Judith Morgan, Wealth Coach for Entrepreneurs

I'm So Happy & Grateful That I...

There are a couple of homilies in coaching (well, more than a couple actually, but I am confining myself to these two today.   The first one is "be careful what you wish for" and the second one is "write it down, make it happen".

I just wanted to share with you today that forever - FOREVER - so long I have lost count - a couple of things have been on my wish list, written down and wished for with absolutely no idea how they were going to come true, such is my faith in these principles.

1. To own my own home again - done it (February 2008)
2. To be debt free - doing it (April to September 2008)   

I can hardly believe that two things I have wanted so much, so badly and for so long could both magically have come true and be coming true right now.  Awesome.   I am so happy and grateful that I own my own home again and I am so happy and grateful that I am becoming debt free and helping millions of others to achieve the same.   

If you want to own your own home with no money down check this out.   And if you want to start the journey to debt freedom forever check this out.   Either way, feel free to contact me so I can explain how learning about Rent To Own can get you your own home for only £1 and how you too can become debt free.   It would be my pleasure to share two of my best ever top financial tips.   

20 Things I am Grateful For Tonight

As I go to bed tonight, pretty tired as ever, here's a list of just 20 of the thousands of things I am grateful for:

1. David and Anne, Clare, Gareth and Jeremy - my family
2. My health, wealth and happiness and that of all of you too
3. The summer come early that has been this sunny week in London, long may it continue please
4. Pete who is coming to build my garden shed tomorrow morning
5. Lorna, back from Italy, with whom I shared a Frappuccino on Saturday afternoon
6. My new home and Mitsy my new cat
7. My soft and comfy bed
8. My lovely and loving friends - If you count yourself as one, I love you
9. A splendid lunch in the garden today after The Archers and Desert Island Discs with Annie Lennox who must be entirely the same age as me as most if not all of her choices could have been mine!
10. Tens of thousands of pounds in my bank accounts, just the beginning of unlimited abundance
11. My new car, the very Urbanproof Nissan Qashqai which I can nearly drive now - it's manual!
12. The opportunities presented by Rent2Own and ClaimWithJudith, two exciting new ways of making money in the current financial market, an entrepreneur must always be on her toes
13. Interesting colleagues to work with and clients to help - always
14. Podcasting Suzanne and Peter tomorrow
15. Nick, the Rock & Roll Gardener, on the case with the scrub patch I call my garden
16. Perky Pete, the Estate Agent in Nunhead and my first Option to Buy deal, I feel it coming on
17. All the folks who have helped me so far in my wealth creation journey
18. Lunch at The Ivy on Tuesday to look forward to with one our Money Gym success stories
19. The Elite Entrepreneurs Club coming to the end of their first year this week
20. EFT, Emotional Freedom Techniques

I am so lucky and abundant I could go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on..................zzzzzzzzz

I've Lost My Glasses!

I've lost my glasses.   No, this isn't a "where did you leave them, Mad Old Woman" thing.   It's a "they've left home and I haven't seen them for a couple of weeks" thing.   Which means I've left them at your house.   Have you seen them?   I've ordered a couple more pairs today, they are called Edna and they magnify 1.5 but I'd like my old ones back please if you know where I left them.   Thanks.   The case is here, so they are out without a coat - in this weather!

Ten Hectic Days in the Life of a Serial Entrepreneur

I've been a busy little bee lately, rushing around.   How does it happen that your life creeps up on you like that and suddenly its ten days full on?   Poor diary management I hear you cry, and much though it pains me to admit it, I fear you may be right, Gentle Reader.

Here's what I have packed in during the last ten days:

Monday - podcasting Ann Ross on BlogTalkRadio and producing our weekly tapping script on TapToTheTop. Malek returned to fit the curtains and blinds which are toptastic, a DebtBusting call, an EEC client, a referral from coach George who I referred onwards to coach Heather, hired a car for the week from Enterprise and went to an Ecademy networking evening at the Tower Hotel, my first despite having been a member for YONKS and living almost next door for YEARS!   What are we like?   Didn't do much networking, enjoyed chums Sarah and Carolyn and the speaker Phil Calvert.

