Angel Jem's City Cottage

I have been busy over the past couple of weeks. I think life (for me) seems to get faster the older I get. Certainly, I look back at the days of at-home motherhood with a yearning I didn't expect to feel. When the most I got done in a week was 2 or 3 days supply, and they weren't guaranteed. Work is pretty full time, of course, so I find myself trying to fit a life into 2 days of the weekend. And since I love me a good bit of downtime and solitude, I find I'm fighting the urges to rest and relax or to get up and do. So I feel very Jekyll and Hyde. I'm either calm efficiency and getting the house cleared well, or collapsed on the sofa, remote control in hand, guinea pig on stomach and bewailing the days when I was able to watch daytime TV alone. I have no idea how full time workers fit in housework. I know that possibly before I began full time work I should have cleared the house, so that I could now consider getting a cleaner in to do a bit for me. As it is, I ...

The Insurance man from BIBA on BBC Breakfast this morning was on about Whiplash claims again... You do know there's been a 41% fall in whiplash claims, don't you? I know he never said so, but there has. To hear how the Insurance industry rave on about it, you'd think every day we put in a claim for whiplash. We don't. And a decent lawyer will not put in any risky claims for whiplash because they know it gets laughed out of court. The other little insidious clause in the government's proposed reforms is to raise the small claims limit to £5,000. Like £5,000 is a small claim. That means 90% of accidents including accidents at work and on the road would effectively not get free legal representation. They'd have to go to court facing the insurers who, you can bet your bottom dollar, will be fully lawyered up. Are you cross yet? Cross enough to act? Here's what to do: 1. Read this website http://www.feedingfatcats.co.uk/ 2. Send Liz Tr...

If you or anyone you know cycle regularly then you need to read this article .  Government whiplash crackdown would also hit legitimate claims from cyclists say campaigners This is wrong, yes? If you agree, then you have more things to do:- 1. Write to your MP. You can use the letter in this blog post  http://angeljemscitycottage.blogspot.co.uk/…/want-to-stand-…  as a template. Don't forget to say you cycle. 2. Sign the petition. If 10,000 sign, we get a response. If 100,000 sign we can push for a parliamentary debate on an issue that at the moment can just be passed with no argument.  https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173099  takes you to the petition. 3. Share this post on any social media you're on. The more people who know what is proposed, the better. £5,000 doesn't seem like a small claim to me. I am writing this post because I work for Peter Kneale Solicitor . We handle a lot of claims for less than £5,000. We don't think it's fair that...

It's difficult sometimes to whip up support for Lawyers; "They're a well-paid bunch of people who are just out for themselves" is a common viewpoint. But I'd like to speak up for a whole section of lawyers who actually aren't just out for themselves. Unlike commercial lawyers, who can charge what they like, or libel lawyers whose clients are the rich and fabulously rich, most personal injury lawyers are working for people who, through no fault of their own, have suffered injury at home, at work or on the street. They work for the ordinary person whose accident at work has left their hand out of action for a month, six months or a year and stopped them living a completely ordinary life. They're working for the little old lady who fell over a badly-placed paving slab and whose leg injury kept her in the house and in need of care that she had always said no to before. They could be working for your son or daughter whose car got side sw...

This weekend Mr Angel Jem (OK, Peter of Peter Kneale Solicitor . Let's not pretend anymore) had a day's training to do in London of all places. Would I like to go to? It would mean I was all alone.... in London... all Saturday. Would I like to go???? I don't think I have said YES!! quite as quickly or enthusiastically as since he proposed, and I'm ashamed to say I may have been a little more emphatic about it. I was absolutely happy about the idea of a day alone in London anyway since my little jaunt for The Chase last June which I very naughtily never blogged about! I was quite happy with the idea of just sauntering around and watching the world when I found out that The Handmade Fair was on just the weekend I was there. I like Kirstie Allsopp anyway. Her programmes are fun to watch, and what she can do with a junk pile is nobody's business. I signed up, dressed up and went. On the advice of my husband, I wore a summer dress. Big mistake. Although on the...

