I'm good, me

I had my appraisal at work last week. I was a little anxious - I knew I'd seen a number of good evaluation forms from lawyers I'd worked for, but you can never tell if others had been sent in, or what my line managers might say. Also, I have changed my days a couple of times, been slightly militant in staff meetings and taken a lot of days off sick (about 5 in the past 9 months, which is an awfull ot for me). But it went really well, and they seemed more than happy with my work and my place in the firm. I didn't ask for a pay-rise, thought that might be pushing my luck considering everything, but I confidently expect one next time round.

Then at the weekend we went off to the Company of Chivalry's annual banquet, and Aggie & I were both out up a rank to retainer. I got a lovely set of keys to the household, and Aggie got an admonition to obey my orders! How cool is that? And I get to jangle when I walk in my medieval kit now, which is terribly empowering!!!

My rib is finally settling down again now. After the exercise on my birthday it was really painful, and I tried the authentic pain relief of drinking too much alcohol at the banquet, which was incredibly unsuccessfull - it didn't stop the pain at the time, but did make me not care about doing things that made it hurt MUCH more the next day - but after sleeping for 12 hours last night (except for getting up for coughing children!) it seems to be on the mend now.

I went to Court on Monday to observe the housing case worker. It was very interesting, but you do have to wonder at some of the people. Some of them just didn't pay their rent/mortgage, didn't contact the person who was owed the money, didn't stick to previous court orders, and when asked why not, said it was just because they didn't get round to it! then they wondered why they were being evicted! Although most cases were fairly straight forward, and were easily sorted with agreement betwen the parties. I am almost finished my training at the CAB now, just a couple of days left, then a four day intensive course in Cardiff. But I am finally starting to feel that I will be able to do it, and looking forward to properly starting.

I was invited to join 'Think Parents' - a network of parental bloggers by Digital Outlook. No freebies have turned up yet (in the whole 24 hours I've been a memmber), but I'm always up for protot-type testing. I know the big bloggers get freebie laptops and all sorts, but tbh, a cuddly toy every now and then would be nice - so watch this space for honest advertising:) You never know, perhaps my readership will get something out of it too - the last promo I did gave away a prize to the winner.......