A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Oh my. I really am disaster prone at present. I am now a regular traveller to London in order to spend time with Grandotty who celebrated her first birthday at the end of February.  I have never been a fan of city living but sacrifices have to be made when the immediate family are all in the capital. Transferring at King's Cross onto the underground and then again onto an overland train are now normality for me and all changes are generally conducted without mishap, or so I thought. Last week changed everything when the small leather hold-all I was carrying was stolen from my shoulder as I boarded the overland train. Perhaps I looked like a vulnerable country cousin come to town and was specifically targeted. Hats off to the thief (or more likely gang who crowded around me as I prepared to enter the train), I certainly didn't notice until the moment it disappeared and by which time I was being carried forward by the throng of people also accessing through the doors with me. I

  Like every new year, January started off with so much promise. After it did its best to impede my ability to breathe let alone exercise by knocking me down with a never-ending head cold and then spent most days tossing rainwater from the sky, I can't say I'm sorry to see its departure. Of course there were the good bits, like my nephew's wedding and our week away in the Lake District, but generally speaking  I confess I'm just glad it's gone. Restored and revitalised, I want to get out and attack life again. However, I've read so much of late written by people decrying the month of January that I can't help wondering if I'm simply living in an echo chamber. After all its hardly fair to blame a period of 31 days banded together under no more than the name of a month for either my woes or the weather. I may have felt that my role as an explorer of retirement was temporarily suspended but I still made headway with some serious decluttering, totally emptyi

In the news today are reports that Royal Mail, to help defray the losses it is making, wants to abolish postal deliveries on Saturdays. According to the BBC, the company is arguing that a delivery service created for 20 billion letters is not sustainable when it is only being required to deliver 7 billion.  I confess I still enjoy those rare occasions when I receive a handwritten letter and look back with nostalgia on the days of 2 deliveries a day, including one before I set off for work. Now, of course, we have e-mails and messaging services rendering the posting of correspondence almost obsolete. That said, I confess the sight of the post van in the street always arouses a surge of inner excitement.  Unfortunately it is invariably tempered by disappointment when we receive either nothing at all or a pile of junk mail that’s moved straight from floor to recycling bin. In the past week we had two such deliveries and I did actually sift through the first wondering if, a little like onl

  2024 started in the same way that 2023 ended: with a family gathering. On New Year's Eve we met up for a meal with the more northerly branch of Mister E's side of the family. Then, on New Year's Day, we gathered again with the Eldest and Youngest at a holiday home for 3 nights in order to attend my nephew's wedding. Are there ever happier family occasions than weddings with the opportunity to catch up, in a joyous party atmosphere, with relatives you don't see as often as you would like? Unfortunately Covid intervened to prevent my mother coming, whilst my granddaughter succumbed to chicken pox meaning that neither she nor Dilly could travel. There must be something about weddings and viruses that seem intinsically linked for us in recent years, but at least Mister E and I were unscathed this time around. Mind it could also  have been much worse as the groom had unsuspectingly visited my mother the week before and was feeling so ill on New Year's Day that we w

  We spent a week over Christmas in London at the home of the Eldest and Dilly. It was brilliant to spend so much time with our family (the youngest stayed too), especially with our granddaughter who reached the dizzy age of 10 months on Christmas Eve. As she's already becoming a confident walker after taking her first steps somewhat precociously over 2 months ago now, she was into everything. The ladies, however, chose to escape on the Saturday before Christmas, making our way to Pudding Hill Lane and the ABBA Arena for a performance of ABBA:Voyage. I'm not sure that I was fully prepared (platform shoes aside) for what to expect and confess to finding the whole experience somewhat surreal. It honestly felt as though we were at a live concert with ABBA on stage. Just how authentic are those virtual reality avatars? Forget botox and cosmetic surgery, this has to be the obvious route to eternal youth. Trouble is, with my singing voice, I doubt anybody would be interested in prese

  Hunkering down from the wintry weather, I've picked up a piece of embroidery that I must have begun over twenty years ago, possibly just after the youngest was born. I have a vague recollection of working on it again upon the birth of a niece or nephew but essentially it has lain untouched in a drawer for two decades. Memory plays tricks, so when I saw it there I was convinced that it was almost complete, only to unfold it and discover quite the contrary. On the basis that I'm always up for a challenge in retirement and there's nothing to entice me to venture out this weekend, I decided to concentrate on endeavouring, at long last, to finish it. Clearly you don't call it cross-stitch for nothing. In fact I'd go so far as to say you don't call it cross stitch because of its shape and intersecting lines. Rather the name must surely derive from the vexing nature of pushing needle through cotton and back at the exact points required by the pattern and all the whil

