Skip to main content

Having a Laugh



Just before Christmas, I heard a little news report that didn’t half make me laugh! Apparently, the Government is considering offering something called a ‘Midlife M.O.T’ for the 600,000+ over fifty-year-olds who have given up work in the last couple of years and have no intention of going back. This has caused a gap in the labour market which needs refilling. And the Government think that their ‘Midlife M.O.T’ idea will ‘help’ us no-longer-in-paid-employment folk back into work, by assessing our skills and any work-related issues we might have, so that we might be placed back in suitable employment, be that full-time, part-time, or voluntary. All for the convenience of the Government, of course. Like everything is these days. 

How patronising, I thought. How presumptive, I thought. How bloody rude, I thought. 

It’s just another way that Government feels it has the right to interfere in how people live their lives, that’s what it is. Like undergoing health screening, or how much exercise we should be doing, or fruit and veg we should be eating, or vaccinations we should be having, or what we can and cannot say because
 it might or might not upset someone else. It’s another erosion of personal autonomy, that’s what it is.

I started working when I was nine years old. Fruit picking on my grandparents’ farm during the summer holidays. I earned £4.67 that summer which was a fortune to me. About £40 in today’s money. And as a teen I had a regular weekend job in the farm shop. Did a bit of baby sitting, too. And I spent the best part of the next 40+ years working because that’s what I was taught was expected - that you earned your own money and paid your own way in life. 

Now I find myself in the very happy position of being mortgage and debt-free, with savings and no urgent need to earn a living. I am good at budgeting and I have few needs. I have time to spend doing what I want to do, which is mostly writing. The writing might, one day, create an income stream, which would be very satisfying, but if it doesn’t, it won’t stop me writing because writing is what I love best in the whole world. I’m setting up a new business - ‘Hallo Tarot!’ - this year, which again may or may not earn some income, but the point is it is something I shall enjoy doing and, now I’m in my late-fifties, enjoying life is what I intend to do. Besides, when I started working the retirement age for women was 60. It is now 67 which is blatant theft of life as far as I am concerned, and no-one (and when I say ‘no-one’ I’m talking ‘government’ again) consulted me on THAT! 

Therefore, I sincerely hope the Government does not offer me a Midlife M.O.T because I would not wish to cause offence by telling them where to shove it. If, and it’s a very BIG if, I want to rejoin the rat-race, I am perfectly capable of doing so under my own steam. So there! 

Besides, I can’t go back to work. It would be very unfair on the puppy that is coming to join our family in the next few weeks…

Comments

Anonymous said…
Good grief! A M.O.T!? Crazy. A puppy how exciting! Looking forward to hear about those shenanigans.
KJ
5 January 2023 at 14:32
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Frosted Dawn Enigma

The decorators are in at the moment. Stairs and landing. Given my previous history of 'Hoo Ha Occurring on Stairs ' - reference the Trapped Under the Sofa Incident and the Foot Wedged Between Bookcase and Stair Rise Debacle - I thought it wise to pay for professionals to decorate the stairs and landing rather than get myself in a mix with ladder and plank combinations and achieve the Magic Three of staircase accidents. The decorators are a father and son combo who go by the  names of Craig and David. This automatically causes me entertainment. 'Came in on a Monday, prepped, filled and undercoated, back on Thursday, first top coating, by Friday finishing touches...' Okay, not as frisky or well-scanned as the original song, but you get where I'm coming from. Anyway, before they started the job Craig asked what colour I wanted for the walls. 'Same colour as the downstairs walls, please,' said I. 'Dulux Frosted Dawn.' And then white for ...
2 comments
Read more

Day 1 - Decisions Are Made Beyond the Author's Control.

‘Well,’ I say, looking at the expectant faces gathered around the huge table in the Great Dining Hall of Much Malarkey Manor, ‘I didn’t think it was going to happen this year, but it is!’ There is a sharp intake of breath as everyone wonders of what I speak. I’ve been muttering about all sorts recently, and I’m not talking liquorice here either.   ‘The Much Malarkey Manor Annual and Traditional Christmas Story!’ I say, and wait for the expulsed air of relief to settle before I continue. ‘I thought we had done it all. I thought we had covered every Christmas story there was. I’ve been wracking my brains for a full two months now, trying to come up with something we haven’t done before and then it hit me! We haven’t done a version of one of the Great Christmas Films of Yore!’ ‘Your what?’ says Mrs Slocombe, who is more interested in the selection of pastries I have brought to this breakfast meeting, because that is what one does, isn’t it? Eat pastries at breakfast...
8 comments
Read more

Sun Puddles

A few weeks ago, I met up with a dear friend for a meditation and healing afternoon, both of us being light workers on the spirit pathway. It did me good to re-engage in a bit of focused energy channelling (because I have let my practice slip somewhat) and during the afternoon the words ‘sun puddles’ popped into my head.  Now, I know this wasn’t my human brain thinking these words because I have never heard the phrase before; when I arrived home, I looked it up and said to myself, ‘Aaah, you mean sun spots!’ This is a sun puddle... ...there! That thing that Flora is lying on. No, not the sofa - the warm patch of sunshine on the sofa. Here are Flora and Bambino sharing a sun puddle... This proves that no matter how much they scrap with each other and try to denude each other of fur all over my rugs, they secretly share a mutual and fond admiration. I think. And here is Bambino on a sun puddle that has come to rest on my legs... It’s his casual, ‘I’m so cool’ pose. Metaphorically coo...
3 comments
Read more