Driving Miss Judith

Those lovely folks over at 50+ Life Design asked me to write something for their blog which would inspire the over Fifties.   Yikes, there's a challenge, and quite bizarre actually. I dont know about you, but although it says I qualify on my passport, frankly I still dont believe it.   It comes as something of an affront.   

Anyway I wrote something about buying my first convertible car for my 50th birthday - so if you are fifty plus, in need of some inspiration of just love a good story or convertible cars, you can read it here.

Anne's Consciousness Shifting Speeds My House Move

I'm on the move.   Moving away from my beloved Canary Wharf.   For a while, at least.  Last September my landlord let me know he was putting my home on the market.  Bummer.   I have been through the whole range of emotions - anger, sadness, surprise that any landlord would sell any property, particularly one as lovely as mine.   Then I relaxed as people came to visit in dribs and drabs but no-one offered on what is, after all, a postage stamp with the best view in the whole of London priced at half a mill!

And then, in early December, there were three viewings in one day and one of them offered and was accepted and I was duly served my notice for February, so I popped out and bought myself a new home for my own Christmas present, a nice tidy little BTL in Streatham Hill where I would lay my head for a while.

Only it's never as simple as that, is it?

Entrepreneur People - Real Stories

I was interviewed this evening by Sherry Borzo for her show on BlogTalkRadio called Entrepreneur People - Real Stories about real people that teach lessons in business and in life.   I am proud to tell you I was Sherry's first Brit!   Sherry is based in Iowa which reminds me from one of my favourite quotes from Field of Dreams..."is this Heaven?   No, it's Iowa".   Should have asked Sherry if she'd seen Kevin and his field.

Anyway, I digress.   Sherry is looking for Entrepreneurs the world over to be interviewed on her show and share their real story.   If you fancy it, contact Sherry directly at dsmBuzz and mention my name.

Here's my interview.   She says I was awesome and wonderful but you know how those Americans talk. Gee!   Actually she was delightful and so if you love to talk and talk about yourself and your entrepreneurial tendencies and your business, get on down to Iowa, virtually.   Ain't the web wonderful?

New Year's Resolutions - The Triple Whammy

Surely everyone begins the new year with some core New Year's Resolutions which can usually be tied back, loosely speaking, to the Seven Deadly Sins and our desire (albeit subliminal) to be "good".  My own three are:

•    Eat less (gluttony)
•    Exercise more (sloth)
•    Spend less (greed)

I am thrilled to be able to tell you that I have conquered all three of these this week - yeehah!   

2007 - My Best Bits

You know how the newspapers last week were full of those 2007 reviews?   Then you know how everyone started to think about their New Year's resolutions?   Whilst I am not ready to go public with those quite yet, just shining them up a tad, I am ready to declare my best bits of 2007.   And a review of where you have been is always a great start to clear the thinking for where you are going.   Stole that idea from Jinny Ditzler and thoroughly recommend her stalwart little book Your Best Year Yet, although I havent used that this year myself.   I used Marion Ryan, The Abundant Coach.

Well, here we go, in no particular order of importance or chronology, starting with that bag.

I snaffled for myself through a long, complex and arduous chain of events a top of the range Mulberry handbag with which I am absolutely delighted.   I take joy in it every day.   It looks just like that one except it's shocking shiny pink.   I wont bore you with the full tale of its acquisition, save to say that I saw it in their Bond Street store and they wouldnt let me buy it because it was the only one they had in stock, so I had to order it.   They phoned a while later to say mine was ready for collection and I agreed to go in and pick it up on my birthday, rather a treat.

My WEIRD September

I'm going through a period of creative uncertainty.   At least that's what I'm calling it.  Unstoppable optimist that I am, it's my spin on the slightly weido series of events showing up in my life at the moment.

