So it's officially my last week of full-time contractual employment.

Next week comes the chilly plunge into the unknown icy depths of the freelancing pool. Well, for two days a week, anyway.

Reassuring to know, then, that I have:

  • A number of commissions lined up.
  • A fully-functional website promoting my skills and experience to the professional world.
  • A database of contacts who I can approach for advice and work.
  • My finances all in order.
Yes. It would be reassuring to know.

Rather than the reality, which is that I have:

  • No more commissions lined up than normal.
  • A website presently consisting of a registered domain name, containing no content whatsoever.
  • A mountainous scrapheap of screwed-up pieces of paper, containing various names and numbers, notes, ideas, plans, and god knows what else, all of which would be oh-so-useful if they were in any kind of order. Or legible.
  • No finances. Nor order.
  • A recently-contracted and highly virulent blog addiction.
However, all is not lost. I still have this week to push ahead with preparations.

*ahem*

Monday: Attending the screening of two BBC pilot comedy programmes with Lumbardo - he of how the hell have you become a wine-taster fame - which will doubtless entail a lengthy post-comedy conversation involving, even more doubtless, one or two bottles glasses of wine.

Er... Ok, forget Monday.

Tuesday: Meeting an ex-colleague in the pub, to get the latest gossip tips and advice on marketing, since he is a marketing pro although the fact that I plan to moan at him long and loud about his evil mate, who commissioned me for loads of freelance work last year, he of the they've not bloody paid me yet infamy, means that I am more likely to piss him off than I am to get any help from him.

Hm.

Wednesday: Now, this is a good one. Meeting a local copywriter in the pub who has just had a sprog and is looking to pass some of her freelancing work on to someone.

Ha!

Thursday: Attending the launch of a new restaurant/ cafe/ food store in the TC. Meet and interview the owner for a future freelance article which I haven't actually got a commission for. And eat lots of yummy free Italian food and drink lots of free Italian wine.

Erm.

Friday: Stay in and plan the content of my new website. Except that I'll blatantly be in the pub after work, celebrating the fact that I'm going part-time - or perhaps just the fact that it's the weekend.

Ah.

Le weekend: Throw last-minute preparation into top gear for that all-important final push before the first week of my new life as a part-time freelancer commences. Except that I'll be at a friend's birthday celebrations in a pub 'dahn souf'.

Bollocks...