My First Week Back At Work

I really do hope that my host will accept my apologies for blurting out personal shit in his space; but I have just completed my first week back in practice as a solicitor, after a break of nine years.

During that period I have been, at various times: a vacuum cleaner salesman; a recruitment consultant; a hawker of carrier preselect telephony services; a porn vendor; the man you want to turn to if you have a problem with your mobile; and a recipient of contribution based Jobseekers Allowance at the mindboggling rate of £114.52 per fortnight - and all with not one but two genetic monkeys on my back.

This week I did a whole lot of stuff I never thought I'd do again, or thought that I had lost the bottle to do -

I settled two cases without breaking sweat;

I organised a schedule of court hearings without falling into an apocalyptic carpopedal spasm ( a good one can be like The Ride of the Fuckin' Valkyries);

I saw clients face to face, and took their instructions and advised them lucidly without resembling a rag doll on acid.

It might not seem like much to show for a week's work, I know; but having thought oneself, on a number of occasions, to be down, really down, in the belly of The Beast, right now I feel like Donald Findlay, Clarence Darrow and Edward Marshall-Hall all rolled into one.

As the late, great Anthony Newley said:

"It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life, for me...

And I'm feelin' good..."