What did Napoleon have to say again, about England being a nation of shop-keepers??!

I've been a bit busy this week.   Crazy, that is, since I gave up work on 4 March 2011!

Then, if you hadn't already noticed in the sidebar, I made the BIG decision to give up my voluntary job too about a fortnight ago.   I had planned to leave at the end of May if I hadn't found work.   That deadline was set in my mind as the date on which I would receive the last of my redundancy money from my former job, and I would have found myself another (probably part-time) job.

I haven't! 

So, awash with tears at leaving some dear colleagues and new friends I felt I had to leave the youthwork charity to sort of concentrate full-time on finding a job.   I also have the friendly jolie laide Jobcentre breathing down my neck...   Then I came down with a dreadful viral infection which put me in bed for almost a week and then turned me into someone who coughed like they had had a lifetime Woodbine habit for the next week.

Bleedin' typical of Fhina's luck that is!   'If it wasn't for bad luck'...etc.

So, I have recovered myself somewhat.   My sense of taste is back with me again - Yay!   How my lovely grandfather survived for forty years of his life without a sense of smell, I just can't imagine...

I am still knee-deep in jobsearch.   It's not a good market in the north east of England just now for anyone looking for work...

I am, however, chock-full of ideas.   I am also somewhat risk-averse.   That was a good quality in a Civil Servant.

It's not a good quality in a budding entrepreneur!

Yesterday, feeling far less than flush, and inspired by the lovely Vintage-loving blog-ladies who have just started to appear in my sidebar, I flashed my plastic Marks & Spencer card in a British Heart Foundation charity shop (thrift/goodwill).   There was very little Vintage to be found, that did not have a hefty price-tag and a 'Vintage' label on it already - They must have some savvy shop-staff...

However, I did buy around £20 worth of pretty boho/hippy colourful clothes I'd never fit into, for a young woman probably twenty-five years younger than me  -  "Ideal Summer Festival Wear!" 

At least I think it is...

I'm headed for e-bay to have a go at being a seller.

Do you have any tips for me, mes bloggy loves??!   I'd love to hear them.

Confessions of a Lifelong Worrit...

Last week, while I was on my hollingberries, came the news that 'they' intended to close down my office... All of our offices across the country.

London has already fallen...

And I knew it was coming. While others of my colleagues were doing their best ostrich impressions... Hoping against hope that something would happen to avert the unstoppable...

We are to be the first of many to fall in this new 'slash and burn' regime of ours...

Stand by your beds!

I really don't know what's going to happen.

I have skills and talents. I am sure of it. I have loads of experience. I'm a graduate. (Twenty-five plus years ago, so what does that count now?

(Sometimes) I am a confident person...

Much of the time, I'm a bundle of firing neuroses. Like a podgy swan on the outside.

Smooth running.

On the inside, wobbling pink blancmange!

Particularly now as I approach the menopause, I guess...

I'm a little more anxious than usual...

I'm turning into quite the worrit.

Worry beads were made for the likes of me.

And industrial strength St. John's Wort.

I know redundancy, redeployment and removal never come at the right time for the majority of people... I am on the early side of my fifties.

Is that a good or a bad thing, I wonder...

Maybe there's something ahead of me that I'll enjoy more than what I've got up to in latter years...

But I'm honestly worried about how to make ends meet; Seeing my son through college and being able to afford his upkeep over the next three years, perhaps more, of study; Even whether we shall be able to keep up with the payments to hold a roof over our heads...

Money worries plague me. We can't really down-size, as we down-sized in house size, but up to a higher mortgage, to move to our country home...

In the Eighties, we 'got on our bikes' as darling Norman Tebbit advocated, and moved south to find work... I really don't see why I should have to do that again at this time of my life, given that we've moved about so much previously for work... Do you understand that, I promise I'm not just being obtuse... stubborn.

I'm generally a pretty risk-averse person.

My husband's fledgling business ideas terrify me.

I want to be safe, staid and stay-at-home.

I wanted to segue through these years in relative comfort, for us...

We're not well off.

We're not church-mouse poor.

We were okay.

And now we might not be.

And part of me needs to process that. To re-adjust. To mull it over... To decide that now is the time I need, finally, to grow up and decide what it is I want to do...

Should I cling on to the raft that is breaking up around me, its pieces floating like jetsam on the choppy waves?

Or should I break for the shore, through uncharted waters that I might not be fit, pretty or clever enough, to battle my way through?

Any advice on that, mes bloggy troubadors??!

Too much information, I know...

I am most sorry.

Forgive my ramblings.