Oooh, I’m not sure I can draw one of those…

‘Oooh I’m not too sure I can draw one of those’ was my response to having been set up as aunty in charge of drawing activities for the evening by my godson Ethan’s mum. His response was ‘aren’t you an artist then? Mummy said you were’. I suppose to a 7 year old my cartoon [...]

Sp????

Okay, I admit it. I can’t spell practise / practice. Do I practiSe the piano and practiCe law??? Or is it the other way round? Its embarrassing but I cannot get my tiny mind to remember, no matter what I do. My brain is full of other more important things. But can someone help me [...]

UK to sign up to Children’s Convention

Good good. Shame it took so long: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7624450.stm

Drug Addled

Let me juxtapose a few things: The current debate about whether to downgrade ecstasy from class A to B/C. Hotly debated on Radio 2 (?)today whilst I was on the way back from a far flung court. Recently, a CAFCASS Officer who in a case where the father’s hair strand test had come back with very [...]

Reforms Given Short Shrift

The Magistrate’s Association’s response to the consultation on reforming the legal aid barrister fee scheme is a model of brevity – just as we have come to expect from Magistrates. Answers on one side of A4 please. I’m always up for a challenge though, so I’ve (just) managed to condense this even further: ‘lawyers are important to the [...]

13.1 is the lucky number

I did it! I am now struggling to walk or even more more than my fingertips, but I did manage my half marathon today in just over 2 1/2 hrs, and i would have done it quicker if I wasn’t busy having a mini-asthma attack every time I felt a bit emotional (which was every [...]

CAFCASS

Just guess how long s7 reports in private children disputes are taking round here? 8-9 months! What a complete disaster. Its got so bad that the Judges appear to be abandoning CAFCASS altogether and ordering reports from Independent Social Workers. . The irony of this is that whilst the Government is busy underfunding CAFCASS the [...]

when will it end?

I keep catching myself telling myself that it will all be ok once the baby is older and I can get some sleep. Like this new state of parenthood is only temporary. But of course the sleepless nights and exhaustion will be going on for a whole lot longer than that and it isn’t going [...]

getting down to single digits

Only 3 clear days (as we lawyers like to phrase it) until race day. AND although I have not reached the target weight of 9st (which would give me a beautifully healthy BMI any GP would commend me on) I did do a little skip this morning when the scales was able to count my [...]

round old haunts

ran a few laps around black park on sat, I think about 10.5 miles but its difficult to tell as the paths are obscured by trees on google maps. pulled something in my leg but its seems fine 72 hours on. it might not be as far as I’d wanted to run before the big [...]