A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

   My primeval nesting urge invariably sets in as the days grow noticeably longer and Spring is in the air. Unusually, and just as the shortest day of the year approaches, I've been hit by a compulsion to declutter. So, totally out of kilter with my normal instinctive behaviour,  I have been dropping goods off at the Charity Shop at the end of the year rather than the beginning. I've also found an outlet that buys old digital cameras (the Charity Shop having refused to accept them in case I might inadvertently have failed to wipe the memory and their contents presumably be distasteful!) I've disposed too of a significant percentage of my paperback book collection; the part with yellowing loose pages and tiny print in an obscure font with no double line spacing. Horror of horrors, in an epoch where Charity Shops want nearly new goods and these were fit for nothing other than recycling assuming that the paper could be separated from the glue which appeared to be rapidly det...

    After my last blog entry and the continuation of anxiety and consequent loss of sleep, I'd like to think that I employed that good old tactic known as distraction. Others might perceive it as being the evolutionary flight response. We spent two days in York, staying in a hotel overnight to make sure we well and truly escaped the issues haunting us. As well as taking in its ever growing Christmas Market and a fantastic evening meal out, it was a great opportunity to visit the Art Gallery and museums when most people were choosing to indulge in that popular December pastime of Christmas shopping, enabling us to enjoy crowd-free exhibits. The latest exhibition at the art gallery is entitled "The Art of Wallpaper: Morris & Co." Humour me, I wasn't sure what to expect, but we actually found the history of wallpaper and the framed samples fascinating. Amongst our various visits, we also called in at The Yorkshire Museum. I have to say it has changed significantly si...

   It sounded a little too good to be true when we received an email at the beginning of the week from the remediation company contracted by the insurers, suggesting that we could feasibly be back in our home by Christmas. The day dreaming began and the pace of work in the rooms upstairs that we are decorating quickened. Little by little, however, we realised the serious pitfalls of such a situation, not least because notice to terminate the lease on our temporary accommodation would need to be given this month with no certainty that we would actually be able to return as indicated. Corners would need to be cut and/or we would be returning to somewhere only half finished with no prospect of entertaining family over the Christmas holidays.  Then nightmare of nightmares, because the tenancy end date would actually be 25th December, I had visions of cleaning and clearing two houses at the point when most people might be sitting back, slippers on, waiting for Santa Claus to p...

  In my blogpost on September 8th , I described the challenge of undertaking an online course in Health and Nutrition. I am pleased to report that the final assignment was completed and submitted on Friday. Whilst I did my best to spread the workload over the time allowed, there was so much to complete that I still felt under pressure and far removed from the carefree retirement state I now consider normality. On the plus side, it felt like a new experience and I do feel far more knowledgeable than previously; I also appreciate the practical implications of what I have learnt and am already conscious of making changes as a result. However, I would like to think that even wild horses will not drag me back to the classroom. I do so much prefer the stimulation of active practical learning and creativity. So it was that during September I also undertook the restoration of an old Ercol rocking chair that my grandmother had given me when I was only a toddler. It was a dark, stained finis...

  School pupils returned to their desks last week after the long summer break. I did likewise, having impetuously signed up for a course on Health and Nutrition a few weeks ago. My second assignment was due yesterday and what with our trip to the Lake District and other commitments, it was looking touch and go as to whether I would actually complete it by the deadline set. Needless to say, I took advantage of the appalling weather outside to hunker down at the computer and get on with it.  Save for refreshment breaks, I was there for 12 long hours although I confess that most of the time I was captivated by both the topics covered and the challenge of the task.  I haven't undertaken any formal learning in retirement so it's all been something of a novelty. That said, yesterday I inevitably found myself comparing my situation to the world of work which must have been the last place I spent that amount of time at a desk. It was perhaps a shame that the very nature of the co...

  My vegetable patch has been notably absent from this blog and indeed my life this summer. Before we vacated our home, I planted potatoes and onions and then left it. Forays back to the garden have been made only to harvest new potatoes and shallots as well as from the fruit trees. Sadly whilst the trees are doing us proud, mainly because of the lack of wasps this year, the harvest from the ground has so far proved disappointing. It demonstrates, I suppose, that my regular presence is indeed required to administer tender loving care in the form of a watering can and fertiliser, as needed. That said, and however much I enjoy gardening, it has been a boon not to feel tied down in the servitude of peas and cabbages. So much so, that I have now even been devising plans for next years vegetable beds which might see two or three of them taken out of action. I have a feeling that displays of colourful blooms amongst the edible crops might be easier on the back, require less man hours to ...

