A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Tonight I am writing this post rather than continuing my game of catch up with Downton Abbey. After a week of  constant viewing, I am even beginning to sound like Lady Mary; should I deign to clamber on top of a horse and ride it side-saddle, you will know that my conversion is complete. Yesterday, I remained on target to reach the finale today when I noticed that the warning to the effect that all episodes would be removed on 31st January appeared to have disappeared. I wondered if an extension had been granted or if instead I was already viewing on borrowed time. I checked again this morning, and, can you believe it, after all those mammoth sessions in front of the television there is indeed now a new expiry date in two weeks' time! I am unable to explain my relief.  Retirement and deadlines simply don't go together. After a career of working to time limits,  I honestly have no idea why I succumbed to the challenge. All I can think is that, still slightly intoxi...

  (Image by Merry Christmas  from Pixabay) Whilst retirement continues to throw up its new experiences, I'm conscious that some of them only arise because I'm a little late for the party. We have the misfortune to suffer from the problems that rural connectivity throws up. In particular, we  frequently struggle with mobile reception at one side of the house, whilst at the other it has proved impossible to obtain a wifi signal meaning that the benefits of a smart televison are non-existent.  However, during last year's initial lockdown, for the first time I appreciated the potential of casting especially from the iPad to the living room. It's been an indispensable way to participate in online exercise classes.  On Sunday, I was idly exploring other options to cast when I discovered that every series of Downton Abbey is available on Amazon Prime. I'm one of those few people who until now has never watched a single episode. I was, of course, working when it aired ...

  I have recently completed reading the six books short listed for last year's Booker Prize. Reading Group hasn't met since August when we had a very pleasant couple of hours in the sunshine on my patio, so it was obviously time to look to another source to find recommendations for good contemporary literature. If there's one thing you can always rely on the Booker Prize for, it is usually some beautiful prose. All six books were available on the County's digital library although there was a little wait for some. Years ago in a pre-children universe, I always used to find the time to absorb the shortlist within that year's reading material. In 2020/21, retirement and a pandemic combined to present the same opportunity. On the one hand every book is very different to the other, set as they are in different countries and time periods. However, I was also struck by how each author had set out to explore extreme forms of human angst concentrating on main characters who ...

  I may be a cynic, but I can also be an optimist spurred on by the giddy excitement of believing  that something better could be about to happen. Are you a glass half full or half empty kind of person?  I used to think that I veered towards the pessimistic, but either retirement has changed me or I've always tended to concentrate so much on the detail of the waterline itself that I rarely notice the level. Today was a case in point, not just because of a new juncture for democracy in the USA but also because of a myriad of events closer to home: The temperature for starters was 10 degrees and whilst it is already plummeting again, it could be a sign that the worst of the winter weather has been and gone. Indeed whilst plodging through the incessant rain, it was gratifying to notice snowdrops in flower. There are also masses of other bulbs now growing quickly in the garden, even if I did get soaked in the downpour peering at them, whilst indoors my amaryllis is blooming. ...

(Image by Bingo Naranjo from Pixabay)  It's that time of the year again, the sun (when we see it) is at a level in the sky when, after the darkest days of the year, it suddenly illuminates not only the dust but also the clutter. Armed with my resolution to get more from less, I have felt compelled to start to tackle it once again. This year I have not been alone in doing so, after signing up for a brief introductory online course run by two professional declutterers. It seems that such people really do exist, and their mission in life is to deliver people from being overwhelmed by too much stuff.  Twenty-two years ago, when we built our own home, we were overly ambitious with the amount of storage space we created. Now, just over two decades later, we have filled every nook and cranny with all those items that might come in useful; walk-in cupboards and empty bedrooms are overflowing and our "minimalist mansion" has become a cluttered cottage with floorfuls of excess. It...

  I alluded to the lack of opportunities for travelling in 2020 in my last post and recently we made the momentous decision to cancel our annual travel insurance policy. The premium demanded was obviously going to be a payment out with no return, particularly when the revised terms were so ambiguous that there seemed little prospect of it protecting against succumbing to an outbreak of Covid-19 here or abroad, now or in the future. Whilst it's a sensible decision for the moment (and one that can presumably be reversed with the purchase of new cover when the time is right) it still feels like the end of an era. Coupling that with European Health Insurance Cards which in our cases expired on 11th January (although I understand we can now apply for the replacement GHICs) and Mister E's passport expiring, I do wonder if the golden age of global tourism has closed. I know it's far better from an environmental perspective to look at far flung corners of the world on a screen, but...

