Normally I swiftly kill maidenhair ferns, but this one seemed to like the bathroom. Only now it seems to be making a sudden bid for escape…this tendril has doubled in length in about 48 hours. I’ll be honest, I’m worried it might reach my bed overnight and strangle me while I sleep….

Is it me or does microsoft word (mac) crash A LOT lately (since a recent OS update I think)? (yes I have installed any app updates when available) wondering if its something to do with the interface w/ onedrive…

“Trainwave” - when you have a brilliant thought whilst snoozing on a morning train but can’t action it because on a train…. (C) @familoo.pinktape.co.uk E.g. this morning I had a brainwave on the train. Then I had a brainwave that this should be called a trainwave. Which makes it a double trainwave!

Look what just arrived in the post unexpectedly - its funny ‘cos it’s true!

Family Legal Aid Fees – Is patience really a virtue? Our Chair Leslie Samuels KC’s article on Family Legal Aid fees has been published in the February 2026 Family Law (journal) [2026] Fam Law 153. For those who have a subscription the link to the article is here: lnkd.in/ezpSwxu4

QLRs - what do the published judgments tell us? pinktape.co.uk/uncategorize...

I’ve reached the life stage where as soon as I clock a survey is so poorly designed as to render my responses useless* I immediately bin it off. Grrr! Time wasters! My democratic bones tell me I have a say & am obligated to use it, so I start each survey with hope. I am a fool. *100% of all surveys

Oh, marvellous!

Finished my thing last week…which, it turns out, was a shawl…(and handbag and earrings) A bit bereft at the end of my project, so am trying to remember how to make patchwork using all the upholstery samples I hoarded when choosing a sofa. Makes my fingers hurt and I hate threading tiny needles!

Mazur hearing fascinating. Quite hard to follow w/o access to skeletons, but broadly kept up. Can’t shake the feeling that the law as enacted might not be *quite* the same as the law as we might want it to be…a lot of emphasis on the disaster that will ensue if its not. Ct now adjnd to 10.30 Weds.

Analysis of the implications of Re Y (Experts and Alienating Behaviour) by @familoo.pinktape.co.uk

Quel surprise. They refused an EHCP. Of course they did. Because my boy will time out by the time we get through ANOTHER appeal (or by the time they run the clock down & concede it at the 11th hour as per the last 2). Such a waste of time and energy - ours, theirs, the tribunal… 😡😤 Off we go again…

This judgment should make interesting reading when it arrives. A turning point, perhaps…and what a tragedy for this child that it took six years to set right… www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026...

This week has been non stop … absolutely shattered and still not home…doom scrolling and posting this to try and make sure i don’t fall asleep and miss my stop!

Family Legal Aid payments are starting to resume, but so are recoupments. We’re getting lots of emails from members about issues or potential issues with recoupments - please check our emails to members for useful information that might help, and please get in touch with us directly if it doesn’t.

www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2... This week the Supreme Court will hear the appeal against the judgments that the High Court can't use its inherent jurisdiction to set aside a validly made adoption order, when the children are older and want the adoption to be 'undone'

Dear irritatingly, relentlessly cheerful recorded voice lady fronting up the Royal Mail lost parcel number, If your *normal* recorded message says that yr busier than normal then yr NOT busier than normal! You just don’t have enough staff & aren’t prioritising customer service. Yours irritatedly,

Bookings are now open for the annual dinner on 27 Feb. Members can book their tickets via our website and details are in today’s member’s email. Www.flba.co.uk

The Covid lockdown period provided unexpected opportunities to discover the advantages and disadvantages of holding court hearings 'remotely' online. Currently, family courts prefer to hold hearings in person but there's a general move toward more... https://transparencyproject.org.uk/?p=30259

A lovely obituary observer.co.uk/profile/obit...

What's the difference between a barrister and a solicitor (version 2.0) pinktape.co.uk/uncategorize...

Stop referencing fake case citations, judges warned www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/stop-re...

