Are you mad?

With just two weeks to go until the big day comes and I have to hand back the company vehicle, laptop, credit card, blackberry and other bits and pieces; I think this is now a good time to tell family and friends my plan for the future.

‘Are you mad?’ That’s all I hear from everyone I tell, ‘you’re quitting a secure job in the middle of the worst economic melt-down the world has seen since the great depression?’

‘No’ I reply. ‘I’m in chronic pain since my back gave up on me and ninety years old with zimmer frames stop to ask if I need a helping hand across the road.’ No I’m not mad, well I hope I’m not, but then I haven’t even written a single line of a single chapter let.

I’ve had the basic story in my head for the preceeding five months but as normal have always been too busy to do anything about it. When moving house the previous year I found a draw stuffed with lined paper with a mix of stories I had started (normally while in a bored drunken stupor), but had never got past finishing the first chapter. I knew I had it in me to write a manuscript and this time I was determined to see it through, and the first casualty would have to be my job as I started on a new career path.

No I was not mad, but, and there is always a but, I did get a glass bottle bludgeoned across my head which split my skull open a few years ago, but that is a story for another day.