Gardening Leave🌿

Hey, how’ve you been? Um, so I don’t think I can completely gloss over the fact that it’s been just shy of four years since I’ve spoken to you. I mean, after four years, I wouldn’t be half surprised if the majority of my readers were long gone – I wouldn’t blame you in the slightest. So maybe you’re new here, if so, ‘hi’! If you’re not, welcome back (and I’m sorry).

I don’t quite know what happened. Life got in the way, and I actually think I just ran out of things to say. It’s not as though absolutely nothing interesting has been going on in my life in the last four years (it certainly wasn’t high octane, but I’m fairly sure some stuff happened). I’ll catch you up:-

1. I got fat (and am finally managing to lose it again – you’ll hear about this another time).
2. Menopause screwed me over big-time (that kind of relates to the point above).
3. My cat died *sniff*, sorry, it’s still too raw.
4. I horribly fractured my wrist (there will likely be a post about that too).
5. Oh, and the main reason I’m breaking my silence today, I got made redundant. Fun times!

Being made redundant at the tender age of 54 was not high on my to-do list for 2026, and yet here we are. It happened very recently, actually – a couple of weeks ago. And it knocked me for six. I’ve taken voluntary redundancy before; that was different, that was my choice. But this? I wasn’t expecting it – maybe I should have been: The small company I’d worked for as nurse for nearly six years, well, that era of my life is now at an end. There are no hard feelings; obviously I’m not  over the moon about the situation, but I know in the long run I’ll see it was for the best. For reasons I won’t go into, I knew it was time for me to move on last summer, but I wasn’t brave enough; I’d got too comfortable. I liked my job and was good at it, I liked my colleagues and clients, I liked my fifteen minute stroll to work. But there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, nothing in life is permanent. Absolutely nothing.

Worse still, statistics say I’m not the only one (I pretty much copied and pasted this paragraph, couldn’t be arsed to rephrase). Redundancies in the UK have risen sharply in 2025-2026 – the highest levels since the pandemic. An estimated 25% of employers were planning cuts in early 2025 due to factors such as National Insurance contributions, higher minimum wage, inflation and (you guessed it), the dreaded AI. Everyone is tightening their belts, it seems – so this could happen to any of us. It happened to me.

The hardest part will be the loss of my colleagues, we were a small team; all different ages and from all walks of life. But we gelled so well. We laughed every day, we called each other derogatory names (expletives galore), we played pranks. I mean, we did some work too, honest. But we were genuinely friends. I’ll miss the banter, I worry my next workplace won’t have that kind of camaraderie. It will be hard to replicate.

So, here we are – on gardening leave. And as sad as I am to leave my job behind, I’m glad at least that the worst is over (I hope). If that chapter of my life was to end, I needed it to end now, and I feel better having shut the door on it. Now I can move on. I’m ashamed to admit I’d never even heard of the term ‘gardening leave’ until a couple of years ago. Maybe it’s something that isn’t standard practice in the health industry, but I’m bloody glad I had heard of it, or I wouldn’t have known to ask for it. Gardening Leave/Garden Leave’ (I’ve looked it up and both terms are acceptable, before you start – and I know you were going to): Supposedly named so that one can spend their notice period sorting out their garden whilst also, one would assume, looking for jobs. Unfortunately, it’s early February so my garden looks (and will remain looking) like the outside of a crack den, as it often does. So I’m mainly focusing on indoor chores. Chores I’d been putting off, such as:

• Cleaning the bathroom (is there is a worse job to be done in the house other than changing a kingsize duvet cover?). I nearly killed myself inhaling the chemical fumes.
• Helping with a house clearance and tip-run (I’ve come to the conclusion I am not suited to manual labour).
• Reorganising the medicine shelf, the tea/coffee shelf, the supplement shelf (do you not have a supplement shelf? You are so missing out – that’s another blog post right there).
• General dogsbody and ‘post bitch’ (not a real term, but my husband has parcels for me to send daily – I don’t ask why – so I’m constantly at the post office or at the Inpost locker).

There are good things to fill my time with too, like seeing friends I never get to see, or being able to go to the gym daily or do yoga daily. Or watch as many costume drama series as one can handle (and I can handle a LOT, just so we’re clear). But it’s not all a bed of roses (roses, geddit?…Gardening…that horticultural practice I haven’t been doing). There is that other more unpleasant business of finding a job. Look, I’m a nurse, and the main reason I’m a nurse is that I always knew a nurse would never starve. Oh…and that other thing about selflessly caring for others, or whatever. But a nurse should really be one job that AI cannot replace. At least I think so. But I’m a 54-year-old nurse, too young to retire, but maybe too old when competing against lots of other younger out-of-work nurses. Luckily, I’m fairly certain the area of nursing I work in (Occupational Health, and no, that’s not the same of Occupational Therapy. That’s a common misconception. OH is a field of healthcare focussing on the wellbeing of the worker, helping prevent work-related illness and helping employees to stay in work or return to work) – we are an ageing workforce. It’s an area of nursing that’s kind of difficult to get into, and is therefore, populated largely by older women (and some men) like me. But in other ways, maybe I’m boxed into a corner by this speciality. You’re only as good as your last job, right? Is this what I do and what I always will do for the rest of my working life? Do I have other strings to my bow other than spending my mornings at the gym or writing stuff that not terribly many people want to read? Maybe, but I’m not sure I have the capacity to start again. There is work out there, not a huge amount, but some. I have two very interesting irons in the fire, and if I could be successful in securing one of those two irons, I’d be very happy. But if I’m unsuccessful, then I don’t know what I’m going to do. Get a job I don’t like, I guess. And be miserable until I retire. Woohoo! On good days, I know in theory I should be okay, but not every day is a good day. Some days have been kind of bleak.

So, I keep busy. Because if I’m not busy then I’m not contributing, and the not contributing and being a burden is the thing that irks me the most – the thing that keeps me awake at night. My redundancy pay-out wasn’t tremendous – but enough to keep me going for a couple of months, then I’ll have to have found something. Or else. In the meantime, you may be getting my company (at least in literary terms, I’m not coming round your house or anything) on weekends when I recount some old nonsense in a thousand words or more that you’re not massively interested in, but are bored enough to read about while you’re considering getting out of bed. At least I hope you will, if you haven’t all drifted away in the past four years. Hello..? Echo…echo…

PS: How about you? Have you ever been made redundant? How did it feel and what did you do about it? I’d love to know how you filled your time and how long it took you to get a new job. I’m prepared to hear the positive and not-so-positive. It would be nice not to feel so alone in this. 😢