Gone soft?

In his Speccie column this week, Toby Young illustrates how soft the present day public school is by reference to his wife’s experiences at Cheltenham Ladies College 25 years ago.

But that was the least of it. She was forced to sleep in a dormitory that was so cold, in winter she would wake up to find ice on the inside of the windows.

I have news for Toby. He had better not come and stay here, as we invariably wake up on winter mornings with ice on the inside of the windows – except when we have the windows open.

But then we went through the system some 50 years ago, and have had much longer to get used to it.

In quite what together?

It is hard to feel sorry for our Prime Minister – all that coaching (if the Guardian is to be believed) and still skewered by Robert Jay.

The Guardian report captures the moment. But what I enjoyed most was learning that Rebekah Brooks texted:

I am so rooting for you tomorrow not just as proud friend but because professionally we’re definitely in this together!

How very prescient. One of those words I am surprised that counsel didn’t use.

Leaving the Locker Room

This will be my last Lawslot Redux post as a practising lawyer.

In less than a week I change roles, leaving the world of corporate transactions – a world I have known for some 36 years – to focus on client relationships and client development. I will still keep my practicing certificate (and I have been assured that I will remain insured) so technically I will still be a lawyer – but without transactions it will not be the same.

Not surprisingly this change has led me to reflect on my career – far too much reflection, according to my children, who believe they should have a monopoly on introspection. But don’t worry, I am not going to go there in this post. But what has struck me is that notwithstanding how the legal profession has changed in my professional lifetime – and is still changing – the same cannot be said for the actual day job. This has changed very little in 36 years. There is no doubt that that the means of doing is different: back in the day we had no email, no fax, no PCs. Everything was typed (and then copy typed), drafts travelled (marked, and occasionally butchered, in precise colour order, with riders stapled, or stuck on with Sellotape), calls were landline, and you still dialled a number. Even if there wasn’t, there seemed a great deal more time.

But transactions, and our role in them as lawyers, have remained pretty well unchanged: same documents, same issues, same arguments (just a different generation of lawyer doing the arguing), same tensions . . . and same excitement. Each transaction the same in its essentials, each different in its particulars.

And it is the excitement that has kept me working – this is what I know that I will miss, but, as my last post, the time comes for us all.

Signs of Spring

Sunday morning and we were back in Yarner Wood. It wasn’t much warmer than it was a fortnight ago, but Spring is definitely here, the Pied Flys are back, and we had another three hours of gentle birding: the long climb up to the top of the Reserve, by the side of Trendlebere Down, and then back, through the oak woodland.

Birdsong all the way, the odd glimpses of Ravens and a lone Buzzard, a Blackcap letting it rip from the very top of one of the trees, Warblers, and, Yarner’s special birds, Pied Flycatchers. On the report by the office, Pied Flys have been back since 2 April, the day after our last visit. The males usually arrive first, but today we saw two pairs, as well as a good half dozen single males. And just before the car park, a pair of Redstarts.

No Swallows or Martins yet, but at home the death watch beetle are tapping away: another sign of Spring.

BBTs, BGTs and the McGarrigle sisters

Bright April mornings are deceptive. In the Yarner Wood car park just before 09.00: the air was still, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and it seemed quite warm. We stopped to admire a pair of Mandarin ducks on the new pond and then walked on up the concrete path to the hide – and as we climbed the side of the valley realised that it was not quite as warm as we had thought (and as the temperature had only been 5° in the courtyard, perhaps we should not have been that surprised).

It took an hour (and a detour back to the car park to collect a hat) to warm up.

Yarner Wood is a magical place. We spent three hours walking the woods – from the car park up and across the heathland, before the long steady climb to the top of the wood, just below Trendlebere Down, and then down the other side of the valley. And as we walked and talked, Greater Spotted Woodpeckers, Ravens, squabbling Crows, Nuthatches, Chiffchaffs, Buzzards, BBTs (bloody Blue Tits), BGTs (likewise Great Tits), a female Kestrel stooping on smaller songbirds, and everywhere birdsong.

No Pied Flys yet – last year we saw them on 27 March; this year, despite last week’s warm weather, they are going to be a little later.

And the McGarrigle sisters? I had Walking Song in my head,

Wouldn’t it be nice to walk together/Baring our souls while wearing out the leather/We could talk shop/Harmonise a song/Wouldn’t it be nice to walk along.