A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

The Virgin Mother - Damien Hirst According to my diary, a friend and I were meant to meet at Yorkshire Sculpture Park today for a walk through the countryside, taking in the broad vistas and art works whilst catching up with each other. Destiny decided otherwise. In the Garden of Good and Evil - Alfredo Jaar Myth - Damien Hirst So we had a long chat via video link instead and then I reviewed the photographs from our previous visit in July last year.  I think it's called improvisation and we are all getting rather good at it now. Diana, Woodland Spirit - Lucy and Jorge Orta Vein of Stone Among the Branches - Guiseppe Penone Eddy - JocJonJosch

  Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay I can hardly believe that my last outpatients' appointment was just over a week ago. I've been visiting for treatment for a longterm skin condition and before we parted, the nurse suggest that to help tide my condition over, I try soaking in oats. Yes, I kid you not: porridge oats! Move over Cleopatra with your pissy white ass milk; real women soak in gruel. Of course, getting hold of porridge oats with the current retail shortages has not been easy and no way was Mister E going to hand over his solitary pack of the organic variety. However, we found a box of  basic porridge oats at the horrendous price of £0.70 (nothing extravagant for this lady) when we made our shopping trip on Thursday. I tried them out, following instructions to put a fistful in an old pop sock and then drop it into a bath of running water. After all, I didn't want to feed breakfast to the drains. Yes, it turned out to be full Dickensian ...

Stay at home, exercise and raise funds for a good cause all at the same time. Sounds too good to be true? Well it's not as difficult as it sounds after Joe Wicks this morning announced that the revenue his PE sessions are generating from advertising he's donating to the NHS. To be honest 10 days ago I hadn't even heard of Joe Wicks, The Body Coach. Why would I when I have a gym membership? However, in a desperate attempt for some guidance and motivation during living room based training sessions, a search on YouTube for fitness instruction, quickly brought his videos to the top of the list.  Yesterday I did a HIIT class with him (well not really, he was on the television screen and I was obeying instructions to stay at home and exercise). I confess the sweat poured and my heart rate rose as  intended . Towards the end, he did tell me my legs would ache this morning but I laughed it off. Well it seems the laugh was on me after all, when I mastered my first de...

Like millions of households across the country, we don't generally stockpile and my freezer, for instance, tends to be reserved for a surplus of fruit and vegetables from the garden during the summer. Consequently, we, as many other people, were caught short by the run on so many basic items from our supermarkets. When we first retired, it took us a while to realise that just because we had more time to pop into a shop to buy groceries, didn't mean we should go more often. After all, apart from the small village community shop providing those items you may forget, our nearest store is 8 miles away meaning that shopping has been very much limited to one or two slots a week. Today, we went for the first time since being required to stay at home and avoid all non-essential journeys; fortunately food shopping counts as essential, otherwise a few of us might be significantly lighter at the end of this crisis. Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad thing in m...

What a glorious day. We actually got outside in shirt sleeves, even if it was to work hard in the garden.  One of my first tasks was to empty the water from the reservoir of a self irrigating trough for tomato plants. I'd left it in the greenhouse undisturbed at the end of last season after a family of frogs had taken up residence. So much for my plans, they were still there enjoying their indoor pool vacation! There was no sign of any frog spawn but as a gesture of goodwill we've let them stay, although we've moved the trough outside and put a cover over part of it for protection from hedgehogs and other predators. Hopefully I'll get to reclaim it, when my tomato plants are ready to transplant. It may be a while as I'm only just thinking about sowing the seeds. It is amazing how much wild life you actually see when you have the time to stop and take notice. Every year at this time though, we generally spot a pair of mad March hares boxing in the field...

It isn't yet 4 weeks since we returned from Cyprus and yet it seems decades ago. Who would have imagined that life could change so much in such a small space of time nor that our personal world would shrink to such an extent. Since retiring, I have tried to avoid routine but am becoming conscious that a new regime may be required in this more limited environment.  It's too early for depression to have caught up with me, but I am aware that over the weekend there seems to have been less to get out of bed for; either that or tiredness has caught up with me because, and despite the dawn chorus creeping ever earlier, we have been sleeping in. Naively I have heard many indicate that surely the advice to isolate and socially distance makes less change to our lives than if we were working. On one level that is obviously very true when home is, of course, our permanent base and we are no longer accustomed to the daily contact with work colleagues. However, retirement is a...

