A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Image by Mabel Amber, still incognito... from Pixabay More than the gate has been creaking recently around our home. All that damp weather I blogged about in my last post has taken its toll on the joints. Although my knees have long suffered from degenerative changes, recently I have been conscious of arthritic pain in my fingers too.  Any correlation between joint pain and the weather has frequently been dismissed as an old wives' tale but I lie not when I say that lately my hands have become almost as adept as a barometer at identifying the rises and falls in atmospheric pressure. Trust me every time it's wet and cold, I find myself prompted by discomfort to examine my fingers for evidence of any misshaping to accompany the stiffness and have even started to wear fingerless gloves indoors on the coldest, wettest days to provide some protection and relief. Thankfully it appears that I am not suffering from a furtive imagination as well as arthritis. A stu

  Image by markito from Pixabay The interminable rain continues. I think it has been more or less unrelenting since my trip to London on 18th November which was one of those beautiful, frosty, blue sky days. This morning when leaving the village by our main access (a narrow, unmarked lane between hedgerows) a deluge of water was running off the fields and over the ditches onto it. Fingers crossed the weather forecast is now correct and we are going to have a spell of dry but cold conditions as I really don't fancy the idea of being trapped in my home by running water. We have very much given up on the idea of  an autumnal tidy-up in the garden now. Even with a dry spell, the risk of disturbing hibernating hedgehogs (yes that's how overgrown it is) will be too great. Hopefully, however, the sodden ground will dry out before winter is over, allowing us to at least give a much needed prune to overgrown shrubs and trees.  In the meantime, I have found the silver lin

Image by Ale MaGu from Pixabay A little boost to the old morale this morning at the gym when I had my progress at turning flab into core strength checked and was rewarded with a decline in my metabolic age to 49! Keep this up and I really will be back in my second adolescence before I know it. Mind I appear to have been aided by adopting a new dietary regime. Plant based diets are gaining so much in popularity of late that you can hardly move for them. In my defence, I have been forced into exploring mine as a result of an auto-immune disorder that has wreaked havoc with my skin for decades. I tell you, it is a good job I love spinach, beetroot and squash as well as developing a penchant for all kinds of legumes and pulses, because not only is red meat off the plate, but also aubergines, potatoes, peppers and, my once staple food, tomatoes! Wheat and dairy are discouraged and processed foods are completely prohibited. On the plus side, eggs are in and I'm still eating

Antony Gormley is, of course, the British sculptor renowned for using the human body as the subject for so many of his works. At the beginning of the week I travelled to London to see his exhibition at the Royal Academy and meet up with the youngest for some mother and daughter time. It's an easy enough journey by rail and setting off just after 9am, the youngest was greeting me at Kings Cross a mere two and a half hours later.  It's strange but when I was working and travelled to London for conferences, I rarely lingered, detesting city life and the oppressive busyness of the streets. Now, in retirement, there's a definite spring in my step heading for the bright lights. Perhaps without a briefcase in my hand I feel better able to attack the vibrancy on offer or maybe a rural retirement is so quiet that there are occasions when a faster pace is alluring. I enjoy too an exhibition of one person's work showing the progression of themes over several decades. I

Image by Susana Martins from Pixabay Sometimes this crazy place called Retirement has me in absolute stitches. There's no need to go hunting for laughter, because it is around every corner when you interact with others. We are told not to  talk to strangers when we are little but, now we have grown up, there can be so much fun in doing so. Take the examples below from the last few days which still bring a grin to my face when I recall them. Standing outside the gym the other morning was a butler. Now I have been a member for ten years and never before has a gentleman in bow tie and tails greeted me. "You must be waiting to carry my bag," I declared, and he duly did! Then there was the afternoon I caught up with my mother at the checkout of a local self service store. I was chatting away to her when, after ignoring me and paying, she suddenly fled. "Aren't you going to wait for me?" I queried, as she scurried out of the shop even though I was d

