Decisions, Decisions

Perhaps I should open a bookshop, selling obscure paperback pulp novels.  I'm sure there must be a market out there for that sort of thing, (there are certainly enough websites devoted to that type of paperback).  Then again, maybe I should get into the DVD distribution business - I could try buying up the UK rights to some obscure Italian movies and marketing them as cult classics.  Believe me, entire DVD distribution empires have been based around individuals doing this.  These are just a couple of the ideas I've been idly mulling around as I contemplate my future.  Now that I am officially no longer signed off work sick - my blood pressure is currently down to 155/81 and falling, thanks to the beta blockers I was started on a couple of weeks ago - I have to start making some decisions as whether or not to go back to work.  I've given myself some more breathing space by taking the next two weeks off as leave, but the decision has to be made.  The fact that I'm doing everything I can to delay my return to work is probably a clear indication that I really don't want to go back to the job which made me so il in the first place.  Despite trying to explain to my employers my health condition and the effects that the excessive stress and dangerous working practices of the last three years have had on that condition, I have, so far, received no indication that they have any intention of changing the work situation.

So, as I'm not feeling suicidal, a return to the job as it is simply isn't practical - it will simply set me back to square one health-wise.  As I've said before, financially I can afford to walk away and not have to worry about money for the foreseeable future.  Nevertheless, I'd still like to do something.  I'm still too young to retire and I don't want to have to run down my savings completely, but, without a mortgage or dependents, I can afford to either work part time, or take a full-time job that is low paying, but safer and more interesting than what I'm doing now.  Hence my current preoccupation with possible future career moves.  There's no hurry - even if I hand in my notice when I return to work I can still take my time about finding something new.  Ideally, of course, I'd be able to find some way of making money from something I know about and enjoy - hence the thoughts about bookshops and DVD distribution.  I suppose that if push came to shove, I could always set up that private detective agency with my friend that we used to talk about.  Mind you, the trouble with that is that my friend has always insisted that she would have to be in charge - and she's certifiable.  In the nicest possible way, obviously, but seriously bonkers nonetheless.  But what the heck, Easter is coming up, with lots of Bank Holidays and plenty of thinking time while lying on the sofa.