A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  I have actually made some progress with planning out my direction for 2026. I'm doing it with the mind-mapping technique and at present have produced a draft of something that resembles a spider's web with text scrawled across it. There's quite  a bit of refinement to be undertaken and detail to be added but, if nothing else, it helps me to put options into perspective and hopefully assist in directing focus as I've realised very quickly that I can't possibly follow every strand of the strange diagram I have created, there just simply aren't going to be sufficient hours in 2026 to permit it! Meanwhile, life continues apace regardless. Last week I spent a very pleasant afternoon in York by myself, visiting the Art Gallery where the pieces shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize of 2025 were still on display complemented by Future Tense: Art in the Age of Transformation. The latter was a huge light installation by Squid Soup and Liz West that you could wander i...

I saw the Doctor last week about the biceps pain I've been struggling with since before Christmas. It transpires it's a partial tear rather than the sprain I had suspected and although I can tell it is healing, albeit slowly, my left arm continues to feel incredibly weak. All that effort I put in to stay fit and one muscle chooses to repay me with an injury and eight weeks of rest from lifting anything with it  As ever, I've found the silver lining in the form of my tax return which, freed from some of my regular gym classes, I've been able to complete and submit with breathing space before the 31st January deadline. The weather has been exceptionally cold too, so I've snuggled down with a book for a couple of hours every day and ticked four off my reading list for the year. With those, a birthday lunch, non-weight-bearing classes, tidying up after the festive period's visitors and sorting various issues for my elderly mum, I've not been exactly idle. Despit...

Well here we are in the Year 2026 and my very best wishes for health and happiness to all. From New Year to New Year's Resolutions to New Me; I think that's how the theory goes. If so, I'm ashamed to say that discernible change at this end is non-existent. All those thoughts of renewal and revival went out of the window when I awoke yesterday feeling totally exhausted, nursing the beginnings of a cold and a biceps sprain that has haunted me the whole of the festive season. Start the year as you mean to go on? On this form, no thank you.  Of course, it's only a hiccup. It's arrived, however, just after a lovely Christmas when so many of the extended family visited and close family stayed; I got the shopping in and decorations up in time; cooked for what can only be described as crowds on three occasions and enjoyed the company of those gorgeous grandchildren for eight full days. We've eaten all the left-overs and there are some days when I swear I haven't lef...

I confess, I am a little behind with my Christmas preparations. Perhaps I was overly relaxed when I thought two weeks was too early to start getting everything ready or maybe a tad optimistic as to how long the necessary steps would actually take.  Let's say the wheels came off over the weekend when I realised the enormity of clearing a spare bedroom ready for Grandotty to sleep in. Sadly, it was full of those boxes we've just never found the time or perhaps more correctly enthusiasm to empty since returning home at the end of March. Thankfully, and bar only two that I have found space elsewhere to store, everything is now sorted, the bed is made and the floor is clear. So a little late in erecting the Christmas tree, it became a task scheduled for this afternoon, after I had picked up the Youngest from the station and together we had undertaken a major food shop. Sadly, it didn't happen. A delay on the railway meant that the Youngest arrived an hour late. Even then we plan...

  Following on from my post about Nature and Art , yesterday I found the ideal venue. It was at Nunnington Hall, a National Trust Property situated on the edge of the Howardian Hills. Inside there was a photography exhibition by Joe Cornish and Simon Baxter with the title "All the Wood's a Stage." Yes it was a play on that much famed quotation from Shakespeare, but the point they were making was that trees are the performers in nature and that we should reconnect with woodland using our powers of observation and other senses. I wasn't sure what to expect but went with an open mind. The photographs were stunning, unlike my own example above. They showed trees through the changing seasons; symbols of life, beauty, death and renewal; providers of quietude; guardians of the environment. They appeared as immense, silent wardens of the natural world and a fundamental part of the planet's vital ecosystem. I felt inspired; I wanted to reach for a camera myself or at least...

Many years ago, in that world of work I invariably wore black . Dull, sombre coloured suits with white blouses and heeled shoes were viewed as appropriate attire for both office and court room. I think there was even a myth that black flattered and slimmed. Hence I had a collection of LBD's for evening events and even black swimwear for holidays. In retirement I realised that they served little purpose. Getting rid took much longer, but I think I finally got there in 2021. Today, however, looking through my wardrobe where various hues of blue dominate, the thought went through my mind that whilst there is no black there is no purple either. I was thinking of course of that wonderful poem by Jenny Joseph, " Warning- When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple ."   Scanning the poem in my head, I realised that I don't have a red hat (unless the pink one I now wear in the garden in winter, after it was partially eaten by a moth, counts). I haven't taken to spending m...

  Yes the Christmas chatter has begun: "Do you have your tree up?"  "Are you sending Christmas cards this year?" "Have you bought and wrapped your presents?" On my part the answer to all of those has been a definitive No! Those who can smugly answer Yes, appear concerned that December 25th is but a mere seventeen days and so many hours away. For me that really is an age, just imagine all the exciting things I have planned for the interim (like planting bulbs , for instance). Despite ticking off a couple of Christmas lunches already, I do subscribe to the idea that the Christmas season can be extended far too long if you let it and what's wrong with a bit of spontaneity when it really does arrive? Now that attitude is totally contrary to how I thought my approach to the festive season in retirement might be. There again, why change the habits of a lifetime?  This will be our first Christmas at home since 2022, so of course I am looking forward to it and...