Three skills......

As a teenager trying to build a career as a tennis player November and December were the months of no competitions, rest and time to plan the coming season. The process involved reviewing the year’s performance and putting a plan together to improve in the coming year. Although injury put an end to the tennis dreams, reviewing and setting goals is a habit that stayed with me for life.

For me, goals are something I work on every day but in November I put in that extra special effort to make sure they can all be ticked off my list as achieved by December.

This year my key goal has been ticking along but not with the gusto it needed for me to reach the final target. The main reason for being behind has been lack of focus. It’s easy to make excuses but the second half of 2012 has been traumatic, with my focus shifted to family issues the goals got left behind. November was a wake up call. Reviewing my goals I realised I was about to fail big time with my key goal. The main problem was the amount of work I still needed to do in a very short time to achieve my targets. Quite frankly, there weren’t enough hours so help had to be drafted in. It was time to start thinking outside the box.

I pride myself on being a good planner, well organised, focused and determined. Yesterday 30th November, I achieved my goals 100%. Looking back I see there were three skills that helped me achieve them with the assistance of my husband and daughter - begging, nagging and bribery!

Admin Support for Landlords

It started as a way of being able to charge out the time I spend on administration.  It went on to become a business idea.  And now after months of building the infrastructure www.tirokapms.co.uk is finally open for business.

So what is www.tirokapms.co.uk and how can it help you?

If you are a landlord in England or Wales you will understand how much paperwork is involved with having a property to let.  First you need to have Energy Performance Certificates or EPC before you can even begin advertising your property.  You need Gas Safety Certificates, Inventories, Property Manuals, Tenancy Agreements and Deposit Protection before your tenant moves into the property.

Once the tenant has moved into the property there is on going maintenance checks, inventory checks, tenancy renewals and annual gas safety certificates.  And what happens if you need to evict the tenant for whatever reason?  You find yourself waiting weeks or months for solicitors to put some urgency into issuing notice to leave and very little if any change out of £500 for the service.

www.tirokapms.co.uk is an admin support service for landlords guaranteeing quick turnaround time for a fraction of the cost of a solicitor.  Between us we have 25+ years experience in managing residential properties and all staff and directors of the company are either NLA accredited landlords or LAW (landlord Accredited Wales) some of us even have accreditation with both.  You can be sure we are up to date with the latest rules and regulations.

So if you are a landlord in England or Wales why not give our admin support services for landlords a try.  Think of us as your own personal secretary.  We are sure you will be happy with our quick turnaround service and the savings you can make on legal documents.  Visit www.tirokapms.co.uk for further information or contact our offices on 0845 337 0509

In Support of National Adoption Week

It is National Adoption Week again and this year the emphasis is on adopting older children. It is a very sad fact that out of 36,000 older children in the UK waiting to be adopted on 80 were adopted last year. So, I write this blog in support of adopting older children.


In 2008 my husband and I adopted our daughter. She was 9 years old. To be honest we got all the ‘don’t do it’ comments from friends who had adopted and experienced problems. But here we are 4 years later proud parents to a 13 year old teenager.

Is she a perfect daughter, far from it? But then are we the perfect parents? What I do know is we are typical parents nagging our typical teenage daughter to clean her teeth, have a wash, clean her bedroom, tidy up her mess and get a move on because she is running late for school.

While there are many horror stories about teenage kids and adopted kids we are very lucky to have such a beautiful well behaved loveable daughter.  Her school teachers and our friends can't praise her enough. Even the friends who encouraged us not to adopt have nothing but praise for her. I would encourage anyone considering adopting to think about an older child along with the joys and pleasure they give.

I certainly wouldn’t want to miss the hugs and kisses I get every morning as she leaves for school and every evening before she goes to bed; the moaning and groaning every morning when I try to wake her up for breakfast. The laughter she brings to the dining table every evening with her stories about kids and teachers from school. The pleasure I get from watching her growing into a beautiful confident young adult.

I dread to think what we would have missed if we hadn’t adopted our daughter and can honestly say I have never regretted the decision to adopt an older child. 

So, if you are thinking of adoption please consider an older child.