  I don't know if you use Google Maps Timeline or not. Some might describe it as a gross invasion of privacy tracking your every movement, I like to think of it as my insurance in the event of kidnapping. If you have Location History  switched on in your Google Account then probably, like me, you've had no reason to check it of late, after all who went anywhere in 2020? I was therefore surprised to receive an email with a 2020 update indicating that I'd been to one other country (and no it wasn't referring to Scotland), visited 19 new cities (Google's definition of a city seems to be pretty loose) and 41 new places in the course of 14 trips. Of course that had me scratching my head, I can recall trips all around Europe that we cancelled but 14 that we actually made, now that is somewhat incredible.   A little like cities and places, what Google describes as a trip differs from my own interpretation but it was fun delving into the timeline just to see what it had rec...

  One of the most stimulating things about retirement has been the many new experiences we've encountered. Traditionally one tends to think of these in the context of travelling but retired life knows no such boundaries. Opportunities for fresh adventures, therefore, abound closer to home or even within your four walls themselves. Moreover a touch of the exotic doesn't have to involve sitting on your living room rug, a lampshade on your head, rubbing a lamp and waiting for a genie. No, I've never tried it either, but maybe one day.. Last week, however, taking delivery of a fruit box we were confronted by some unusual items. Describing them to Google, there seemed to be a suggestion that they could be Snake Fruit from the Salak Palm. Forget the genie and the lamp, I clearly needed a wicker basket and a recorder if I wanted to have a go at charming serpents. Innovative experience that it might have been, it was unnecessary. On peeling one, removing the bean-like nut inside an...

  With the dreadful spread of the virus and the constant reminders on the news and social media as to how overwhelmed the NHS is finding itself, it inevitably preys on your mind. Just to be extra careful, we've upped our home deliveries and so avoided the local High Street now since before Christmas. A fairly pointless boycott I acknowledge, when I had to attend a six monthly outpatient's appointment at the local hospital on Tuesday; is there another place closer to a source of infection? Anyway with that in mind, heeding the regulatory restrictions on movement and in light of the weather that seems to have alternated so far this year between cold and very cold, with frost, snow or rain, I've found myself staying close to home. I have ventured out to walk through the village on a couple of occasions but have ended up slipping and sliding. Is it an age thing? For, suddenly, I've become concerned about falling and being rushed back to that hospital with a broken limb.   T...

  (Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay)  I honestly don't know why I'm allowing a pandemic to influence my reading material but I have. A doctor friend recommended "Pale Rider," by Laura Spinney so I thought I would give it a go. " She described it as a readable history of the 1918 flu epidemic," and was right. In light of the latest case figures and announcement of a new national lockdown, today is somewhat dispiriting, so I thought I'd share the angst. The book was published in 2017 and not only did I appreciate the many similarities to the current pandemic gripping the world but was horrified to learn that it may have killed up to 100 million people or 20% of the world's population at the time. Imagine that in the context of the coronavirus figures on the Worldometer today. Following on the heels of the First World War, in Europe the flu pandemic of 1918 is generally regarded as a postscript to the war when in fact it was clearly the largest huma...

Who hasn't found it magical to pull back the curtains and find the world transformed by a blanket of snow? No such luck when I got up this morning; just another of those cold, grey days. Then, within ten minutes of  opening the blinds, white fluffy flakes began to fall from the sky. First things first, I had to video it to send to the eldest in New Zealand where he is now enjoying the height of summer sunshine. It turned out to be quite an impressive fall for one of the lowest areas of North Yorkshire and has continued intermittently ever since. An inevitable consequence of being in Tier 2 before Christmas, when the boundary with Tier 3 was only 5 miles away, has been a dramatic increase in Covid cases locally. For those looking to do Christmas shopping with a lunch break or coffee stop, our High Street  must have been just a little too tempting. Now of course we have both been moved up a tier, meaning that whilst pubs, cafes and restaurants have all closed here too now, our ...

  It seemed somehow fitting yesterday, I'm unsure why, to wake to the full moon still in the sky, a beautiful pastel coloured sunrise and thick ice that refused to thaw all day. The end of 2020, a year in which our horizons closed in around us. It was probably just as well that the Government decided to move most of the country into Tier 4, I really couldn't have contemplated watching jubilant Brexiters celebrating "taking back control" followed by the welcoming of the New Year an hour later, to the accompaniment of Big Ben's chimes. Instead and after a short walk in the sub-zero temperature, it was somewhat snug and relaxing to know that the moon was beginning its wane, the air temperature was warming and that Brexmas or whatever name might have been ascribed to this particular moment in British lunacy, history or populism (choose your own option) was going to pass by without the anticipated fireworks. So here we are on the first day of 2021. Normally I might ha...