September 9, 2008 | General
I'm a big cricket fan.
I never really played it and only got into it in my early twenties but it is undoubtedly now my favourite sport. Working from home can be a double edged sword because I can easily lose track of time and spend all day watching England on the TV when I should be working.
I used to tell myself that if I won the lottery, I would follow the England cricket team around the world on their Winter tours to Australia and the Caribbean - now I'm waiting until my business is established to a level that I can run it from my laptop and a mobile phone and I'll be away.
I was on holiday in France when Michael Vaughan resigned and at first was totally confused as I start to piece together what had happened as I listened to the radio commentary of the 1st day of the 4th Test as we were travelling around in the car. (You can pick up Radio 4 on LW throughout a lot of Europe - much to my family's dismay).
At the time I didn't understand why he had done it. Did he jump or was he pushed?
Yes, he had been a bit out of personal form recently but even though we had lost the Test Series at home, it could have been so much different - if only a couple of breaks had gone our way. We weren't outclassed overall and South Africa were a good team.
He is our most successful cricket captain of all time and his honest, strategic, calm, collected character epitomised that which we expect (but rarely get) of an English leader. He had led us to a great victory over Australia in 2005, an event that escalated the profile of cricket in this country, and was surely the best man to do it again.
A few minutes after I came to discover that Vaughan had resigned, I had even more jaw droppingly shock to contend with. England's new captain was not Strauss, who was being talked about as Vaughan's possible successor, but a cocky, arrogant upstart with seemingly little previous experience of captaining a first class team.
What's more, he was more South African than English AND he was called KEVIN !!
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September 6, 2008 | General
Despite all the doom and gloom dished out daily in the media at the moment I believe that it is still very possible to find sources for encouragement and inspiration if you work with yourself to adopt a more positive outlook.
To be honest I feel much more affected by the miserable weather and the frustrations that my business is not as far ahead as I would have liked it to be by now than letting myself get depressed worrying about the state of the economy.
After all it is not something that is in my control - so what can I hope to achieve by spending every waking hour worrying about it. It is a cyclical occurrence that always follows a time of great growth and prosperity. It's happening now and eventually it will pass - we hope that it will be sooner rather than later and without too many life threatening casualties - but it will pass .
It's like being a sea in a fierce storm - all you can do is baton down the hatches, steer a steady course and wait for calmer times to return.
Don't get me wrong I am most definitely affected and feeling the pinch of the current economic situation.
I have taken time to make sure that I am getting the best deal on my mortgage and all my insurances, secured the best energy deal, made my whole family more conscious of saving energy (they might put it a little more strongly than that!), thinking about unnecessary journeys in the car and generally being more careful in shopping around for the best deals. More than that what can I do?
Admittedly I am not as affected as those who have absolutely no hope of covering even their basic bills or may end up losing their house, but equally I am affected more than most who have not given up several tens of thousands of pounds by quitting their jobs within the last 15 months to pursue the dream of having their own business.
So am I now beginning to regret the decision to leave the regular wage and relative security of my job to start a business from home at this time?
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