h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Being the last Sunday of the month, today was time for our local farmers' market. It's a bustling event, held alongside the busy ordinary market and has become an important part of our grocery shopping schedule. We plan ahead based on our favourite stalls and are recognised by some of the traders as regular customers. We will eat well this week.

One of the traders knows me better than most. She used to be my colleague, in fact she was my boss for a while. We both took redundancy from that company when they restructured around 5 years ago. I went on to do a similar job, in a very different environment and for fewer days a week. She decided to turn her foodie hobbies into a business and make jam.

I remember the look on her face the day she said she'd decided what she was going to do. I remember the early planning stages, the discussions with the authorities on food hygiene and I particularly remember tasting her earliest efforts as she worked on recipes, pricing and branding.

Chatting to her today, it's great to see her new business is definitely succeeding. She's expanded out of her kitchen into a proper unit with a couple of employees. She's developed a range of jams and relishes, producing consistently tasty products that have even won a couple of awards. I always believed she had the energy and determination to make a go of it and I always hoped she'd do well. Sometimes taking redundancy really can lead to a satisfying new career.

I left school in the UK at 16yo, got a job with Marconi (GEC) and was made redundant at 18yo on a Friday. I absolutely loved that job - the redundancy was a real smack in the teeth.

I signed on the following Monday at 9.00am, went for a job interview at 10.00am and was given the job by 11.00am. I worked for the company until my late twenties and then I bought it and made it work for me. I built it up over the next ten years and then sold it in my late thirties.

I'm now 43, I live in Cyprus and work, on average, 3 days a week. I'm not bragging, far from it, but that initial redundancy was the best thing that ever happened in my life.

Sometimes you just need the 'kick' to spur you on to futures new.

There is something to be said for being derailed from the plan.

Relish. Mmmmmmmm