First off, my landlord announced his intention to sell my home.   Which might mean I have to move house when I dont want to.   This in itself is weird as I have moved happily all my life, I expect I have moved house more times than you can possibly imagine.   The child of a Forces family, I had 18 homes and nearly as many schools before I was 18, then three rented flats in Oxford and London before I bought my first home in 1979 with a 100% mortgage from Ken Livingstone who was then head of the GLC.   Bought, sold, bought, sold, bought, sold, bought, re-possessed x 2 before another series of rented homes from 1994 to date, about eight more moves in all before I found where I finally want to live.   And have put down roots.  Three years, no intention of moving, settled at last with a professional landlord and I absolutely love it here.   It's my peaceful sanctuary, perfect in every way.

And as we canny professional property investors know, there is generally only one rule of property investing - never sell, so imagine my surprise when my landlord announced his intention to do just that!

Judith's Entrepreneurial Property Investment Club

My landlord has put my home on the market, and he wants half a million for it.   I intend to buy it, and I'm a few bob short.   Anyone fancy a piece of the 2012 action?   My flat is in London's Canary Wharf, in the heart of the Olympic zone.  At £500k, it's a bit steep for me alone at this current time, bearing in mind my other current property and business investments.

So I'm looking for some investment partners.   Here's my idea: if you have £5,000 (or more) sitting and underperforming in your deposit account, how would you like to double that over the next 7-10 years by taking a one percent share per £5,000 in my property investment?

Celebrity Spotting with My Friend Jane

Here's a fun new game for you, what my friend Jane is calling The Eagle Eye Club.   I'm quite good at celebrity spotting.   Who's your best celebrity spot?   I'm a bit inclined to talk to them as if I know them personally and also inclined to be fawning - e.g. running after Jenny Eclair in the Sainsbury's carpark to tell her how good she was in the Vagina Monologues.   It's easy with actors and actresses, luvvies, as in the main they crave adoration.   Not exclusively, but they soon let you know that and you just sod off - pronto!

Who was my best ever celeb spot?  Paul McCartney, post Linda pre Heather, walking lonely up Marylebone High Street with a carrier bag from Daunts Bookshop (a good sign, as this is a lovely shop).   I was so excited I ran into the drycleaners to tell him I had seen PM.   He was distinctly nonplussed, I remember.  You do have to be a d'un certain age to appreciate The Beatles as a celeb spot.  I guess.

Anyway, at dinner on Saturday night we were swapping celeb spot stories and my friend Jane says there are three criteria against which we can score points:

Turn, Turn, Turn

There's a sadness for me in the August Bank Holiday weekend because it denotes the unofficial end of summer, my favourite season.   

I'm not going to get drawn into a discussion here about the weather. Have we had enough of it to warrant a summer I would be reasonably sanguine about allowing to draw to a close (no)?   Isn't it weird that we had the central heating on on Friday and the summer dresses on again and top down on the car on Saturday on the hottest day of the year (yes)?   Isn't autumn better than summer anyway (clearly no)?

But the Great British August Bank Holiday is, for me, always inbued with an exquisite tristesse denoting lots of mixed memories and emotions.   They are in my psyche, I can't quite shake them and I'm not sure I want to.

Entrepreneurial Doubts

Do you have doubts?   Do you doubt that you can pull it off, make your business successful?   Yes. Me to, even though I've been doing it for thirty years!   And have built and sold several successful and profitable businesses.   Weird.

So it must be part of the human condition then.   What makes us doubt?   Well, I've just had a rather meaningful exchange with Nicola on IM and here's our consensus:

The Nice Things They Say...

People often send me kind messages which I store in a file called Warm Fuzzies.   This is a useful place to hide on a bad day!   The ever abundant Janet Swift sent me this today: as part of a much longer piece entitled I'm The Lucky Winner Again (of course she is, cor blimey - you should SEE that girl manifest!).

"I know you don't like receiving, I never used to either.  My Mother used to say "Jan, if you don't allow yourself to take, you deprive the other of giving".  Well, at the risk of being cut off, I am going to say that when I met you, I sensed that same abundant Universal love that I felt with Paul Price*.  It's a special gift which, in my experience, is displayed by just a few but which is priceless beyond measure.  You're one of those 'lucky winners'!"

