Back to the future

These two posts have struck a chord with me.
Leg Iron writes of the way that the tax system discriminates against the self employed, while Longrider muses on employment in general and going back to doing things that you enjoy and are good at. I too, have just paid my tax bill and am continuing to see little sign of any upturn in the fortunes of my customer base.

So,I have spent the last three weeks or so gardening.
Some gardening for myself and some for others, friends and family mainly, so it has not been a money-making exercise as such. It has brought me in a full circle, for the first eight years of my working life I was a gardener, not a grass cutter but a proper one and for the first few years I was trained by men who had learnt their trade in much the same way as Victorian gardeners would have done, albeit with more modern machinery.

As the pressures of family grew I moved from using garden machinery to selling it, then onto sales management and international sales. After that I wrote about the industry for a few years and then moved into promotions and PR. This latter career move was driven by new product releases and these have been gradually diminishing as the recession progresses. That won't change for a while yet.

I don't need a full time job, but I do need to make some money. Going back to where I started seems like a good idea, the demand for gardeners is certainly there as the ageing population grows. These people need help with their gardens not landscaping or block-paving which suits me. So later in the spring, unless other work comes along, I'm going to start to offer my services as a gardener.

Whilst I have enjoyed all of the jobs that I have done, I think that working as a gardener was the most enjoyable, most educating and worst paid. Now that money is not such an issue I am looking forward to going back to my roots. Even a moderate income will be all I need and I could sure do with the exercise.