   I spent last weekend in a one man tent at the World Yoga Festival on the showground at Henley on Thames. I confess I've never been to a festival before but on the basis that meat, never mind alcohol, was strictly forbidden I knew it would avoid the excesses that the Youngest has described to me from her own experiences at Glastonbury and beyond.  All chanting and drumming stopped by 11pm; the weather was wonderful; the ladies I went with were great company; I was exhausted from all the Yoga classes and other activities; my appetite was sated from the vegan food stalls. Regardless, I slept terribly! Maybe it was that hard bump on the ground beneath my sleeping bag but I'm convinced camping gets harder as you age.  Why put myself through the hardship? It's another dimension to my exploration of Planet Retirement and that quest for the holy grail which if it's not the meaning of life must at least be the route to its fulfilment.  When I first entered retirement,...

  Now summer has decided to make an appearance, we’ve been taking advantage of the warm weather. It started with a trip to the beach with the Eldest who was visiting and who kindly appointed me as camera man for his surfing antics. Then we all travelled south to spend more time with Grandotty. At 16 months her vocabulary is obviously limited, but it is amazing how much of life can be condensed down to “more” and “gone.” She also provided an incisive perspective on living in the moment. When you are coerced by a tiny tot into noticing and acknowledging every bird and bug, with a pointed finger and either a “bir” or a “bu”, you begin to be so much more aware of the world around you. I’ve stared with avid interest at a snail crawling along the patio edge, watched a bee on a garden lily, spotted a spider in the corner and lost count of the number of pigeons I’ve waved my index finger at with glee. They all move on to an accompaniment of “gone” and a plea for “more.” As an adult, the jo...

    Today marks ten years since I shut down my office computer for the last time, closed my briefcase and walked out of the door into Planet Retirement. That's right, unbelievable though it seems, it was a decade ago! Having just reached what is currently the official state retirement age, I do feel privileged to have retired when I did. I am conscious that had I in fact waited until now, I would probably be entering this strange new world in a state of total exhaustion and significantly reduced good health. Are there any little nuggets of wisdom I can take from my experience and share? At risk of sounding like a cliched reality TV show contestant, it has certainly been a journey. An exploratory trip into the unknown where time and freedom combine to offer a choice of pursuits and lifestyle. Ultimately I have opted to try to live more simply with less, embrace nature and honour my health and well-being. There is a beautiful world out there that enclosed in a workplace we may b...

  Already this feels like the longest run up to an election ever. In reality it will actually be only 3 weeks tomorrow since a rain-soaked Rishi Sunak stood in Downing Street amidst a downpour to announce that we would be going to the polls on July 4th. With another 3 weeks to go until election day, it feels like an eternity. I  guess my attitude isn't helped by the knowledge that it doesn't particularly matter how I vote, because since retiring that X has invariably never gone into the winning box. No wonder I don't play the National Lottery! It would be nice to think that this time the outcome might be different but, as a member of the electorate in the Prime Minister's own constituency where he has one of the safest majorities in the country, I suspect that nothing much will change so far as my bad run in picking winners and feeling of disenfranchisement are concerned. I was just checking the list of candidates seeking election today and it must be said that now he i...

 I have been working my way through children's games that I removed from one particular cupboard at our recently vacated home. This is an area that I've attacked a couple of times already in retirement, donating unused toys and other paraphernalia to charity shops. There remained, however, a mixture of well used board games, some stemming from my own childhood but also enjoyed by the Eldest and Youngest, as well too as their collection of game-consoles and the games that they loved to play on them. There will no longer be a place for most of them in our home when we return. Was it even rational to feel attachment to these games, no matter how long we've had them as a family? Those made in the 1960's were hardly vintage boxed originals from the 1930's, but could I let them go after so long? Pragmatism crept in when I lifted the Monopoly box and it almost disintegrated in my hands. The contents looked sad and crumbling. In Cluedo the Detectives' Notes had been fil...

  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. ...

  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...

