Voodo

Over the last couple of days the work has arrived - and it's all very weird , very convoluted and not conducive to the use of standard paragraphs Tick! In fact my brain hurts quite a lot.

I have been through all my horse pics and she doesn't look suitably beautiful in any of them so I will take some more tomorrow and see if they work out any better.

Meanwhile I have been dipping my toe in alternative medicene and so far , much to my surprise, it works! I have had two sessions of accupuncture and it's as if someone has turned the pain switch off. I am I admit, amazed and very relaxed and sleeping really well. The needles do hurt and when they are in place they feel hot. So whilst I am not exactly looking forward to next week's sessions the results are enough to make me keep trying. And as conventional medicene can't do anything to help - it has tried its best bless its heart but its no good. Why not? Part of the plan is one session of massage and hypnotherapy - I'm not entirely sure how a control freak like me is going to cope with that but we will see!

Today

Had the BEST just the BEST horse ride for ages this afternoon. It helped that it was a lovely crisp sunny afternoon and it helped that the horse was not in a mood. But it wasn't anything fun like a hack, or show jumping or even hunting, ..........................it was dressage training. This is the "doing very hard sums" of the horse world. And it went like an absolute dream. Rode without stirrups for the first half hour to get my seat right and then rode long, and actually managed to think up a decent schooling sequence. M y friend who was watching and offering "helpful" (*ahem*) comments said at one point, "that's just amazing you look like a German dressage rider!" hurrah the holy grail achieved.

And I've made bread again today - getting better, my loaves are now getting "high" as well as "wide". And I baked a cake, it's an almond cake with clementines where the clementines have to be boiled for two hours - I admit I forgot them, killed a saucepan and filled the house with smoke but they were resucable and the cake is lush!

And yesterday went to the gym for the first time this year - it was dreadful and I'm trying not to think about it but I'll go back tomorrow.

You will gather from all this that I have absolutely bugger all work........well OK not none. But I have taken the decision not to worry about it. What's the point.

Before I forget , did you watch Barack's inauguration? I loved it all, I liked Michelle's frock, Aretha's hat, the "Washington crossing the Deleware" quote and I didn't cry until Beyonce sang "At last". This morning I looked at my "to do list" complete with all the difficult dog end type clients and thought - hell Barack's is roughly my age, he's a lawyer to and his list is a damn site worse than mine is so stop whining and get on with it !

Being Freelance

Being Freelance is easy when you are busy,honest you just start work and go. Running round all day on a little rat run between the computer the kettle and the loo ! There are lots of people to talk to on the phone, meetings and court hearings to go to, no problem.



Quiet patches (with the benefit of 18 months experience) are MUCH MUCH harder. You have to be "out there" chasing the work, but out where? Marketing is an art not a science and if you are too much in someone's face then you may lose work that you would otherwise have got down the line.



Do you go out? What if the phone rings and it's a job? Do you take on time expensive but relatively lower paying stuff to fill in the time? I've taken on four days teaching for March which is great but I know I will be busy in March, I can just tell!!



I am crummy - I tend to stretch little bits of work to fill in stupid amounts of time because I hate the feeling of being "finished" and having nothing at all to do.


So today I am not going to spend 4 hours playing "Free Tetris" and waiting for the phone to ring - today I shall bake bread, finish the ironing, read the pile of legal journals on my desk and do my nails - all before the telephone hearing I have at half past three!

*update it's now five past two and I've done the bread, the ironing, read the journals and walked the dog. Going to do hearing then go for a swim. Still waiting for all the people who need to send me stuff so I can get on with the next stage of my work to send it though!

My brain has gone awol again.

As an "end of the holidays treat" I took the AB and her friend to the cinema to see Twilight , it's all the go with the tweens, a vampire love story type thingy. The film is very slow and very dull but the Washington State scenery is amazing and the house the vampire family live in is amazing. One of those modern glass and wood structures, all clean sweeping lines.

And it started me thinking that your activities would be restricted if you lived in a house like that. Not no sex on the sofa, because the neighbours could see in ! - it's in the middle of the woods. No, becuase certain activities just would feel wrong , you couldn't sit in that perfect modernist sitting room in your jammies, watching cartoons and eating baked beans out of a tin. It would just be wrong on a cosmic level. In fact I'm not convinced that the house would permit tv watching at all, it would prefer you to read books and listen to Debussy! If you tried to cook a burger in the open plan , stainless steel kitchen the fridge would open up and consume you in anger. Burcher muesli would be the only permitted breakfast cereal. Beautiful to look at but having a house that you had to live up to would be hard work.