Today I left my mother, who lives locally to me, at my sister's to sit out this epidemic in their somewhat remote home. Then I returned for a bi-weekly appointment at the hospital to be told that I was the penultimate patient before the department closed. Not yet halfway through a course of treatment that so far has been a resounding success and it has finished. Of course, I'd expected it but it certainly moves you when the staff are clearly shaken and all the nurse can say is, "See you on the other side." There have been a few tears in my eyes today, I can tell you. Also anger. I'm cross with all those people who are stockpiling to an unreasonable degree and through their selfishness depriving other people and causing them unnecessary anxiety. I am also infuriated to learn of fraudsters operating in our district who have been offering to undertake shopping for elderly people who are isolating themselves and then have taken their grocery list and ...

  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay With only two sessions left of the art class I signed up for back in January, I was really looking forward to the mixed media introduction scheduled for Friday morning. Inevitably it is not to be, as the anticipated e-mail confirming postponement dropped into my inbox this morning. Then this afternoon there was confirmation that the gym and spa I am a member of were closing their doors from this evening. Meanwhile, the youngest is lamenting the cancellation of Glastonbury in June, "There's nothing left to look forward too," she wailed on What'sApp. Serious times, require serious measures. With the statistics suggesting that we are just 2 weeks behind Italy and following a very similar trajectory, it is clear that things are going to get much worse unless people start following the advice on social distancing given by the Government.  I saw an interesting infographic yesterday that explained quite clearly that th...

Having until now only heard the scare stories of stockpiling and empty shelves (I don't tend to shop very often, if I can avoid it), today I decided to conquer my aversion and see for myself. In truth, I wanted to get some extra paint brushes and rollers on the basis that we may as well spend our period of minimal social contact doing something productive. Coupling that with a need to top up my supply of vegetable seeds, I headed for the local hardware store where, apart from an empty space that dust masks would normally occupy, all seemed in order. I then visited two local supermarkets, having timed my trip to try to avoid the crowds. On that score I was relatively successful, although neither shop was its generally deserted 6pm-self. Traipsing the aisles with my shopping list, I learnt an awful lot about the habits of panic buyers. It seems they buy everything!  Goodness knows how long they think all the fresh fruit and vegetables are going to last them. In fact i...

So what do you do when life as you know it, begins to end? I guess this morning as I drove to the gym, it was in the knowledge that this could be the last trip for a while, although my plan was essentially to try to continue as normal for a week at least with classes booked up to Friday evening. A couple of people had cancelled from the Strength and Conditioning class, but being a sensible group the rest of us kept a safe distance. We were secure in the knowledge that the weights and mats we were using had been steamed cleaned for us. Making one's way from changing room to studio, stopping only to pick up a towel and fill a waterbottle has been whittled down to a fine art of hand sanitiser and tissue paper, meaning that you never actually touch anything directly. After the class, I decided to take a chlorine dip  in the swimming pool. This virus doeesn't like bleach, right? Anyway, I had the pool to myself and whilst drying my hair was a little disconcerting when ...

It was my birthday at the beginning of the week. As ever, I feel neither older nor wiser; I am, however a lot more confused than this time last week..and probably more frightened too. My birthday started with me singing Happy Birthday under my breath as I washed my hands at the sink, slowly smiling as I realised for once it really was an apt song. Later that morning I was greeted by friends with the same chorus only to be wrong footed later when I heard a complete stranger singing the tune, but it was directed at the hand basin and not me. Bewilderment continues when, despite another birthday in the bag, I'm still of an age where (as in my last post ) the Home Secretary believes that I can be called upon to work. In the meantime as an over-sixty, the Health Secretary classes me as vulnerable but not so much so that I fall into the class of people who are potentially going to be asked to stay at home for 4 months. What it feels like to be a retired health worker when t...