So after a week bobbing about in the sea of partial unemployment, what lessons has been learned? Unsurprisingly, not much other than the much hackneyed “really should have done this years ago“. And even as a man who is on the genuinely delusional side of positives focussing, a couple of beers has me volte-facing on the stuff that I’ve entirely failed to miss.

Not going to London. I know, I know I’m even boring myself with this now. I’ll try and maintain your interest with a little story instead. My alarm is permanently set for 4:50am. Once or twice a week I hit the “on” button some six hours before the bloody irritating beep wrests me from a slumber. Except it generally doesn’t as – after missing exactly ONE train in a THOUSAND – the body clock jerks me awake around 4:30am. This has carried on happening, wide awake way before dawn listening to the “click” as the big hand heads towards five.*

I don’t really mind as I’ve a head full of stuff that needs thinking about. And it’s not like I actually have to get up. I am the king of the lazy lie in much to the disgust of the rest of the tribe. No guilt here, I think I’m owed.

Not dealing with pointless nonsense. I had an inkling much of my job was exactly that. A week of not doing it pretty much cements that hypothesis. Refereeing bipolar jihad’s on exactly how many angels can dance on a pin is an odd way to make a living. So I expect the firm has missed me exactly as much as I’ve missed them. Slightly strange is my absolute disinterest in things that were head-banging-against-the-desk important only a couple of weeks ago. There’s probably a message there, but I’m not really clever enough to work it out.

Not finding excuses. Four Bike rides, two of which started in the rain with the first ending in mud-splattered giggling and conditions on the second coming side of biblical. The poor bloody dog has been yomped all over South Herefordshire and if he’s not careful the pack leader might start running again. And finding time to properly do stuff that isn’t directly affected to work, riding bikes or other stuff with “me” in the middle of it has been something of an inspiration.

Not wondering about what’s next. The response to an inevitable question of what I might do went something like this “I’ve not really enjoyed any job in the last twenty years, so it would seem borderline insane to jump into another one“. This was met by blank stares, open astonishment and mild accolades for being a brave little soldier. Fairly sure I know what I don’t want to do, equally sure at some point there’ll be seditious talk about paying the mortgage. I’d quite fancy a middle age crisis, but I can’t afford a Ferrari and Carol’s dead against me having another motorbike.

A week ago – about now – I was fairly pissed in the middle of London, nth beer in one hand, Malboro light in the other wondering if I’d miss all the lovely people who had nothing better to do than turn up at my leaving do. A week later, it seems I was probably asking the wrong question.

* analogue clock. Presented to me by a German manufacturer over ten years ago. Absolutely refuses to die. We call it the “Clockwork Panzer“