  This morning I awoke in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, at Crianlarich which is often described as the Gateway to the Highlands.  I had not been kidnapped, so rising there was no surprise as Mister E and I had travelled up as part of a pre-winter visit to the Retirement Project.   I always love waking in the Scottish countryside. It doesn't matter where, as inevitably you are surrounded by the vastness of  landscape. The photographs hardly do the location justice, snatched as they were quickly on my mobile phone at first light and before Mister E scraped the ice from the windscreen and we headed westwards to the coast and marina. Whenever I stay away from home, I never cease imagining what it would be like to live in that place permanently. Retirement is obviously the perfect opportunity to relocate to the perfect fantasy destination. Accepting that downsizing may be necessary at some point, where, with an almost infinite choice, would we downsize to? Flights of fanc

Whilst older people are often happier than in their earlier years, after 60 (linked to retirement and health issues) it seems that self esteem and confidence can begin to deteriorate. A group of us discussed this over coffee today between gym classes. Blame was attributed to a variety of factors including the long Covid lockdowns, physical afflictions, loss and grief and, in the last couple of years, so many bad news stories emanating from wars or climate change. In no way do I feel exempt from the potential impact. There's so much out there at the personal level and on the wider horizon that can frighten me to bits were I to let it. Knowing how easy it was to end up on a hospital trolley hooked up to a heart monitor and drip in the Emergency Department; the difficulty getting travel insurance as a result; catching Covid on holiday ; the demise and serious illnesses of close family members as well as others I have known ; the ongoing issues with my knee ; they are all playing a ro

  New Year's Eve, a night for reflection when, as you may have gathered from my blog post here yesterday I am hardly in the party mood; instead I am full of cold and sick of people! Well the latter isn't qute true but you get my drift. Once upon a time when I was relatively young, staying in at New Year would have resulted in the initiation of a full medical examination. These days I don't even suffer from that relatively new disease known as the Fear of Missing Out. In fact, looking at posts by friends on my Facebook Timeline not to mention WhatsApp messages, staying in could even be the new normal. It seems I have reached the age when people wish you a Happy New Year at 8pm before disappearing to bed with a good book and a yawn. That's retired living for you; a few days of merriment at Christmas and it's enough partying for the rest of the year. Before I jump on the bandwagon and head up the stairs myself, I thought I really should take a moment to reflect on 202

    You know that saying? "Just like double decker buses. You wait ages and then two come along at once." Well I've been living the experience, and after waiting a whole twelve months, two arrived together. Mister E and I, however, managed to miss both. I am, of course, talking nuptials. It's a year now since the eldest and Dilly were married but marked on our calendar for the weekend just gone were the weddings of both a niece and a nephew, the first on Saturday and the other on Sunday. The consecutive scheduling may not have been perfect, especially as we were due to return from holiday only on the Friday afternoon, but hey you only live once and the busier the better! Except it was not to be. That nasty Coronavirus finally caught both of us simultaneously and we've been stuck at home, coughing and spluttering. I wouldn't care but I'd even had my 4th vaccination only 3 weeks before; invincible, we are clearly not. When I've devoted time of late on th

  I still haven't given up on my desire for a clutter free home, where everything is in order and I know where it all is. Slowly we are getting there and the last week has seen progress in what we commonly refer to as the Store Cupboard: a large walk-in narrow room, shelved from floor to ceiling, although why we felt the need to cram so much into the standing space from which to access those shelves, I honestly do not know. I am proud to say that it is now tidied and a surfeit of unnecessary paraphernalia, buried in there for two decades has, at long last, found its way to the dustbin. Whilst I wouldn't automatically descibe myself as a hoarder, there can be no doubt that I have a soft spot for sentimental items. Luckily the ageing process seems to have toughened me over the years and the accumulation of memorabilia has slowly ceased or, as in the case of photographs, gone digital. It's many years now for instance since I divested myself of all my theatre programmes and eve

  Where there's life there's hope, they say. Do not believe them; it is not true. When life is ending and there is no cure, there is no hope: only acceptance or blinding rage and then acceptance. Yesterday was a bad day. I know what sadness feels like but that doesn't make it easier to confront. As I grow older, my experience increases but it doesn't inure. Covid 19 makes a bad dream a thousand times worse and adds to the toll. The restrictions impede daily life, contact and support for those coping with the illness of a family member. The tragic circumstances continue regardless. To see you back at home in your living room in a hospital bed, propped up on pillows in sedated sleep was strangely comforting. After weeks of enforced rules and separation, it was a relief to see you at last. To converse, albeit I did the talking and you, I trust, listened, was calming and the silent pauses meaningful. To hold your hand felt right, even with the barrier of a latex glove. As I

I have just discovered the Action for Happiness' website . Reading its pages has to bring a smile to anyone's face. However the page that caught my attention is labelled 10 Keys and on it are set out ten keys to happiness. I can't believe that since retiring I have been on a journey of self discovery in which I have succeeded in identifying almost all those aspects of life; instead all I needed to have done was to read this website! Still now that I have found it, I am delighted to note that I have been on the right track all along, no wonder retirement is proceeding so happily! The Action for Happiness whose patron is the Dalai Lama has an impressive Board of Directors committed to helping people take practical steps for a happier and more caring world. In so doing, and using Great Dream as an acronym, we learn from them that:  Giving or doing things for others makes us feel better too. I sense more commitment to my voluntary causes, family and friends com