“My whole wretched life swam before my weary eyes, and I realized no matter what you do it’s bound to be a waste of time in the end so you might as well go mad.” Jack Kerouac, On the Road: The Original Scroll

Serious debate here. I’m on the side of “why not just buy another jar of marmite for work”? Also, I speak from experience when I say that travel with emergency marmite supplies in your hand luggage will result in confiscation by airport security (apparently its a liquid)…

Obituary of Sir James Munby by Sir Nicholas Mostyn, wonderful as much for the non-legal asides as for the cases - "he always described himself as a passionate ferro-equestrian" - and for this: "a kind, witty, and deeply compassionate human being" financialremediesjournal.com/sir-james-mu...

Great obituary of one of the great judges. open.substack.com/pub/rozenber...

Husband keeps making jokes about squirrels (as in “Look a squirrel!”) and he’s not wrong…I was found pacing the kitchen last night at 9pm insisting I NEEDED SCREWS TONIGHT or I couldn’t finish it before hunting in all the places where old screws, buttons and paperclips congregate (did not find any).

I be fixin’ things this morning…originated in me deciding yesterday that I needed to tidying up the craft/crochet stuff strewn all over the house - decided to use mum’s old sewing box. But then I remembered it’s ancient & falling apart. Cue trip to shop for supplies for a major restoration project…

This is really sad news. There are lots of complements you can pay to Sir James Munby as a judge but, one of the things I particularly liked about him was that he marked his retirement by taking his successor and predecessors on a special at the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway...

Tributes pour in for Sir James Munby, the former head of the family division of the High Court, who died suddenly on new year's days -- in the @lawsocgazette. www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/mor...

I am very sad about this. James Munby was not just clever and driven, he was also funny and kind.

it hasn't gone away! But inverted into Non-Divorce-Day: 'Divorce Day? It's a myth, says law firm' | Law Gazette share.google/5IOW4qGSOBug...

"The Perennial Pantomime of Divorce D Day" A reprise. @familoo.pinktape.co.uk @seethrujustice.transparencyproject.org.uk transparencyproject.org.uk/the-perennia... #thereisnosuchthingasdivorceday #DivorceDay #DivorceWeek #DivorceMonth #TransparencyProject #LawFirmPR #PublicRelations #MediaComment

Much sadness, but also some hope for these three little ones: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When I am the leader of the free world the first thing I will ban is overly long customer satisfaction surveys which force you to select one of a finite list of options, when none is applicable. Just spent 15 mins giving feedback on a flight to the online equivalent of a 2 yo. “But why mummy?” x5000

A remarkable number of people, commenting here and at the Guardian, have completely missed the point of this article. The concept of friendship is difficult to define, but we don’t need to define it. Create and develop the relationships that work for you.

Thank god its a satire. For a brief moment I didn’t recognise him and just felt very old and very, very tired. But yeah, this is also how much of the internet now sounds to me.

Went to a remote Scottish island where Kate Winslett apparently has a house. Didn’t see her.

This is awful. Please spread the word about this “payment into court” scam

Recommended (and further to my post here: pinktape.co.uk/rants/lawyer...) : naturalandartificiallaw.com/ai-in-judici...

It's our wedding anniversary, so I wrote this for @petepaphides.bsky.social instead of buying a present: www.thetimes.com/life-style/s...

I contributed to @joannahs.bsky.social's article as one of the c.20% of the criminal bar who'd stopped practising between 2018 & 2023. I've felt that legal aid family is now in the place crime was in 2018: the poor pay, increasing workload, appalling conditions & difficulty of cases is all there.

I just don't believe this article. First, the supposed explanation of the barrister's test makes no sense. (This may be the author's fault). What was fed to Grok? If it was the barrister's skeleton, then what was the AI improving? If just the facts, I don't believe it. spectator.com/article/ai-w...

You’ll be hearing more of this… we have never had even an inflationary pay rise since before I started out at the bar 23 years ago. In fact, we had a 10% cut in 2011. And we now do vastly more work per case. For free. www.thetimes.com/uk/law/artic...

I don’t know @bearlypolitics.co.uk and just stumbled across this, but the description of leaving another public service, the NHS, is uncannily redolent of the descriptions family legal aid lawyers give of their lives and what this job takes from them…

My crochet ‘thing’ is getting out of hand… it is (I think) rather beautiful, but still unshapely & lacking purpose. It’s spreading like the blob in all different directions & I’m struggling to manage its shape and lay…yet compulsively adding pieces in the hope its final form will somehow emerge!

Chat GPT prompts relied upon as evidence in family court pinktape.co.uk/rants/chat-g...