Leave, Interrupted

Another bank holiday and the last day of my leave - tomorrow I have to go back to work for the first time in just over a fortnight.  I can't say that I'm looking forward to it.  For on thing, I feel like I've only just started on my leave, so much has happened to blow what had been my plans off course.  The major distraction has, of course, been replacing my ailing old boiler, which finally gave up the ghost at the same time I paid off the mortgage.  Replacing it hasn't come cheaply, but I have to say that, on the basis of the new boiler's performance since it was installed, it has been worth every penny.  The old boiler was thirty plus years old and, it is now clear, was struggling badly to keep the heating and hot water systems going.  The new one does it all effortlessly.  I have to tell you, after over a week without heating, this weekend has been paradise.  Anyway, installing the boiler took a couple of days out of last week, (there's still some minor work to be carried out later this week), the weather took at least one more day, a dental appointment I'd forgotten about another chunk.  Not to mention having to wait in for the heating engineer another day, so that he could diagnose the old boiler.  Of course, I wasted a lot of time the previous week just trying to get any heating engineers to even return my calls about the boiler.  On top of all that, there was the actual paying off of the mortgage in the first week, plus all the stuff connected with this that I had to sort out which continued into last week.

So, I didn't get to make that trip to the coast (it nearly happened, but the day I was going to go was the day the heating guy said he could start work on replacing the boiler), nor did I get up to London, as I was hoping, (again, it nearly happened, but the dentist intervened).   But that isn't to say that my time off has been a wash out.  I'm now mortgage free, I caught up with a lot of old movies , revisited some old favourite films and caught up with some reading.  I've also been able to get out into the fresh air and do some walking, which always helps me to think.   I've also made a bit of progress putting together the baseboards for my new model railway layout (although not as much as I would have liked).  The biggest bonus was not being struck down by a bad cold, as I was in February, when I last took some time off work.  But now, I'm facing going back to work.  Which has left me, once again, pondering my future, work-wise.  There is part of me which is severely tempted to just go in tomorrow and tell them where to get off.  After all, I have no mortgage and sufficient money in the bank to survive for a couple of years, at least, without working.  On the other hand, I don't really want to use up my savings this way if I can avoid it.  Reducing my hours, perhaps down to three days a week, could be an option, providing me with sufficient income to leave my savings intact whilst I review my options further. We'll see.  But right now, I feel that, at long last, I have the upper hand.