Early August

Gatekeeper butterflies in the blackberry bushes along the road edge, and Housemartins low across the fields, skimming just above grass height hunting for insects: for all the signs of summer it was, nonetheless, a cheerless start to August.

And yet, between showers,  we walked our patch that first weekend: Mardon Down on the Saturday, and Sunday in and around the woods that border the Hennock reservoirs. There is always something to see and hear. On Mardon Down, Yellowhammers: first their unmistakeable song, and then we caught sight of three or four, heads as if dipped in sunshine yellow paint; and Redstarts, a first for us on Mardon. Sunday had us dodging showers. Looking back from the high road to the reservoirs, Fernworthy was half hidden in rain and the edges of the High Moor blurred by low cloud. We walked with the threat of a soaking but were back at the Land Rover before the skies opened, rewarded with seeing that the Great Crested Grebes that we had seen courting in late Spring had had at least one brood. There, at the dam end on Trenchford, the Great Crested Grebe parents and three youngsters, plus a slightly older one.

Cultivating the habit of optimism

Holiday (a week reminding myself why living in the South West is so much better than simply visiting it, although narrow lanes south of Padstow when the lifeboat is on a shout make for interesting driving) and transactions (yes, they are still happening – just) have left little to time to post; a late summer lull and a transaction gone away are prompts to return.

A phrase I read recently, and have been shameless in using since, is “the habit of optimism”. In the current position a lot of us find ourselves in, it is useful to remember things may not be bad as they seem, and even if they are, it doesn’t always do to say so (and it is not just about talking ourselves into recession: a concept that I do not subscribe to).

In my post Spending time wisely in early July, I picked up on some of the steps that we can take in our practices to see us through the slowdown, whether it be long or short, and in particular to those identified by Nick Jarrett-Kerr of Kerma Partners, in his article in Kerma Partners Quarterly 2/08.

Nick, when looking at ‘where partners should be spending their time during a market turndown’ sees motivating and developing people as a critical task. I could not agree more. For most lawyers, this is their first experience of a down turn in the legal services market. There are few days when the legal press doesn’t carry a story about lay offs and redundancies, and ‘on the floor’ it is obvious that there is less work around. Inevitably this may have a demoralising impact on people; even if they are not directly affected, they will know people who are. The old certainties are longer be there.

Optimism is important: one of the panel at a recent Exeter Business Leaders Forum, having first reminded us that the current economic turbulence was the fourth time down turn he had experienced, told us that one of the main lessons he had learned  is that, even in a down turn, when you get up in the morning, the sun is still shining, people are still going to work, things are still being built, goods are still being sold. Certainly times are harder, and life is more difficult, but this is what happens.

Optimism is not blind hope that everything will be all right; rather it is knowing not just that there is a way forward, but what it is and what it will take to get there. This is a message that needs to be got across to the people who work for us.

“Weary, pissed-off and despairing”

So says one senior Labour party official, reported by George Parker in the FT this morning, describing how people are feeling in the party.

I have news for this anonymous Labour loyalist. His words describe exactly how most of us in the country feel about Gordon Brown, and the shambles over which he is presiding. You cannot get more out of touch with reality than Brown’s repeated insistence that he is the best man to lead Britain. On current form he couldn’t lead us out of a paper bag.

Liberal? Don’t make me laugh

If there is any truth in Stephen Pollard’s post in Spectator.co.uk, EXCLUSIVE: Baroness Tonge and Terrorists, and there is no reason to believe that what he says is other than the truth ~ after all, she already has form ~ then not only should Nick Clegg immediately remove the LibDem whip from Baroness Tonge, but she should consider whether there is any place for her in the public life of this country. On reflection, she may consider that there is not, and spare us any further anger.