Tag Archives: sole trader

Double digits and the next decade

This spring has been a biggie chez nous. As the daffodils tentatively turned their golden trumpets to the (occasional) sun, I was marking 10 years since leaving a long career at the BBC. And as is always the case with the passage of time, it’s been hard to believe that a whole decade has flown

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Baby steps and snail’s pace

Spring’s on the horizon, traditionally a time to pick up the pace. But as February storms and relentless rain have battered spirits and prevented any meaningful return to the outside world, there have been moments when it’s been difficult to do much more than limp forward. This ongoing limbo is pants. The light is supposed

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Feast, famine and feeling the fear

Aye, we’ve all been there, hovering over a draft email, fearful of firing it off into other folks’ inboxes. But as the saying goes, feel the fear and do it anyway. If, like me, you’re a sole trader or small biz owner, feeling the fear is par for the course. The daily uncertainty of the

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Sleepwalking in small business

Blurry, foggy and fuzzy. Everything feels so indistinct these days. It’s difficult to grasp anything tangible, let alone find a break in the clouds to gaze at distant horizons. Never mind taking the long view, when it comes to commerce I can barely see into next week. No, I’ve not ground to a halt or

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The Covid cling on

Throw me a lifebuoy FFS, I’m drowning. Well okay, then not drowning, but definitely doing a lot of treading water to keep the auld napper above the waves. Some days my personal pandemic psychology is rock solid, buoyant even. However this week, spirits have taken a bit of a dip, partly because the sun has returned

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Missing in action

Two weeks on the Dalmatian coast did wonders for this old wordsmith’s suntan, but a long overdue holiday unexpectedly left me with a yawning gap in my life. This spiritual hole is not so much existential crisis, simply a severe case of ennui. That feels a bit wrong. Holidays are supposed to invigorate and energise, aren’t they? I’m

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Altogether now…

Loneliness comes with the territory when you’re a sole trader. Or at least, that’s the perceived small business wisdom. And yes, ploughing your own furrow can mean that working life is sometimes solitary and alienating. In fact, unless you are completely comfortable working on your ownio, you can go a bit bonkers without colleagues to shoot the

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Defeated by democracy

Today was momentous. Because today is the day we didn’t leave Europe. Not only did we fail to depart, but our conscious uncoupling is yet further delayed after the PM’s latest defeat looks set to leave democracy clinging on in utter disharmony for the foreseeable. But for ordinary punters like me (who didn’t want to

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Pretty vacant

February might mean that love is in the air (for those who are lucky enough to be wrapped in its warm, adoring embrace), but this is also the month when this wee one-woman enterprise always starts to run out of steam. As the natural world suddenly springs into action with crocuses and daffs turning their radiant

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Praise be

Even now in the darkened depths of a Glasgow January, when the annual Scottish SAD syndrome is dragging us all down in its icy, gloomy grip, faint glimmers of a feel-good golden glow have suffused the spirit of this wee sole trader. The annual gloom-fest that is Blue Monday was brightened this week by a stunning blood moon,

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