2009

I've been "writing" ( I use the term writing in it's loosest possible sense of course!) this blog for over 2 years now so I'm able to look back on my new year resolutions for 2007 & 2008 and go me I've acheived a couple of the things that I wanted to do in each of those years. Noteably I've failed on the travel plans - due to lack of money and giant school fees, but hey, what can you do!

Most pleasingly (and despite slippage!) I'm a whole 12lbs lighter and a dress size smaller than I was this time last year. And I managed to keep my little new business on the road despite a couple of non-payment by clients disasters and I at this point I owe no one anything. On the horse front I acheived my NVQ1 in horse care, competed for the first time in 20 years or so (OK not to any standard but a rosette is a rosette) and only fell off once! My gym attendance was sporadic but I walked for 40 minutes every day.

So rather than resolve I'm going to make some wishes for 2009. I wish that in 2009 life will be;

- more sociable. Some more parties and some more laughs would be lovely.
- turn up a NBF ( New Best Friend - or at least one who doesn't live miles and miles away!)
- prosperous ( probably a slightly demented wish in a recession but I can wish!)
- fit and healthy!
- feature me being a steady size 12 (not a vascilating 12-14!)
- involve travel! (although I concede that will depend upon the prosperous bit)

And I wish for all my kind and forbearing readers everything you would wish for yourselves!

Happy 2009!

Excellent.

It's Christmas, and therefore everyone has flu, or variations thereon, some involving continuous sneezing and others involving vomiting. This makes for an interesting and somewhat challenging combination of nursing requirements.

When I say everyone, I mean of course everyone but me. By the law of Christmas mothers are immune from illness until Boxing Day only after I've cooked the ham, the goose, the trifle and the chocolate log will my immune system succumb. And on Boxing Day afternoon (with the fridge stuffed with enough cold food to last a week) I shall inevitably stricken by a combination virus which includes both vomiting and sneezing ( hopefully not both at the same time!).

Until then I'm enjoying solo nights on the sofa, eating Quality Street in front of the fire and watching repeats of "Love Actually", I've just realised in fact that I had never seen it all the way through, uninterrupted, until this evening....excellent.

But don't forget Christmas isn't about religion - it's much more important than that (which is why all this avoiding it to not offend other religions is such nonsense) it's very lack of religion is made clear by the alacrity with which all faiths join in, turkey, silly hats and all. Christmas is about the human spirit, the hope in the depth of winter that the sun will come again and the earth will be warm. Which took a bit of beleiving when you were in a cold cave I bet. So to "SOL INVICTUS" the invincible sun and to you all Happy Christmas .

London

Just back from the smoke with an only mild hangover!

Manged to ;

• Get lost on the way out of the Xmas lunch venue, so totally failed to go with everyone else to pub on Kings Road, ended up on Wandsworth Bridge and had to jump in a cab back to the hotel (thank goodness for black cabs!)
• Now stayed in fave hotel so often that I'm getting free drinks off the manager - may be a bad sign. He is a nice bloke though bless him.
• Got to 8am breakfast meeting even with lunch hangover.
• Have 3 new instructions today - do they not know it's nearly Christmas! Great to have the work but clients need to work on their timing.

Have shamelessly stolen good line from teen movie that I know old mate won't see and told him his mood swings give me whiplash! It's true but I fear it may have something to do with his current cocaine content!

All Clear!

So now I feel stupid . Cancer scare was just that , a scare. My biopsy has come back clear and very fast (thank you BUPA). I have to go back in 6 weeks to double check but really it's just paranoia,

On the upside, I now have sufficient life insurance! Weird that was all I was worried about , leaving the family in a mess with not enough money.

Have v little work today so I ought to do it all quick, then go to the gym. Whether I do or not is a different matter.

Bruised!

Ah yes, the Riding Club Chritmas Indoor Showumping - what a complete disaster that was!

The AB was off ski-ing that evening and I was in two minds as to whether or not I really had time to go and compete in the afternoon. My dear horse clearly picked up the vibe and thought "well Lippy if you can't be arsed neither can I" and chucked me on the floor at the second fence.

In front of all my mates and all the AB's mates. I should have got back on and made her jump the course - but to be honest, I was completely winded, my head was ringing, I felt sick and more to the point I didn't trust the old cow not to chuck me on the floor again.

I did go round the course at the end - on someone else's very sweet and well behaved pony.

Time for a re-think when the loan agreement comes up for review in the New Year I think! - one credit crunch side effect, lots of horses up for share or loan with financial terms being very "negotiable"!

The Jumbo Jet

Time was that if you owed a sufficiently large sum of money, your creditor could obtain a judgement against you in the High Court, he could then obtain a writ of feria fericas and instruct the Sherrif's officers of the relevant Balliwick to levy execution against your belongings. (in other words come around your house and take your stuff).

