Please, can I have some more (work)?

Oh I miss editing! I've still been doing my voluntary work whilst being on maternity leave but I really miss getting my teeth into a large project. So once my baby hit 5 months I thought 'the next one I'm offered I'm taking', but I didn't get offered anything. Then on returning from holiday almost a month ago I decided to officially come off maternity leave.

The email took some writing as some of my clients weren't aware that I'd actually stopped working for a while - just that I was too busy to help them earlier this year. The message was eventually sent 2 weeks ago - please, can I have some work?

Several email addresses bounced back, not a good sign. A couple of clients replied to congratulate me and say they would think of me if anything came in but they hadn't got anything at the moment. The others have remained silent. My OH has come home form a hard day's work every day this week and asked if I've got any work, have I sent another email? I can never judge when it is best to send a 'begging for work' email - as I don't really want to appear as if I'm 'begging for work' I want to appear as though 'I have plenty to get on with but as you're nice I'll just squeeze your project in as long as you pay me on time' which I've been able to carry off quite well for the last few years.

Just looked at my bank account - £16.32 - best get that email written then ....

Maternity Allowance

So I officially started my maternity leave 12 days ago. I found out all about maternity allowance and finally filled in all the forms and sent them off. It is one of the things about being self-employed that you need to claim maternity pay (or sick pay, etc) through the job centre. It can be done online or by filling out reams of paper and posting them off.

I recently discovered that my father-in-law is baffled by this. He can't see how I should be paid for not working. Even though my husband has explained that it is the same as the maternity pay I received when I was employed in an office with my first child.

It turns out that his bafflement goes a lot deeper than that - he doesn't really 'get' that I work. He thinks that because I don't go to an office every day that what I do doesn't qualify as 'work'. The fact that I pay more tax and National Insurance than he probably does doesn't compute - I'm 'sponging' by claiming maternity allowance. Perhaps if it had been my husband who was self-employed his view would be different - there's no paternity pay for the self-employed.