* the consultant endocrinologist who saved Janet's life

By the way Janet, it's not that I dont like receiving, it's just that I'm not very good at it.   

Yet.

My Daily Gratitude Journal

One of the very best daily habits to have stuck with me since the EFT weekend in June is my daily gratitude journal. Marion and I gaily set off to record nightly about 5 things we were grateful for.   Then Janet Swift pointed out she was recording her 10 daily blesssings and Marion and I thought we weren't being quite grateful enough and stepped up the length of our lists to match Janet's!   I'm not sure I have found the time to tell them both this yet but the more grateful I am, the more things come into my life to be grateful for and I now find I easily soar past 20 on my bedtime gratitude list.   Howzat?

And Marion and Janet will not be surprised because that's how this stuff works.

The Diana Chronicles

I could hardly NOT read this, could I?   Have you SEEN how pink it is?   It's a right riveting read, I've whipped through most of the 426 pages in a couple of evenings this week, all that schadenfreude making it unmissable and a really refreshing change from my usual improving reading material. There but for the Grace of God.

Lonely Entrepreneur Stories

I had a brilliant idea today, of course I did.   Actually it wasn't the first time I had had this idea, but it was resuscitated during lunch with Happy Nurse, Claire Westwood, in the sense that during lunch I remembered I had had this brilliant idea again in the shower this morning and forgotten to write it on my To Do List.

My brilliant idea of today is to collect and share the stories of the Lonely Entrepreneurs and then publish them in a book, profits to charity.   Let's find out who we really are, us rabid entrepreneurs, and why we do it!

My, She Was Yar

Tragedy strikes chez Morgan.   My favourite old calculator has died and refuses to calculate any sums.   To an accountant this is a major inconvenience.   I did a piece of work yesterday afternoon with a temporary acting replacement and it took several hours longer than it would have done had my Old Faithful been at my side.

I am trying to remember how long we worked together.   I remember buying her in the mid Nineties at some point. Someone left me alone outside Muji (always a mistake) in Whiteley's Shopping Centre and before I knew it, I had bought a calculator.   A beautiful slimline model.   I seem to remember it setting me back a rather shocking amount of money, £25 comes to mind.   I remember thinking that was a lot at the time.   But with hindsight it was cheap.  For what is a good accountant without her favourite and GREAT Muji calculator?   Nothing.   But a shadow of her former speedy dexterous self.

The Epic Drive North

  Unusually for me, I was persuaded to go away for the weekend.   Although I love driving, I don't really love driving at weekends on England's motorways and I don't need to.   One of the joys of freelance life is that I can do everything off peak.   However this was the exception as all the other people with whom I was sharing the weekend do have "proper jobs".   

And in that loving context, I left my home at 12.15 lunchtime on Friday intent on driving to North Yorkshire, just at the very moment when the heavens opened.   Before I had reached my car with my luggage everything was soaking wet including me.   Nil desperandum.   I had a friend to collect and she must be far worse off, being on foot with a suitcase somewhere in Central London.

Abundant Stuff continued...

Oops, sorry, forgot something.   

8.   People have been having abundant dreams about me.   Two examples follow.

Firstly, Nicola dreamed we were at a Money Gym workshop and either it was my birthday or the last workshop, and Steve, Paul Fuggle and she had organised loads of presents for me which they slipped in and onto the table at the front while I was in the loo including an engraved glass ball like the one Nicola was given by the World Internet Summit. And loads of people emailed in testimonials from all over the world and Nicola said "and we all cried and you were so happy".   Nicola described this as the most lovely and vivid dream.   Indeed it is, N.

Secondly, Marion dreamed I left her £10,000,000 in my will.   Apart from the obvious flaws with this dream, I am not only dead but pre-decease Marion who is but a few scant years younger than me, it's also a pretty cool dream.   I love Marion, but she won't be at the top of the list of my beneficiaries as she knows, so Marion and i were able to calculate that for me to leave her ten million, I must have:

• Enjoyed a pretty fantastic, wealthy and abundant life myself to have left so much behind
• have left the majority of my estate to my beloved neice and two nephews
• and there still be enough change left (ahead of the cat's home) to leave Marion a cool ten mill!

