Monday
Up at 5am. If I wake early I go in early. Today I do not need the car so it takes me an hour to walk three scenic miles to the office along a disused railway line and a canal towpath. My aim is to walk to work as much as possible to get fit again having piled on some unwelcome pounds in recent years.
My PA Toni has all my week’s meeting files ready with up to date valuations. Much of the morning is taken up with the induction of a new trainee. The afternoon is spent writing recommendations. I leave at about 6.30pm and walk home.
Tuesday
We have our independent compliance consultant Karen Malin in for a full-day audit. She gets a desk with a PC and has the run of the place. Everyone works as normal, answering her queries as she raises them. I source a new law firm for the purchase of our new premises, which my wife and I are buying for the firm with our small self-administered scheme (Ssas). The original firm underquoted and then demanded a 600 per cent greater fee after I had spent hours on the preliminaries. The Solicitors Regulatory Authority agreed it was in the wrong, but said doing anything about it would be disproportionate. Now that is what I call ‘light touch regulation’. The findings of our compliance audit are excellent with just a few tweaks needed to our standard client agreements.
Wednesday
I am on the 7.12am train from Wakefield station to London for the Apfa Council meeting. I have served on it for five years and it is a privilege to work with such people, most of them volunteers, all committed to working for the benefit of advisers and their clients.
I lunch at Daquise, in south Kensington, with a friend who had a remarkable career in the music industry, starting at EMI in the early 1960s before moving on to Warner Brothers Records, where he signed a range of stars including Joni Mitchell.
I take a train to Chichester to visit an elderly lady client who has recently lost her husband. I reach home just before midnight having grabbed a take-away for supper. My wife has gone to bed, but I get a warm welcome from our huskies, Rosa and Czar. They are after my chicken nuggets.
Thursday
It is a sunny morning so I ride to work on my Harley Davidson Road King. My first appointment is with a local business owner. I explain how he can buy his business premises using a Sipp or Ssas. No borrowing is needed, we just need to consolidate several ancient pension plans and do a syndicated purchase for him and his wife.
Next is my preparation for my weekly spot on BBC Radio Leeds with veteran local presenter Andrew Edwards. I have worked with the BBC for many years and our weekly 30-minute spot is very popular. The Harley gets me in and out of Leeds in half the time it takes by car. I pick up some office supplies on my way back.