I see that Mr Johnson dug himself into another quagmire yesterday when he was quizzed on BBC Breakfast TV about his tea-making skills. There is a video clip that has been doing the rounds on social media, where he drops a tea-bag into a mug, fills it with water from a tap, adds milk immediately and then leaves the kitchen, mug in hand with the bag still floating in there somewhere. Unsurprisingly we don't actually see him drink any of it. Nevertheless, in response to Naga Munchetty's questioning, he stuck by his tea making method, declaring it to be delicious! I raise this only by way of sequel to my previous blog post, because at our village Pop up Café  I was asked if I wanted milk in my green tea and/or the tea bag leaving in. Personal taste perhaps, but no thank you. Before I retired, teatime was a custom carried out shortly upon arrival at the office and then again at 3.30pm. Yes it was made in mugs with teabags, but only with water from the kettle and t

  When I hear someone talk about Café Culture, images of pavement tables and Mediterranean sunshine always come to mind. Today, however, I have been able to demonstrate that even on a cold, damp, miserable November day, that lifestyle booms in North Yorkshire. Of course, I wasn't so much on a journey of scientific exploration as a voyage of necessity. After all, I already know that my local High Street (unusually for a Northern town, some might unfairly presume) has a preponderance of highly regarded tea and coffee shops, definitely more numerous than say its offering of bakers' and charity shops. Whilst the rain poured down this morning, I found myself in one such establishment, looking out through the window as foot and road traffic splashed its way through ever growing puddles. People-watching from indoors in those conditions always promotes a feeling of inner warmth, although it could of course have simply been engendered by the mug of berry tea I was

Image by Joshua_Willson from Pixabay There's plenty of criticism these days about the number of photographs people take, especially with their phones. As for all those pouting selfies distributed on social media: clearly an exercise in sheer vanity. Now back in the day, with an old box Brownie, black and white roll film and a dark room, people had to be a little more selective. Yes, we've all heard it haven't we? I just wonder how many people with their collections of photograph albums and boxes of photographs buried at the backs of cupboards, have been waiting for retirement to come around to finally sort them. Please don't tell me I'm alone in this quest. So five years into retirement and after days of rain, I finally started. Well I have, but only if the definition of "starting" is to lift all albums down from the high shelf on which they have been hiding and pile them up together with the boxes of photographs. My dilemma is what do I

Whilst we invariably think of our retirements as unique, the extent to which the exploits of so many people overlap giving rise to a collective experience never fails to amaze me. Perhaps I'm easily surprised because, of course, so many life events are shared globally beginning with childhood encounters and progressing through adolescence into adulthood, middle age and now what is invariably described as the third age. In retirement there seems to be an almost universal urge to simplify our lives, embrace creativity and rediscover our existence in harmony with nature. If that  boils down to a quest for the meaning of life or even to understand who we really are, then so be it. It may, of course, have made more sense to have lived life backwards with that knowledge intact, instead of embarking on a voyage of self-discovery in our 60's and 70's. Nevertheless, we are where we are and as a consequence I know so many people who have embraced outdoor activities particu

Image by flockine from Pixabay 2015, 2017 and now again in 2019. Yes, we are off to the polls once more. Election Fever: where the nation is divided between those with raised temperatures and those suffering from a general malaise. So much for the Fixed Term Parliament Act; it's proving as effective as a flu jab when it fails to protect against the prevalent strains of the virus that appear in a particular year. Remember Brenda from Bristol ? We are all now Brenda. Borrow from Spartacus and just say it: "I am Brenda." This time around it looks as though the captivating adverts from the major retailers as part of the mass marketing of Christmas are going to compete with party political broadcasts. Grief, I'd rather watch It's A Wonderful Life for the 38th time; I wonder if the broadcasters can be persuaded to bring forward its seasonal continuous loop, just to oblige me? Let me cry over a genuine heart wrenching fantasy rather than this tear jer