Off the Roundabout

 

The Magic Roundabout has been CGI’d! I discovered this when seeking out an image for today’s blog, and am now trying to delete the heinous visions from my sight. THIS is a correct image from the programme I remember from my childhood days. Ermintrude was my favourite character. A glorious pink spotty cow wearing a blue hat, chewing a flower and racing around in a hoo-ha. Dougal the Dog was a close second - I used to make models of him using tubes from loo rolls, wool and empty egg shells. Zebedee got on my nerves. All that boinging. 

(The other image I’m trying to eliminate is one which made me gag on my toast and Marmite this morning; a revelation in the news that a prisoner was discovered, after being x-rayed, to have been hiding an iPhone up, and I quote ‘an intimate part of his body.’ Ye gods, what is WRONG with people? An iPhone?? Seriously??? Eurghhhh…)

Anyway, back to The Magic Roundabout. It is a metaphor connected to my continuing focus on letting go of things in life that no longer serve my current purpose or pathway. I am climbing off roundabouts. And a roundabout I climbed off a couple of weeks ago was The Roundabout of Paid Employment. Yes, I have given up my job.

I was aided in climbing off this particular roundabout by a cumulative series of niggling events, so when the time to jump came I didn’t even really need the roundabout to slow down that much. Decision was made with almost immediate effect, and in the words of the Righteous Brothers, ‘There’s no regrets, no tears goodbye.’ I leapt from the roundabout and landed as sure footed as a mountain goat wearing ballet slippers and a flouncy tutu. 

Of course, I realise this course of action isn’t an option for everyone, especially as the cost of living rises, but it is a course, with gratitude, I am able to take. So I did. I’ve worked hard in life to ensure a pretty good degree of financial security - my living needs are few and simple. Therefore, my time to toss in being at the behest of some employer is now. I am a writer. I need to devote my working life to writing if I am to call myself a proper writer. It doesn’t matter if I make a financial living from writing. What I WILL make is a creative, satisfying, spiritual and contented living from writing. 

Oh, I know - it all sounds a bit fairytale and fantastical. And why not? We are terrible at relaxing and welcoming magic into our lives. We have to worry about this and that, live in fear of ‘what ifs’ and ‘buts’, constantly fretting about a million things when, in reality, 99% of them won’t ever happen. And if they do? Well, we’ll get through them, won’t we? (Okay, so I might be wearing my ‘Little Miss Blasé’ t-shirt today - I don’t care! The sun is shining, Lord Malarkey is harvesting apples, and I am a writer! And today is the only day I have to think about.)

At the moment, not having to go out to work still feels a bit like being on holiday. However, I do know the time will come when I will feel the dutiful urge to go out and get another job because that is the way I was raised - to work hard for money. That, dear reader, is the time when I must NOT climb back on the roundabout. I must say to Mr Rusty, ‘It’s okay, thanks Mr R! Don’t slow the magic roundabout for me. I’m not climbing on. I’m going to carry on exploring the magic garden!’

As Dougal the Dog said, ‘I’m here. Let joy be unconfined!’ (He also called Ermintrude a ‘mad, bovine fool’ but we shan’t dwell on that…)