2: MOT

The Dacia’s almost made it. It’s stalled and choked its way through another year, and is now  being put through its paces by Chilton’s most-trusty Treadfirst engineer. I’m hoping it will pass. If my Dacia can pass muster, then I can make it too.

For although I’ve just signed on the dotted line for my imminent release from the day job, I haven’t quite made it to the starting point of my new life yet. I still have some weeks of employment to work through, before I can pop my bottle of champagne open .

And, if the Dacia fails it’s MOT, and my redundancy funds will only stretch to a bottle of Tesco’s Value carbonated water, will the Dacia, too, have to be replaced by an alternative, i.e. my feet?

Not that my feet are to be dissed. By foot, I can see the world, the unexpectedly beautiful world along the edges of Church Field Road. I pause to Motorola a couple of dandelion clocks. Perhaps, I think, I ought to pick one of them, hold it to the air, and make my wish. My wish for a first commission, for a starting point – for a kick off!

Instead, I leave my wish to chance, and make do with its image.

For cruel it would be indeed, to blow away the wishes of others. The wishes of all who work on the other side the mesh fencing, of all who are confined within the corrugated walls of industrial buildings, of all who fear the unknown alternative.

Instead the workers blow their wishes out as far as their puffs will carry them. And, here, in the grass verges and hedgerows, they accumulate and settle.

I have made my own decision to step out of the boundaries of employment; and I’m certain it’s not for me to step out for others.

Sure of myself, I leave the dandelion clock’s to nature.

At home, in my cave, I check out my snaps. Is it just my imagination, or is there a face, an orange sun of a theatrical mask, staring me out from the centre?

Does it mock?

My phone rings – the trusty engineer speaks! That dastardly Dacia. It’s failed the MOT and there’s no way of it stop-starting its way out of this one! Time for the credit card to take over …

Copyright of diary and photograph owned by Jay Cool, 11th May 2019

P.S. If you are enjoying my diaries, why not send a writing commission my way, and help me along with the first step towards ditching my credit card as well as my day job? Love you! XXXXX

P.P.S. If you skipped my first diary entry, go back and read Giving Up the Day Job 1: A Diary