Today is my last day actually working for my employer after more than 30 years. I do not officially finish until the end of the month but I will be on leave until then. It is quite a moment. I will be driving offsite without any kind of fanfare, which is what I wanted. The alarm that has woken me up to got to work every weekday will be turned off. All of my passwords will be deleted and nothing will remain to show that I once worked here.

I am taking early retirement and it feels like the right decision. Things change constantly but it can seem that some things have changed too much. That is how I feel about my job and my employer; nothing is like it once was when I enjoyed working here.

There is a kind of sadness attached to such a momentous change, but there is a current of excitement too. I have been thinking about all the things that I will be able to do but never felt that I had the time due to work. Writing will be one of the main occupations, obviously, but I also intend to return to studying Palaeontology in an amateur capacity, as well as going back to painting and drawing. I have also started learning French as I have always wanted to be able to speak a second language. It seems an unlikely choice as Italy is the country that I have visited most, but my wife is learning it as well and she has always had a thing for French.

When I was at school, many, many years ago now, we were told of the importance of having a career, but when I started my first job I got a very real lesson in life. In my first week a long serving employee retired. They left with the cliché carriage clock and an instance to come back and visit. Within a month no one mentioned their name ever again and they stopped visiting because everyone was always too busy to talk to them, or just not interested enough. The fact is that a career is not really worth anything when it is over.

I do not plan on having anymore careers. I am going to do what I want when I want. Mostly, it is going to be creative things. There will be some travelling, learning new recipes for cooking, mastering French, going to the theatre and cinema a lot more than I have been able to while still getting up at 5:30am the next morning, building a Christmas village for display on the dresser, and so many other ideas.

Yes, today does have a little sadness attached to it, but tomorrow is looking much brighter and I am excited to be at the start of a new journey down a new road.