Well, well, well. Actually doing my blog at the time in the diary. Will wonders never cease?

I’m STILL struggling with the man flu. Doesn’t help with the cold weather. Go out in it and the chest tightens and the coughing starts, settle down while plodding rather than the normal power walk (he lied, but it’s more a shuffle than it should be) then back indoors, chest tightens and – yeah, you’ve got it…

I’m not sure I’ve many muscles in chest, neck and back that I haven’t pulled but at least the coughing seems more benign.

Talked to my barber yesterday morning (or more accurately sat there nodding and making the odd uh huh noise while he was talking) and they’ve all had it with bells on. Dire tales of pneumonia, eye and ear infections and even vertigo. I hope I’ve none of that to come!

So the days (and nights) continue to be more of a struggle than they need be in the run up to income tax season. And – voluntarily – I’m doing two evening networking events this week and no breakfasts. I really can’t remember the last time that happened. Not this year I’d wager.

Phillip Hammond’s first Autumn Budget has been and gone (I know, got the pamphlets (click here for the online version) , written the covering letters and sent them to clients – kept Friday evening and Saturday morning safe from the possibility of relaxation) but I rather suspect it’s not going to go down in history as one of the most exciting of all time.

Other than bribing first time buyers there’s not a lot to it and I can’t see too many of said first time buyers having the odd £300k without the bank of mum and dad in any case but it keeps the pundits in employment and his hands are rather tied by circumstance. I’ve even pulled my summary out to look at it and can’t find anything interesting to say…

It would be MUCH too easy to be cynical so I’m going to shut up.

This week’s been more of a doing week than many – Louisa tries to keep my appointments to a minimum in the last week of the month which, in theory, enables me to actually deal with all the work that’s flooding in. Sometimes works, sometimes not.

Most of an afternoon out at one of my pro bono clients and went from treasurer and vice-chair to treasurer and chair for reasons I really can’t go into here. Luckily the person I considered should be chair from the existing trustees agreed to be vice-chair which means they will get to do any grunt work I cannot do as I live furthest of the trustees from the premises. So probably the best outcome all round.

Have doubled the number of income tax returns finalised (which is NOT as impressive as it sounds) but they all count!

Oh yes, agonised over the quantum of a bill to a client, screwed up my courage and sent what I thought was “right” and sent it with a comment that it in no way represented the time taken (I’ve blogged about the software issues previously) as I cannot charge a client for the shortcomings of my own suppliers, can I? Got a lovely email back – even hoping I will be able to claw back some of the costs over the next few years.

Made my day.

Top of the crop for urgency was – you’ll never guess. ANOTHER pro bono! – slotted in and will be out and agreed tomorrow. Only takes a couple of hours but maybe you question whether you should be doing all the freebies from time to time. Ah well, that’s it for another post. Maybe time for a nap – emails permitting – before going out networking.

Too old to rock and roll…