Jody Klaire

Hi there,

I have looked back at when I wrote my most recent post and it was far too long ago. Life has changed a great deal since I posted and so I have given you a bit of a whizz-through before getting to the good parts!

Ferb

We lost my wonderful Co-Counsel in May 2025. He thankfully didn’t know much about it but, anyone who met him or who has been besotted by their furry (or other creature) friend then you will know that words can’t describe it and even now, there’s not much I can manage to put together other than to say his paws were super-paws and he will forever be my co-conspirator with wings.

Life’s Little Storms

It’s been rough to put it mildly in my book. I’ve been fighting a now Court of Appeal level battle singlehandedly, against Treasury Counsel to stand up to my own government about the fact that I followed their published guidance to build a porch to allow me to enter/leave safely and use my own home and some very incredibly soulless people in an office in my local council assisted the people targeting myself and my family and stuck an enforcement notice on it. The Inspector for the Welsh Government just told me that I could just find some other way in even when they knew full well I needed accessible access. In the words of Aeron, they need pickle juice. It has been horrendous and it defies belief that any human being would target someone and try to remove a fundamental right of someone who needs to use their own home differently than others all over a minor technical asthetic aspect. I will keep fighting because I am fighting not only for my right but the rights for everyone else who is differently abled and just wants society to stop kicking us in the shins.

On top of that, I had started pupillage. I had thought I could start to build a practice at the Bar but medical circumstances intervened. I can’t talk about my experiences as yet (but I will) of how it was for a differently abled person and I will have to dig out the pickle juice. Needless to say, the above-mentioned sentence about society kicking differently abled persons in the shins is highly relevant. If my experiences in Court as a person fighting for their rights, assisting others to fight for theirs, or in dealings with professionals are any indication, a LOT needs to change… a LOT.

Medical stuff has kept me busy… so as you will know, I went blind in 2020. Turns out that was to do with meningitis and the disease in my ears. I had meningitis during the Bar Course again and wound up having the first life-saving operation in March 2025, which helped a massive amount… only for the disease to return more aggressively this March and result in further damage, a whole other level of pain I won’t go into and the loss of half my spirit level. Meh, life would be boring if it wasn’t paddling through gale force wind and storms, right?

Happier stuff

So, with the very basic blurgh stuff out of the way, I am pleased to say that Ferb and I got called to the Bar in 2024, which means we both became barristers (and barkisters). We had such an amazing evening, even though I was very unwell, and I shared it with some of the wonderful people at the Bar I have come to know. There are lots of very kind and lovely people who do care and I am very thankful whether they were part of the evening or not, that they have been in my story and me in theirs.

Now onto the good stuff…

So, one of the upsides of struggling and trying to ignore that if I threw that much at my characters, someone would say that it wasn’t believable and to quit throwing the entire bathroom furniture at them, I found myself before my operation in March, not sure if I was making it through the operation, terrified and… well… just as they have so many times before… my books came to the rescue.

Yep, for the first time in six years, I was able to write again. So, during my recovery when the shower and bath were being hauled at me, I managed to complete a book I’ve been working on for well over a decade. It’s a book that needed all I have experienced to bring it together. I will be releasing it and building up to doing so I thought I’d chat to you about why it’s taken so long.

The Beauty of Imperfection has gone through so many drafts and versions that it could have made ten books in itself. When I started it, it looked wildly different in some ways to what it does now but its core has remained. I spent many sessions with the wonderful Emma Darwin on this book, trying to learn how to present what I wanted to say in the best possible manner, working out what I actually wanted to say and then trying to pull it all together. It wasn’t easy!

One of the parts I needed to learn to understand was my communication and writing style. Funny, because I never understood I was autistic back then, and it is more of a superpower. I teach about it now and about how differences in cognitive communication and processing are simply brain languages. Sometimes people struggled to understand and translate other languages. What I chose to do was to be truthful to my character, Anja, and myself by unmasking in this book. I’m proud of that step forward and I’m proud I never compromised that.

That is the key part of what I wanted to say in this particular blog. The tagline of The Beauty of Imperfection is that ‘it takes courage to be as you were written’ and I can wholeheartedly attest for that. I have chosen to stand firm and be proud of who I am and try to create inclusion, help remind others, and myself sometimes, that it is what is different about us that makes us truly worth knowing.

I have the front cover to chat about, the characters, the fun contained mixed with the kitchen sink moments… however, as always, I hope you know that when I’m in control of the prose, I take that responsibility seriously and will take great care to make sure you feel uplifted, happy and smiling with my words.

So, life’s little storm is raging on, my liferaft sank months ago and I’m perched on a rubber ring trying to figure out why my whistle won’t work but I’m, as ever, ridiculous, laughing at how absurd my situation is and working out a way to fashion a yacht from seaweed…

Big Smiles,

Jody x