the other stuff tomorrow then and only leave the veg for Xmas eve.

I have given up on Christmas cards completely and everyone is going to get a nice email saying I love them loads but I've spent the card budget on buying books for a slum school in Manila! I Hope they approve.

Beecham's Powders and Bolly don't really mix

It is the season of Christmas parties, so of course I have a cold and a sore back, yes still, I have partaken of every quack cure known to woman (known to this woman) but still I sniff, and the skin on my face is drying and flaking off - I look like the Mummy.

But I am made of sterner stuff, and anyway it's too painful to lie in bed, so I headed off to the West End yesterday for lunch in an awfully nice restaurant called Pattersons. The reason this isn't a restaurant review is that I drank 3 glasses of champagne on an empty stomach and I can't remember what I ate! - but it was very nice.

And , oh joy, I was sitting next to a guy works with the woman who was the class sex pot when I was at Uni, and he said without any prompting "but God, I can't beleive you were in the same class as P you look SO much younger than she does." Call me shallow but I've waited 25 years for that one - hurrah!

Then came the horrible ending to any Xmas lunch the walk east up Oxford St looking for a cab, it is truly a magical time of year as I found one before the Tottenham Court Rd , so home before 10 - and the superior muscle relaxant qualities of Bollinger meant I had my best nights sleep for weeks!

Xmas Pudding Ice Cream

As close as I get so making my own puddings! - S0 enjoy

1 small tub double cream - lightly whipped
250ml tub of best Vanilla Custard - Watirose Vanilla Custard is BRILLIANT for this
100 mg sultanas
100mg mixed peel
Slug of rum
Slug of Port
Juice of an orange
tsp of cinnamon or mixed spice

soak the fruit in the booze and orange juice and add the spice. Mix together the whipped cream and custard and then add the soaked fruit and booze. Freeze. If you can whip it as it's freezing or churn in an ice cream machine that is even better.

Fabulous on warm mince pies!! Or even better mincemeat shortbread -recipe to follow!

Stupid Back

My lower back hurts - really hurts. It hurts worst in bed at night, so bad that it wakes me up, but it's fine when I'm walking around or swimming or sitting or pretty much anything other than lying down.

This means that I am short of sleep and very very grumpy.

I have been to the chiropractor and have to go again on Saturday - there was an almighty click which she "adjusted" my lower spine and to be honest I've felt a bit sick ever since.

Perhaps I should just go out and spend £500 on a new memory foam mattress - the way I feel at the moment I would pay £500 for a good night's sleep!

I thought that I was fairly intelligent and reasonably well informed

I don't know if you watched the Tony Blair documentary last night. One thing still leaves me puzzled. He thought the war in Iraq was , I quote "morally the right thing to do".

I can understand why he thought it made economic sense - oil
I can understand why it might have been politically expedient - you don't argue with the USA
I can understand why he thought it might be in this country's best interests - ditto


But "Morally the right thing to do" - why? On what basis. Because it's not on any basis that has ever been rationally explained to me.

Lovely Weekend

Really nice weekend - although I'm starting to wonder if people come to stay with us for a bit of "regression therapy" , staying at Lippy's is a bit like being at your mum's when you were 10; you get to go swimming, take the dog for a walk, eat home made pizza and watch Robin Hood on Saturday night and get the papers and a roast dinner Sunday lunchtime. Perhaps running a country house hotel is my true calling? Who knows, it's a bit late now anyway!

In other news the parish magazine carries an announcement about the new "dog waste dispenser " on the village green......they actually mean a dispenser for poop scooping plastic bags, at least I think so. Meantime my own personal dog waste dispenser is asleep under the desk.