The rain was like needles in North Finchley this morning - my last for some time.

Nothing like a last day, even if it’s not a total farewell, as I’ll continue to do freelance bits for this company here and there through the autumn. I’ve written the four-page pre-leaving memo, I’ve put all the folders and sub-folders and sub-sub-folders in order, I’m altogether feeling very accomplished - and yet... meh. It’s sad when a last day sort of fizzles out, sort of beigely blobs its way to the end. The last time I quit a job, we were out all night, all of us from the office. Schmio’d booked a table at this Swedish place in Chinatown; it was raining, hard; we sat and ate and laughed and reminisced about days past and days to come. The bill came, finally, and we rollicked some more while Dan had Schmio put it on the company Amex. I wasn’t sure what was happening next - there was some vague idea about grad school - but the night went on and on till we were tomorrow, and we had our arms around each other, me and Tom and Schmio and Jill, and the question never came up anyway.

I’m leaving this job today and I’m glad about it, because it was wrong for so many reasons - but it was a job and it paid the bills and it was something for the ol’ CV. This time, though, there’s a gnawing and an unspoken panic about what happens next - mostly because this time the vague idea of what comes next is accompanied by the sound of my visa expiring. The visa chase is one of my least favourite activities - no, wait, it’s my least favourite activity. It’s less of a favourite, even, than paying £91 to the plumber out of the stash I’d put away for vacation spending.

My friend Jon asked what I was going to do after the job was up, and I said that I was going to France for a month. The boy and I are going to Brittany, I told him, and then to the Côte d’Azur. And then Paris for a couple of weeks, because why not. “Clearly we are the most decadent unemployed people ever,” I emailed. “Yes,” Jon emailed back, “do as I do when the going gets tough - run away.”

I don’t know how much running is going to happen over the next month, but I believe there will be a lot of sitting, and reading, and trying not to be allergic to lobster for dinner. I have some laundry to do before we leave, and I have to prepare the house for houseguests. I need to make sure I have everyone’s address in my little red book for postcards. I need to pack. Pink skirt? Yes. Rose skirt? Yup. Sage plimsolls. Alain de Botton, Alessandro Baricco, Tahar Ben Jelloun. We leave Sunday.

When I come back in September, French Elle will have me believe, I need to “fais confiance au pilote automatique”. “Les pièces du puzzle se rassemblent,” their resident astrologer says. “Stabilisez vos pensées et vos sentiments,” he says, “l’époque s’y prête.” He says, Didier does, “vos souhaits pourraient bien être exaucés”.