Toptastic.   I wonder what Universal, angelic magic caused two of my closest buddies to dream so wonderfully on my behalf?   

As if I didn't know!

EFT - The Evidence, The Angels, Adam and my Field of Dreams

After last weekend at our Success on Tap EFT workshop, Ann asked us to collect evidence as we went about our daily business of creating the day we want (scripting), affirming, tapping and logging things we are grateful for in our nightly routine of a Gratitude Journal, evidence that our tapping is working.

Here's my evidence at the end of this first week.   Pin back your luggoles, this is going to be a long posting, as I have enjoyed and co-created a very abundant week.   Sorry.   Not.

Songs That Make Your Soul Sing

There's no nice way to say this.   Hilda Carroll is a liar.   Liar, liar, pants on fire, Hilda!  You blog tagged me and said this would be easy and quick.   And it wasn't, it SO wasn't.   As Marion said to me at Christmas when I blogtagged her (and I had no idea what she was inferring then), how very dare you, Hilda!

This task has taken me days.   And then in the car, on the way back from Stansted, when I was dropping Marion off at the airport after our EFT Success on Tap weekend, it just came on the radio.  Of course it did, we had been tapping the Universe for two solid days to help us manifest and learning how to allow and receive.   After days and days of searching to find all the components, good video on You Tube, lyrics available etc, this song did actually make me happy for no good reason, I had found a song which fits your criteria, if not THE song.   And therein lies the rub.   Perfectionism be gone!

My Best Birthday Card 2007

So true, so true.

Abundance Affirmations

After one of my clients reported a 500 percent increase in a certain result in his business after practising Sandy Forster's Wildly Wealthy Fast Abundance Affirmations (free to download from her site) for 30 days, I thought I had better give them a go!

They take 24 minutes a day, and I am about two weeks into them.   They are making me feel better, but are they working?

Hmm.   Well first I need to dissect the odd one or two with you.

Lunch with My Accountant

Last Wednesday, I had lunch with my accountant.   Who is The Accountant's Accountant?   Who on earth would want that job?  Well, I had forgotten but he remembered that we met when I advertised for a partner in my accountancy business over 15 years ago, and although we didn't go into business together, we did go into business alongside one another and in fact, he credits me with encouraging him to jump ship from his job and start up on his own!   Thank Heavens for other people with good memories.

He has been suggesting we meet up for some time, but I didnt fancy it.   As I told him, it feels like being called to the Head's study, to account for oneself.   I can remember when my clients used to say "ooh, I'd rather go to the DENTIST, than come to the accountant".   I dont think they meant me (or him) per se, I just think dealing with our accounts can be quite painful for a lot of us, otherwise why would we put this off?

I Just Wish I Didn't Know That

Have you had these?   No?   Good!   You don't want to start.   They are bloody delicious.   Lindor Chocolate Truffles by Lindt.   You have been warned.   Give them a wide berth.   My funny friend, Nicola, a career dieter, first enjoyed one of these at my brother's house and was heard to exclaim after the first one, the first one of many I should say "Oh, they're delicious.   I wish I didn't know that!"  By which she meant she knew she wouldnt be able to resist buying and eating them now that she knew how delicious they were.

I dont feel too bad sharing their deliciousness with you, what with Easter coming up an' all, but that's not my point.   So what is your point, Judith?

Powerless Without Power

My fusebox blew up on Tuesday night.   The lights were flickering on and off, and when I eventually was drawn to open the cupboard with the fusebox in it, there was thunder, lightening, a bad smell and smoke.   Help!   What to do?

I called the 24/7 concierge and he came up to visit me with his walkie-talkie, and recommended that I call the Fire Brigade.

An Inconvenient Truth

I watched Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth yesterday, on the recommendation last week of Chris Barrow on his blog.   I had always meant to watch this, but just not got around to it.

It's very interesting, and at the same time terrifying.   If we don't do something about global warming, life as we know it could be radically different on this planet within 50 years.  Yes, yes - you probably know this, and so did I but what I didnt realise is how easy it is to do something about this (if there is the political will) and how the little bit each of us can do CAN make a difference.