And so it came to pass, in the year of our lord 1992, that an African National Airline, had conspicuously failed to pay for their aircraft fuel and owed Shell at Manchester Airport a suitably large amount of dosh.

At that time, there was an articled clerk (me) working in the office of the Under Sherrif of Cheshire, within whose Balliwick Manchester Airport fell. And so armed with our sealed writ, one Wednesday morning the Under Sherrif and me headed off to Manchester Airport. Where we were met by the head of airport security and chauffered down the run way in one of those little brown cars with the orange light on top and the siren (always wanted to do that!). When we got to the plane, we stuck a sealed writ on the door, while the airport mechanic took the battery out of the engine. We went up to the cockpit - where the amount of loose wiring hanging down everywhere was scary - and stuck another writ on the dashboard (is that what you call it?) . And then we all went home.

Boss had a much more interesting time later when I was back at law school - evicting Swampy and his mates during the Manchester 2nd runway protest.

I am a Writer ! (well, maybe not!)

Today has a definate writing theme as on the to do list it says;

* write legal column for this months "Living in Bumpkinshire Magazine"

* write firms monthly client newsletter

This is rich Lippy I hear you say - you cannot spell and your grammar is atrocious! Yes I know Darlings, I have editors. And the aforementioned editors cannot complain as it is all done for love and no pay.......well for free advertising and PR and no pay at any rate. So you will appreciate that it is with no small degree of jealousy that I note Colleen Rooney (nee McLoughlin) is being paid £47,000 a week (!) for churning out 500 words for OK magazine! That's nearly £100 a word! At that rate this blog post is worth almost a grand.. What do you think , is this drivel worth that kind of money?..maybe if I just stuck in a few pictures of me and the toy boy? Although the Toy Boy bears less resemblence to Shrek and is more a taller, Brummie , Ray Winstone! No? You don't think the family outing to Hunstanton would cut it in the same way as the Rooneys honeymoon in Vegas? Damn.

But seriously, can "celebs" continue to be recession proof? The poor souls still toiling away in my old law firm have just taken a 15% pay cut which wipes out their last 5 years pay rises in one go! My work has stayed pretty steady I have to say - which as I am a new start up business I'm very pleased with. But so many people are struggling it's just awful. Even the liquidators aren't making any money because all the firms and people going bust have no assets ( liquidators get paid out of what they raise from the assets and book debts of the company for themselves and the creditors).

I keep telling myself that I've lived through two recessions already and the fortunes of me always seem to be curiously out of synch with the economy as a whole. While everyone else was a "yuppie" I was poor and desparate. In the early 90's recession my life picked up and I had a good job. During which good job I must admit I spent a lot of time reposessing other people's houses. Have I ever told you about the day I reposessed a jumbo jet on the runway at Manchester Airport?

I knew I'd be embarassed by that last post - so hey - lets all pretend it's not happening! OK?

The Messiah in St Paul's last week was lovely but honestly, Handel doesn't really do it for me. That makes me a Phillistine I know, but there it is, too much trilling and not enough tune for my taste. Beautiful cathedral, very hard chairs, but of a draft up your back.

My meeting in London for this Thursday has been cancelled so an extra day! - I actually took it today if I'm honest. I've done no work at all, went riding this morning and then out for a very long lunch...shameful self employed behaviour.

I do need to work tomorrow and variously sort my life out. And I will.

Oh shit!

I really really don't want this to turn into an "ailments" blog. You know the kind of thing, bravery in the face of invasive medical procedures. I admit I do moan from time to time about what's up with me - but that's I hope, a reality check in what would otherwise look like a charmed life.

But today life sent me a bit of a curve ball - an unrelated bit of my anatomy is playing up and in the next week or so ( basically as soon as they can sort out the appointment) I have to go for tests to see if I have cancer. I probably haven't and I will in all probability regret this post as a bit of over dramatic self pitying rubbish. I contemplated not making it on that basis. Particularly as I don't pretend for one minute that this blog gives full and frank discolsure of everything that's going on in my life..........it doesn't, I'm too much of a wimp for that.

I am pissed off though - with everything else I feel I have gone through my legitimate share of medical "poking in prodding", it's not fair!!! Lifes not fair Lippy get the fuck over it!!!

However, I need to frame this fear in words. My immediate family know but I can't exactly ring my friends going "Hi how are you? I might have cancer." So I'm imposing my fear on you instead. Sorry and all that. When it turns out to be absolutely nothing then you can share my embarassment.

Love

L xx

Sugar Rush!

Update on annoying case - client took my advice. Admittedly only after I told him he was running his commercial dispute like a divorce case, ie too much emotion and not enough looking at the bottom line! Which was a bit of a harsh thing to say, even for me. But.....the advice worked ...result! OK it's a small battle in what may prove to be a very long war, but hurrah!


