Pride comes, and all that

Well, you just knew, didn't you, after that last ill-considered post that life would saunter up and smack me in the face with a wet mackerel, a la Monty Python. After Tuesday went so well, Wednesday went....slightly less well, and Thursday reminded me of nothing so much as one of those school playground scraps where all the other kids are in a tight circle around you chanting "Fight! Fight!" only this time when the teacher turned up, instead of breaking it up, she joined in and gave me a good kicking too.

Which is my way of saying that the remaining court action did not go well last week and I felt rotten as a result. It is part of the "joy" of doing litigation for a living, this cut and thrust and the major ups and downs, but Thursday was a bigger down than I have experienced for some time. Counsel (ie the advocate I was instructing) looked so shell-shocked on Thursday afternoon that I had to take him down the road and administer two large cappucinos and a slice of cream cake before he could form coherent sentences. (That's my version of first aid and I'm sticking to it.)

The weekend has given me some much needed recuperation time and a bit of perspective so I should be able to go in on Monday and sweep up the debris. Next week is going to be hectic in a different way. I have a court action in the sheriff court on Thursday and Friday (in the sheriff court it is I who will be in gown and on my feet before the judge, rather than counsel) and I am kind of looking forward to it as the law in this case is not particularly complex and it has been a while since I conducted a hearing myself.

The interesting part of next week and the week after is that I will be relying, like so many parents do year-round, on after school club for childcare. Normally my wonderful parents provide the childcare (and do my kids' laundry, and supervise homework, and feed them, and in the summer my dad cuts my grass for me - I know, I am spoiled) but they are going away. This year is my parents' official retirement (although they are going to continue with their childcare/housekeeping position. I hope) and they are treating themselves to a once-in-a-lifetime trip. They fly out on Thursday to New York where they will join the Queen Mary II and cruise the Caribbean for ten days or so. In their absence, I have booked the boys into after school club which they are frankly overjoyed about. It does mean I will have to make sure I am punctual in picking them up though, so watch this space for tales of mad dashes across Edinburgh when I forget my kids are not in fact at home when I have driven halfway to the house and have to double back to get them.

And just to make my life that much more interesting, on Friday, as I have said, I am in court and I cannot get out of that. The boys' school, however is CLOSED on Friday for Founder's Day (??). And After School Club is not operating. I am therefore checking out whether the local Cattery will stretch a point and take children. It's just for one day, after all.