Has anybody else been addicted to the Olympics? I remember when I was a student and the Olympics were in Seoul that I adjusted my body clock and got up to watch the events I most liked. Back then I loved the Decathlon ( Daley Thompson <3), the showjumping and the 1,500m. I don't remember being as enamoured of the cycling, the Triathlon and the shooting. I watched what was on BBC and made do with just a shout out for events that, in all honesty, would be the ones I'd love to take part in like the pistol shooting or air rifle. And the trap shooting I love now! But then, thinking back, the coverage wasn't as wall to wall and available as it now is. This time if I had a random event that I fastened onto and wanted to watch, the BBC sport app made that possible. Trap shooting? No probs; you could watch Tim Kneale (how I love that we share a surname!) slog it out with Steven Scott online , or watch the highlights on your phone, or any one of a dozen ways to find out how w...

But then I'd have to tickle you. No, not really. I feel like I've been away for ever. Absolutely yonks, but it turns out only to be about 6 weeks. I think time is both going the slowest I've ever known and as fast as a bullet at the moment. Which is to say, that time inside school travels at a snail's pace, while any time away from the institution just disappears in an Einsteinium-speed-of-light way. I am not enjoying work. There, I said it. I enjoy the teaching and the children and a lot of the staff are lovely but not (unfortunately) the one I work with. And that's not getting better. And telling people about it doesn't work and I feel under used and undervalued and sad. And I got a BAD virus, like a humdinger-block-both-ears-and-make-you-deaf virus that has kept me at home and bed bound with vertigo for the past two weeks. I'm on my second set of antibiotics and finally today feel better. Don't rush me, but I feel not bad. As in not 100% but bett...

I have read (and listened to) The Secret recently. I think I can see the reasoning behind some of it, like you get what you focus on, you create your own luck through self belief and that you can achieve what you want to. There's a whole element of the book that talks about manifesting what you want; that you talk and act and think as if you already have the job, house and other attributes of the life you want and they will be manifested i.e. made real. I'd like to think so. I want to believe that my life can work out and be as good as I want it to be.The Secret says that something as easy as a parking space can be manifested if you only believe that it is there for you and, I have to say, the space I want is usually in the space I want it to be either straight away or within a short time. I've always been a bit Pollyanna-ish, always expect the best and see the good in every situation and I am still seeing the positive where I am now, but I'm beginning to feel th...

Posts like this are fun. I like a lot of stuff. I like movies, I like reading, I like travelling, I like cooking and crafting and keeping my house badly. But what gets me excited? Well....... Peter Kneale Solicitor does. Having a husband who has been brave enough to set up on his own in a very cut throat business and is enjoying it, and being able to think about a career change before I'm 50 to work with him is exciting. Very. And terrifying as well. I've always been a teacher, and now I'm beginning to think about finding another path. It's like having a second chance and looking at an alternate universe, the one where I didn't go teaching but set off to study law instead (other options were physiotherapy or being an astronaut) and end up working as a personal injury lawyer. That's a lot less physically demanding than teaching, and not one I need to think of leaving when my knees give up. And I can't wait to be his partner in business as well as l...

My ideal life is here. My ideal life is now. Is there anything I'd change? Well, I'd probably hope that in a few years time Peter Kneale Solicitor will be a successful family business, with enough coming in to employ me as a paralegal,  that the kids will have finished their exams and be happily at University or college studying their best loved subjects. But that's the future. Right here, right now..... my life is my ideal. Home, family, creating. Thank God.

Who knew that having a new business was just like having a new baby? No, don't laugh. Listen to this story. It was about a year and a half ago that Mr Angel Jem read this book, The Litigators, by John Grisham. I love JG, I read a lot of JG for the same reason I watch a lot of courtroom dramas and sit on a Sunday watching football. Mr AJ likes them, so there's a lot of it about and it's well worth sharing an interest together (and, no, he CANNOT crochet, although his Mum used to dressmake and he has a lot of respect for useful crafts.) The role of the book is crucial in our story. The hero, David Zinc, has it all; a good job in a big firm, a big BIG firm. But it takes all his time and he is working for the firm. So one day he walks out. Just goes, sets off, gets well drunk in a bar and wanders off to a very dubious part of town where he meanders into a 'boutique' (meaning small) law firm and asks for a job. We were in London. Seriously. Staying for a week in...