It’s too difficult to explain if you haven’t seen all this drama

In the end

But I needed to take a day off on Friday to go and see my aunt – she’s in a care home in Richmond, North Yorkshire.

It’s a nice place and the view is spectacular, her room faces out to this.

I had to take a large delivery of things that were delivered to the wrong address ( mine instead of the care home and my fuck-up) and also to make the point to the care home that the money is going fast and that they need to work with the council to change the payments.

The council have already agreed, so it’s just a timing error.

But it’s important, we need money in her account to pay for things she wants – or needs. Like emergency dental appointments and an extraction, which happened on Wednesday.

It’s a seven hour round trip plus stops and visiting time, so a bit of a full day, but I decided to use it as a dry run for my (not quite fully) planned road trip after I finish work and we get Easter out of the way.

So I took Cairo.

She was absolutely perfect for the whole trip, either dozing or just looking out of the window.

And the surprise she gave my aunt was priceless.

It lashed down with rain for most of the 175 miles home, but it was so nice to have done something good.

I’m incredibly relaxed today and I’m starting to look forward to having some real time to do nice things after March 31st.

It’s going to be fun.

‘Have you started winding down yet?’

I must have been asked that question twenty times last week.

It’s become annoying and I’m starting to be selectively rude up to the ‘why the fuck would I be doing that? I’ve got six weeks left and I’m still doing my fucking job’ point with one person.

It’s alien to me.

Why would I abandon my team or the colleagues that I actually like before my last day?

Weird.

The thing is though, politics has started to rear its ugly little head and something that I’ve been trying to get sorted for the whole group of companies could be derailed by somebody in my organisation who’s too scared to cross the road on their own, let alone take over some very interesting ( and very classified) stuff.

This could hurt my team in the long run and I’m not happy about it at all..

I’ll come back to this in a few paragraphs.

But otherwise, life is chilled and relaxed – I went to the launch party of a book written by an old friend —- https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0DJQ2LC61/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0

And then had drinks with a friend who’s recovered from a brain inflammation, a pretty good night really.

The guy that I was talking to about the veterans’ concert sent me a song from ‘his’ band

And today, my little Milo who’s got arthritis and is taking some more drugs for doggie Asthma was so fit at the end of a four mile walk that he ran ahead of us.

And disappeared altogether.

He got home about FOUR MINUTES ahead of us.

I was relieved and so fucking proud that the little bastard still wants adventures.

So back to winding down and politics.

Until I leave I won’t and can’t say who I work for, but I was approached by somebody on Friday who is part of a joint venture with Italy and Japan.

Their part of the company has money like you wouldn’t believe.

But very little expertise in what my teams do.

They want a data centre (two actually) to be built and managed by my team.

I’m going to go to war for my staff to secure their future.

I’m not winding down for the next six weeks at all.

Milo’s showed me the way

‘Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can’t savor all the… little emotions. In… you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are.

So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did.

Would you like to know which of them were cowards?’

If you haven’t seen The Dark Knight, you really should.

A film that turns superhero mythology into something believable and terrifying and a scene that stays with you – how would YOU fare against that monster?

Fuck knows

Anyway, that’s not the point of this post, it’s not about bravery, imagined or real, it’s about the choices we have.

But if you want to stay with fiction, what about Galadriel ?

‘ I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel’

Given the opportunity to take everything, she steps back from something that would ultimately destroy her.

What about us though? How do we know if we have enough? What do we actually want?

I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I’ve given my notice at work and the last week or so has been weird.

(Mostly) younger people have asked if I’ve started to wind down, to be met with mild abuse, I’ll do that in my last couple of days, not with eight weeks to go.

I also talked to some people about starting something new within the wider company.

And I was tempted for a day or so. I was in London and London isn’t the real world.

It’s something I could do, I’m fucking good at that sort of thing and the lure of money is always there.

Then I got home.

I rescued a sparrowhawk from my hedge and watched the dogs play at sunset, I remembered that I WANT to go on a road trip and that I WANT to fix some things around the land.

I remembered why I’m quitting.

I’ve got more than enough money, my parents would be astonished at what I have – and if need be, I can downsize at some dim and distant point.

Or sell some gold or shares.

And quite frankly, the taxman can go and fuck himself – I’ve done enough.

So.

For my friends in the real world, the doglets and for me, corporate life ends on the 31st March.

I have passed this test.

I’ve now got about eight weeks left to go before I leave my job, I wondered if I was going to regret it by this point and maybe change my mind.

That’s a NO.

I wrote in this post about my vague plans for the future and they’re still vague, but things are starting to look interesting.

https://smallthunderdog.blog/2025/01/12/the-road-ahead/

I spent most of Thursday going through some real-world activities with my team, including public speaking training where I had to be the first presenter- just to make it all fair.

And..

They gave me thirty minutes to research, write and present on a subject of their choice.

Quantum Physics..

It was fine.

Then they had their turns and that was fine too.

I took them for a nice lunch upstairs at the Waterstones on Piccadilly, almost a perfect location, a huge bookstore with a restaurant and bar.

Then I took them through some more advanced commercial training around VERY difficult conversations.

We’ll be doing more before I leave and by the time we finish, nobody will be able to fuck with them.

On the same day, I got a formal invite to the book launch in Covent Garden next week of an old friend and we chatted.

I mentioned that I was writing a slightly bizarre management guide and I’ll now be chatting to her publisher at some point in the evening.

I then had dinner another evening of mild debauchery with The Smurf and when she left to go home, I had a nightcap in the bar of the Army and Navy Club.

Then it got interesting.

I was asked where I’d served – I never did but I did almost join the intelligence corps.

One of the people I was talking to had passed training for the paras but was injured before he could join the regiment.

We talked of various things and it turned out that we’d both been involved with the film Kajaki -( if you know my real name, you’ll see it in the credits towards the end ).

And we were both in awe of the genuine bravery of the unit’s medic. I’ve never heard anything like it.

After a while, he told me that he was trying to organise a concert at Wembley this year for WW2 veterans along the lines of Live Aid.

And I was sceptical, obviously.

Then he showed me his contacts list and some messages from quite a few people.

Including the managers of a couple of major rock bands.

He’s connected at almost every level and works for a hedge fund that has so much money that it’s almost incomprehensible.

I like him and believe him.

So we’ve swapped numbers and had a quick chat over the weekend and I’ve offered to help any way I can.

The idea of a concert for veterans is awesome.

I’m not passing this chance up.

So the future is still vague.

I’m still leaving, but life is there for the taking and I plan to have fun.