Today I read yet another inspirational FaceBook post about dealing with lockdown. Turns out I’m doing about half the suggested things already, viz having quite long conversations with the dog and referring to ourselves as “we” (that last bit wasn’t on the list, actually), along with moisturising and self care.
I’m doing well on the latter score too, because one of my Christmas presents to myself was a parcel of Liz Earle unguents and creams, so now we always emerge from the house with a fragrant trail of essential oils, feeling – if not looking – fabulous.
Today, as a special treat, I’ve bought a cappuccino from the little cafe Bloc on Victoria Park. It tastes like the most deliciously sensual thing in the world after a few months without. We’re sitting on a bench watching the other dogs go by and it’s a treat despite the drizzle.
Work has more or less dried up again after an intense few weeks before Christmas. Most of the contracts I worked on during that period were for the Translation Centre for the Bodies of the EU (bit of a long-winded title, I know) under “negotiated procedures”. Negotiated procedures allow some “derogations” (EU-speak for exemptions to normal rules), but not that of being a non-EU citizen, it turns out.
Paradoxically, nearly all the translations I did at the end of last year were for DG Growth, which gives EU citizens information on living, working and setting up companies in other EU countries. A bitter irony indeed.
Anyway, the Translation Centre has just published a call for tenders. My UK company is barred from tendering or working for the EU as of the end of 2020 because Boris somehow neglected to arrange any deal for service providers in his haste to keep fisherfolk and goods traders happy. He didn’t even manage that very well, because M&S in Ireland can’t import Percy Pigs and certain doughty Leave voters can’t export their eels to the continent. Shame.
Not to be deterred, I’ve gone ahead with a plan that I started hatching after the 2016 referendum, which is to set up an Estonian company as an e-Resident. It’s what digital nomads do, and as I spend four months a year away from Wales in Italy or elsewhere in Europe and work almost exclusively for EU companies, it feels like the right thing to do.
So, welcome Juliet Haydock Translations OÜ (that stands for “osaühing” in Estonian).
2022 and all that 