Life goes on

I've continued my story, at least the story of my professional career, in Dutch but not in English.  I've decided to go on with the story in English for the fun of it and to keep up my English language skills.  It's for the readers, if any, to judge if my writing in English is passable. 
So I was fired in 2003, aged 46 with 25 years of professional experience.  I had always loved my job, even after the takeover.  The atmosphere was different afterwards and a lot of things had changed but our goals hadn't changed.  But now on to another job.  Me and most of my colleagues were jobless on May 1st.  By that time I had already found a new job : head receptionist and reponsible for group bookings and meetings and incentives at a hotel in Bruges; it was agreed I would take a month off before starting to work in this new environment.   Unfortunately it turned out my new employer was not as convinced of my intelectual and professional capabilities as the previous one.  As I was used to a great deal of autonomy, it was very hard for me to have someone constantly looking over my shoulder and criticising my every move.  After 3 months it was decided I was not the right person for the job.  I wasn't sorry.  I would have left anyway.  I was just sorry I had been working all summer and I think that was actually the warmest summer we had for the last 20 years.
After this debacle I took a couple of months for myself, doing lots of things round the house, for my mother, as she had been hospitalised for 3 months and was still recovering from that, and doing nice relaxing things like reading and going to the gym with a friend who had just lost her job.  After that I found another job near home : as a call center supervisor for a company with 4 holiday villages in Belgium.  Again this was not really what I had expected.  I lasted 6 months there and so in September 2004, I had to start looking for another new employment.  This time I didn't apply for jobs where I would have to manage or coach others, and so I found a job with a small company that produces additives for animal feed.  A somewhat controversial business at any time but just at that time, cyclists, even a very famous one,  in Belgium had been provided illegal drugs by a veterinary doctor.  Whenever I told my friends about my new job they always started making jokes.  And so a whole new world unraveled before me.  From tourism to the animal feed industry.  And this time it lasted more than 6 years.