Where's Judith?

Well, I dont know about you, but I have been receiving thought-provoking e-mails, newsletters and little films all day which have been designed to make me think about what I want for 2007.   Naturally, I was going to do this anyway today after an indulgent month off from work.

I've got a couple of projects in mind - this is (technically) my year of not buying it, since I have given up my "day job".   Actually it was only one day a week, but it nevertheless represented a significant chunk of my income and so I need to start doing something I haven't had to do for some time, watching my pennies and thinking about and concentrating on my own money.

So What Did I Miss?

So what did I miss in the UK in December, during three weeks' in the Caribbean?

Sad to confess, my answer to this question was... "three episodes of the X-Factor"!

Despite the dodgy broadband, I was found Googling on the terrace on each of the three Saturday nights - hooray, The Twits have gone out, oh (shock horror) Ben went out, leaving only my Ray and the dreary Leona.   Oh, she won.   How boring!   Until I heard her single on the radio twice today - its TOPTASTIC!

I thought I could detect the hand of Cowell in the choice of single though, one which would definitely suit her voice better than Ray's - so that was a foregone conclusion then?

I'm every so slightly embarrassed by this obsession of mine with the X-Factor, especially as a woman who doesnt even have a telly.   But I fancy my ability to pick the winner, and although she was obviously very competent, she never excited me in anyway, except once with her rendition of Summertime, not an easy song to sing - which she executed perfectly in a beautiful gold dress.

Still it was a fair fight, and she beat my boy hands down and apparently he was gracious in defeat and I'm looking forward to watching the recordings, even though I already know the outcome.

Can't wait for next year, I hear ITV have signed up Cowell for another three years!   Rock on, the X-Factor.

I've Been Tagged, Now!

Karen Knowler, the Raw Food Coach, has blog-tagged me.   Interestingly, things being as they are, seven degrees of separation and all, the woman who tagged Karen, one of Karen's previous coaches, also shares a website with one of mine, the very wonderful Michele Lisenbury Christensen, of Seattle.

I read about this first on Chris Barrow's blog and I thought - aha, they'll never get me, I'm on holiday, but I was wrong.

So, the game is I reveal five secrets about myself, and then tag five more blogging pals to do the same, so here goes:

Getting Ready for The Off

I am leaving for my month in the sun so early tomorrow morning that it feels like today.   I have a few coaching calls today.   Actually, what am I saying, I have them at half-hourly intervals back to back from 9.30 until 3.30, then I'm going to pack, then I'm going to go to bed for a few hours and get up again in the middle of the night.

The washing machine is going full  blast - just making everything perfect, don't you know.

It's ages since I have blogged and there's so much to tell you about my November.

The Universe Does Her Thang

Since my last post about my big Gulp, I just wanted to share with you the abundance the Universe has sent to me.

A wonderful, sunny day out yesterday - lots of laughter and tears of joy, plans, scheming, visions, fantasies, sums and dreams - for such is my life, the life of the solopreneur, that a day like that counts as work and an opportunity to share my abundance.

The man in Starbucks tried to give me change from a £20 pound note when I only gave him a fiver. He explained that he was colour-blind!  But what about the difference in size, mate?   I was so abundant, I obviously gave the £15 back to him, convinced that more is on its way to me.

Two wonderful new clients in my Lonely Entrepreneur group.

Perky Pete, my estate agent mate, phoned with a BMV property opportunity in my favourite investment part of London.

A penthouse flat on the south coast with views of the sea all the way from Brighton to Worthing Pier.

A high speed drive, top-down, in my lovely Beetle.

Oh, and the sale of a copy of my e-book!

As Michael Jackson would say: can you feel it, can you feel it, can you feel it?

My Entrepreneurial Type

Yesterday, I took a test, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, with which some of you will be familiar and I discover I am an ENFJ.   

What's one of them, then?

The Boy from Marks & Spencer...

...called me "Babes".   We know each other. A tad.   I am a regular.   But can that be right?   Him a callow youth and me an elegant lady in her early middle years.

