Staying Healthy - a Retirement Dilemma

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Miss Scarlet  developed a squeak this week. It meant that every time I changed gear, she drove me demented. A little bit like those occasions when a member of your family develops an irritating cough. Of course, I had to get her tended to and visited the garage today for that purpose. Lubricant rather than cough medicine was applied and she now seems fit and well.

Her delicate state, however, prompted me to realise that in retirement  I am yet to suffer from a round of sniffs and sneezes, not to mention a cough, cold or other virus. Whilst I have been fortunate in enjoying robust health, in the air conditioned atmosphere of the office it would have been surprising not to have succumbed to minor summer or winter bugs. Never sufficient to debilitate you, just enough to make going about your daily business a misery for a couple of days.

Now in the isolated world of retirement, away from the daily bouts of handshaking and interview rooms with bacteria circulating all around, I appear (touch wood) to have been spared such seasonal agonies. I wonder if that's a good thing? 

Does repeated exposure build up your immunity and without it am I more likely to succumb to a super bug at the supermarket till or whilst queuing in the library? To maintain a high level of immunity would I be advised to take a seat at the entrance to my doctor's surgery and shake hands with all his ill patients as they enter? Alternatively, do I lock myself away in a hermetically sealed bubble and avoid all living company?

Retirement may be bliss but there's always a dilemma, and maybe a germ or two, lurking somewhere.




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