Hello and thanks for visiting! I'm not here anymore. I'm now posting about everything in one place. It's here. So for politics, thoughts, cricket, photos and everything else in between, please visit my new site at wordpress: www.lucysweetman1.wordpress.com. All my previous posts from this and other blogs are archived there too. Thanks and see you there. Lucy.
Once again I find myself freelance, after close to six happy years of continuous employment.
I have known for some time that there is no such thing as a job for life. It's clear these days that there may not even be a single career for many of us.
I've spent my working life delivering, managing and supporting services to vulnerable young people. In April I was made redundant from the voluntary sector organisation that had been my home for five and a half years. We finally succumbed to a severe drop in the core funding for our specialist service. It was sad but not unexpected and, like most of these circumstances, perhaps could have been handled better.
Straight from redundancy, I was headhunted to a new role delivering pre-apprenticeship courses and support to vulnerable learners, apparently in the not-for-profit sector. Shortly after I arrived in the post, I was moved into the very-much-for-profit end of the business. Not my choice.
Last week the company went into administration, leaving young people and staff stranded.
So I am finding my way. As well as making myself available as a trainer and project manager, I am putting myself out there as a writer and speaker.
Like many people at the moment, the uncertainty of the last year continues as work feels hard to come by and finances feel insecure. I'm better off than most, believe me I know. To that end, I am staying positive.
I've actually had a very nice and rather lazy day. I was hoping that I would get to see Andy Murray win at Queen's before settling down to the Canadian Grand Prix but that looks increasingly unlikely.
I know that I haven't written for a while, it's been a turbulent time. In the last month, I have changed jobs and been very busy every weekend, so the writing time has been considerably cut down. I haven't even been tweeting very much. As a consequence, I feel very rusty and my mind is lacking focus. On the one hand I feel like I have a lot to say, on the other I have no idea where to start. Not helpful.
So instead I sit here feeling dazed, forcing words out.
I'm not sure what the cure is. Perhaps I'll find my solution in a rain-soaked Grand Prix but this begs another question. When the hell did I start getting into #F1? It's just about as grimly apolitical and wealth-obsessed a sport as you can get, I honestly cannot understand why I'm sat here watching it. And yet, and yet, I won't be switching it off.
Is Bernie Ecclestone chortling into his champagne?
Well, that was pretty impressive and I didn't see the half of it. Friends who joined the march from the back at 11.30am were still marching an hour ago. The back of the march has only just recently passed through Parliament Square and the estimate is that half a million people have registered their resistance today.
I was in Hyde Park as the front of the march arrived at around 1pm. I heard the speeches, including Ed Miliband's which wasn't always well received from my corner of the crowd. I wish he would stop banging on about the 'mainstream majority', what is that? It's certainly no less trite than 'alarm clock Britain'. Patronise less, argue more please.
Meanwhile as I was standing in Hyde Park news came from twitter that Oxford Street was getting rowdy. No sooner had I read it, the sound and sight of police sirens and vans came and just as Ed Miliband was speaking. From what I hear, the television has inevitably focused on the tedious anarchists. I'm sure there will be much talk of that over the next couple of days.
Cameron and Clegg should not dismiss the efforts of half a million people and should be assured that for every one that makes the effort to come, another five are at home feeling the same way.