Nicey's asking about love. To which my instant knee jerk response was, "don't ask me, I've been married for nearly 20 years!". And then I thought about it a bit more. I once made the mistake of asking the TB why he loved me and he said "because you are really kind to me" - I was furious, I wanted to be told it was because I was beautiful, fascinating, sexy and irresistable. When you first fall for someone, in that initial "sugar rush" maybe you are, fascinating, sexy and irresistable. But then you turn out to fart and sweat like the rest of the world. And what counts, is someone who is nice to you and loves you for who you are - not what they thought you were or wish you would become. And how do you tell when someone loves you ? When they cook you beef in red wine with dumplings, because it's your favourite, even though they really don't like beef in red wine with dumplings. Guess what we've got for tea tonight?

Solicitor, thinking beautiful thoughts!

I am at the end of my patience with a case - probably because being in pain wore me down a bit. This is a difficult position to be in because, honestly, to be useful as a professional adviser to some extent you don't have to give a fuck how the case turns out.

It's my job to tell you that what you are doing is stupid. It is not my job to stop you doing whatever stupid thing it is you are proposing to do - you see the difference??

One of the fascinating things about my job is the brilliant (and sometimes slightly mad) people that you get to work with. In consequence whilst walking the dog around the forest this morning I was able to take some on the mobile advice, from a very expensive barrister. The advice was very good and I now only owe them a pint. A pint of champagne maybe, but still. So what was the advice?

Either get back to a place where I don't care about this case, or hand it over to someone who genuinely doesn't give a toss. Handing over the case or involving a barrister is the £500 an hour option. The cheap option ?- "solicitor walking dog through forest, thinking beautiful thoughts!"

Less Carbs, More Yoga

On a mission NOT to feel as bad as I did last week ever again! So as the title says, less carbs and more yoga.

Isn't this relentlessly grey weather depressing, like living at the bottom of a bucket!!!

Even the Xmas market in town failed to make me feel better today, it was too crowded, too gaudy and too full of "Christmas tat!". Bah humbug and all that.

I am very fortunately going to hear the Messiah at St Pauls on Thursday evening, let's see if a bit of high culture can't do the trick.

The AB is off ski-ing with school in a couple of weeks, I am envious if only that she will have snow and mountains and hopefully a bit of sunshine. The actual skiing, not so much, I'm a bit of a coffee skier, "I'll ski down this green run and then I'll have a cup of coffee!". Toy boy off to Holland tomorrow working having been in Germany last week. I'd like to be in Norway now though , I've only been once and I've been thinking about it a lot lately. Beautiful place, lovely people....maybe I could sneak a weekend flight to Oslo....

The "old trouble" (endometriosis) has kicked off again - which means pain, at the minute to the point where it hurts so much I feel sick.

And it's cold - what I call "Fen Cold" a deep damp accompanied by a biting cold east wind that pushes the cold and damp deep into your bones.

Viz - I feel shitty!

Sorry.

Survivors

God I loved the original series of "Survivors" when I was twelve. It inspired countless kids games and as many fantasies about how I would live if I was "the only one left alive!" - having a small swarm of younger brothers and sisters you can see how that fantasy was quite appealing.

The remake is on BBC 1 tonight and I hope, beyond hope, that it matches up to my fond memories. Otherwise it's back to working out whether it's better to stake out a supermarket or take over a farm early on!

When you're stacking shelves in Tesco's you'll wish you'd listened to your mother!

It's exam time for the AB - and as the pampered public school educated offspring of doting professional parents she's not worried - why should she be?

Because I, her screaming harpy of a "first generation to go to University" mother say she should be that's why! I didn't battle my way through the 11 plus , 10 o Levels and 4 A Levels so that she could be a slacker! No - that isn't the way it's supposed to work.

So she is subjected to a constant barrage of questioning about how may Latin declentions she has by heart and whether she has really done the practice French comprehension that she said she had - whilst listening to the sound track of High School Musical 3, obviously.

I periodically scream "it won't be my fault when you're sweeping the streets! I've done my best!" not sure it's helping.

Buy this Book!

Among the links to this blog is one to "Skips Acorn Treasury" the delightful blog of the Fabulous Mr Goss.

What you may not know is that he has written the latest Torchwood novelisation "Almost Perfect"...and not unexpectedly it's wonderful. A delightful combination of watching Torchwood and spending an evening getting mullered on daiquari's and setting the world to rights with Goss. And whilst each of those things is great fun together they are a combination I've found both entertaining and utterly compelling - so go, buy read....honestly there are many many worse ways to spend £6.99. It may well save you from wasting another evening watching "I'm A Celebrity" and if it sends you out to look at the world through a wholly more cynical eye then so much the better.