Redundancy is scary - let’s not pretend otherwise - but it has also given me the opportunity to step away from full-time work and move into a more flexible way of living and working. On 1 May 2026, I was no longer employed. It was an odd feeling, not helped by my daughter announcing that she’d selected “unemployed” for me on her car insurance quote. I’ve always worked. Through school (Dolcis shoe shop, summer camps, cafés), university (cafés and pubs), and then 31 years in a