Babes?   Don't I have more gravitas than that?

Life.

What Would a Wise Person Do?

I am signed up to Philosophy classes on Monday nights.   Actually, its even better than that, I can go to the same class any night of the week, how convenient is that?   And this week I went on Thursday, because Monday was a Bank Holiday.

The classes are run by the School of Economic Science in Marylebone and I was told about them by my friend and colleague Jane Puckett, but if you are a Londoner you have probably seen their adverts on the tube, with a goldfish jumping out of the bowl?

These classes are amongst the most enjoyable evenings I have ever spent; do let me tell you why.

I'm a Mankellholic - but there is a cure!

Last night I went to a literary gathering at the Purcell Rooms on the South Bank.   Random House had gathered together a small group of the London fans of Henning Mankell, who writes crime novels about his slightly miserable but compelling police detective Kurt Wallander, of Ystad in Sweden.

Happily I discovered that I am not alone in my addiction.   His publishers have thoughtfully provided a place for all us Mankellholics to dwell and its here www.mankellholicsanonymous.com - great, there are LOADS of us and I can get help for my habit.

Smaller

I went to see a wonderful play last night starring Dawn French and Alison Moyet.   It was called Smaller, and directed by Kathy Burke.

It was nothing short of wondeful.   We laughed and cried, the story so moving, so true, so poignant and chiming with my own experience with my mother in her last few years.   Here's the synopsis:

Hooray for Hollywood

I love films.   So I invited myself round to the house of a friend with Sky Movies to watch the Oscars last night, having made plans to take most of today off as it started at midnight and ended at 0430 today, our time.

Was it worth it, the late-night vigil?  To a movie fan, the answer is most definitely yes.   As I dont have a telly, and am rather uninterested in telly-watching as a way of life, I'm not sure.   But here are my personal reflections and comments on the gongs, the winners and losers.

I DON'T Believe It!

I'm having a Victor Meldrew moment.

I've received another summons from the Met Police today.    I mean really!   Don't they have any REAL crims to chase???

My Abundant January

As you know, I'm normally a sunny person.   And consequently, I don't like moaning about it and exhancing it's dark powers, but I can't hold onto it a moment longer...January does my 'ead in!

Its long, and dark, and cold and hard work getting back into it after the hols, and this year has been no exception to the length, darkness and especially to the cold.   And I sure had a lot of work to do.

Rebel, Rebel

I have been obliged of late to consider my own rebelliousness.   Historically, its something I feel quite proud of, now I wonder what I'm on.

Don't Walk On The Grass.   I didn't know I wanted to until you told me I couldn't.

Looking back, this has caused a great deal of angst to me and mine over the years, the fact that if you are all going in this direction then I want to go in that direction, that I literally swim against the tide by choice whenever possible.   Like being self-employed.   Like being single.   Like being a reverse commuter.   Refusing to be confirmed.   Staying in on New Year's Eve.   And more.

No Bad Days

There is a saying in Baja, from whence we have just returned after a month off work, which is No Bad Days.   And indeed there are not.   The sun shines 350 days out of the year, its one of those blissful experiences where you don't need to be outside in it all the time, because you trust it will always be there.

Here are some of the wonderful memories we have, which I am recording so that we never forget.

Dawn Inspiration

Leaving home at 6 a.m. today, like the little high-achiever that I am, I walked out onto the roof of the carpark where my allocated space is marked out.

It often comes as an unexpected surprise, the view that awaits me up there.   I am not sure why I forget what I am going to see when I step out of the lift, but I do - and that's great, because the suprise is all the more unexpected, and powerful because I forget.

Culture Vulture

I had a weekend of rare and wonderful treats, and no - I'm not talking about the X-Factor although I do love it.   I love it so much, in fact, that I have to go to other people's houses to watch it, or make complex arrangements for DVD-ing, because I dont have a telly myself.

Many people exclaim "What?   She doesn't have a telly, but her program of choice, for which she will travel, is the X-Factor!"   I know, contrary isn't it, but c'est la vie.