Risky Business

Being a freelancer has its perks, as everyone knows - the flexibility of working 7 days a week if necessary; the excitement of wondering if you'll ever get another gig; the joys of clients changing their briefs after you've written a whole document exactly to brief ... Can you tell I'm feeling jaded today?

The thing I like least about being a freelancer is having to suck up to people. I just don't really do schmooze. And, in the big bad corporate world (and pretty much everywhere else), there are an awful lot of egos to be stroked. Work, I am happy to do. It's the peripheral stuff - flattering people into giving you the work and bending over backwards to make them feel good about themselves - that I am hopeless at.

I am having one of those days when I wish I could do something else for a living. Anything else, really ...

Breaking the Waves

My little brother is a surf life saver in his spare time. If it weren't for the fact that he likes reading and playing silly board games, I would wonder if we were related.

On Saturday morning, I was dragging poor Phoebe around open houses when I got a call from said brother. Life saving training - mistiming - broken ankle - hospital - surgery ...

He smashed it up really badly, and had to have plates and pins and all sorts put in it. And now he's come home - to us. I think it's partly because we have fewer stairs to negotiate on crutches - and partly because it's just more pleasant to be stuck at home with your foot up with company and meals and other distractions, rather than in your own flat, by yourself.

Thank God It's Friday

Another hectic but strangely uninteresting week. This is what I think of as 'boring busy' - flat-out with work and general domestic drudgery, rather than with anything exciting or fun.

I shouldn't whinge, though. I have been working in the city a couple of days a week for a client, and it's a pleasant change to have adult company. I do occasionally get bored of talking to the cats.

Mostly, the adult company and I talk about shopping. We agree that it's incredibly easy to buy shoes. We also agree that while it is apparently easy to buy lipstick, somehow when you get it home, the colour is never as fabulous as you thought in the shop. Is it how they light the cosmetic counters? Is this why I usually have at least 35 different lipsticks in my dedicated lippy drawer, but can never find the one I want?

All this talk of shopping naturally meant I had to get out and do some. As usual, I was overwhelmed. Too much stuff, too many people. I avoided the 'inappropriate panic shop' by instead doing the 'safe and uninteresting panic shop' - three 3/4 sleeve boat-neck t-shirts in different neutrals, a pair of dead plain black leather ballet flats and a little leopard print silk scarf.

I think part of my shopping paralysis is the Mutton issue. But on the other hand, I don't want to be middle-aged and boring (which is clearly where I'm heading).

Why can't I just wake up one morning and be Inès de la Fressange?

The Other Boleyn Girl

Phoebe is currently reading like a demon. She's in the third book of the lovely Dragonkeeper series, but also reading Roald Dahl on the side. It makes me so happy when one or other (or even both) of my kids are curled up reading, unable to extract themselves from a book.

I spent most of the weekend reading too. After pulling out of the house purchase - I freaked out and decided I cannot live somewhere I have to drive to get anything - I was struck down by a horrible cold. (I think Andrew thought it was justice. He doesn't like me right now.) So I spent Saturday afternoon and most of Sunday either in bed or on the couch, reading and blowing my nose. I read thoroughly engrossing historical fiction, otherwise known as 'good trash' (The Other Boleyn Girl), a somewhat disappointing follow-up to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (A Spot of Bother), finally finished The Book Thief (I don't know why it lost me a while back - I loved it when I went back to it) and restarted A Fraction of the Whole (which I was slightly overwhelmed by when I started it).

Confessions of a Shopaholic

I am suffering from an acute case of buyer's remorse. No, not more shoes or frocks. A house. I know it's supposed to be up there with death and divorce, but I wasn't expecting to feel THIS depressed about the prospect.