  It isn't so long since I told you in a blog post that I've been trying to avoid embracing the stereotypical  bucket list but have now begun to ponder on whether or not some kind of schedule is actually needed as I continue my exploration of Planet Retirement. At Christmas, however, somebody saved me the effort of pulling together my own spreadsheet by gifting me a Bucket List map . Now I previously felt quite strongly that not only did I not want to devise a inventory of places to visit but also that worse than this would be a list of experiences and destinations that somebody else had collated for general distribution. Just search Bucket List online and you'll know what I mean. In this instance, however, I was sufficiently intrigued to open the map and here I hang my head in shame. Billed as "1,000 priceless places to go and things to know" in Britain, I confess that I would be lucky to be familiar with half of them. In fact there are vast swathes of our relat...

  We had our regular annual review with our Financial Advisor this week. The investments that sustain our pension funds remain stagnant as we were already aware, but the good news is that, regardless, he recommends spending them on exploring Planet Retirement. Money matters but so does fulfilment. Obviously, first Covid and then this year the requirement for our presence to resolve the leaking oil issue, have both intervened to curtail our travels and experiences. Consequently, he echoed our concern that we don't want to miss out for too long, ending up in frail health and unable to realise lifetime ambitions.  We are so conscious of this and whilst vague plans are frustrated at present, it's good to have ratification from a third party. How easy it must be in retirement to slip into sitting at home in splendid isolation adopting the attitude that venturing out is only hassle. There may be a time in the future when we have to embrace that restricted lifestyle but for the momen...

  The Eldest and Dilly completed the purchase of their first home in August but have continued to live elsewhere whilst they restore and decorate to their satisfaction. Yesterday I visited a niece who has only just moved back into her house after a period of 6 months, again to allow refurbishment to take place. It all makes Mister E's and my desire to remain in our home whilst the floors are drilled out, despite knowing that the facilities we have access to will be reduced, appear a little bizarre.  Are we stalwarts from another age? Has retirement rendered us incapable of coping with change? Are we simply showing early signs of cognitive decline? Have we entered an era of indolence? I guess it's hard to explain our thought processes, especially to those younger family members who have willingly left their homes vacant and sought to avoid disturbance and potential misery by basing themselves elsewhere. To be honest, I'm not sure I can even explain our reasoning to myself. W...

  A little after 4pm and it was so black outside that we had to put the lights on. Storm Debi has been making itself known all day with heavy rain and a strong wind. In fact the weather was so disgusting that after a brief foray for Yoga and Pilates classes I was glad to get home and hunker down. Contending with foul conditions on top of everything else only adds to the torment and tension. I've always said that one of the benefits of retirement has been an ability to follow the seasons and live life accordingly but I'm not so sure about relating to or synchronising with these short, dark, depressing days.  When I was last able to get out into the garden for a limited tidy up in readiness for what feels like a fast approaching winter, I noticed that we appear to be hosting a hedgehog's nest behind some shrubbery. It made me wonder whether hibernation might actually be an appropriate way to harmonise with the coming months. It's been a pattern of our retirement to try to...

  Reverting to our headache of an oil leak , there was finally progress this week. Firstly we had confirmation that the loss adjuster has approved the strategy for the installation of a new waterpipe as well as the clean up operation. Secondly, but perhaps more ominously, the loss adjuster's surveyor visited primarily to take photographs in case the proposed works cause cracking or other damage He didn't simply confine himself to the areas where the digging out will take place inside and out, but also photographed the rest of our downstairs including the rooms that were decorated only a few months ago. Thank goodness we have had the foresight to hold back on replacing the soft furnishings and lighting, although we have been hoping to escape with dust rather than fractures to the walls. Resilience and optimism remain high even if we struggle to gather clouds with silver linings. It's not how we would have planned this stage of retirement  but we have to appreciate what we do...

  Of late, suffering from the anguish of various aches and pains, I've been reminded of the lyrics from Dem Bones. With a pain from the hip to the knee, I seem to have had more than an implicit understanding that the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone and the thigh bone to the hip bone. Of course, in my case the cause has been primarily muscular but it still hasn't prevented those lyrics going round and round in my head.  My knees suffer from degeneration and arthritis mainly as a consequence, I suppose, of  numerous meniscus tears. There's a long history there with incidents going back as far as my twenties with disco-dancing, skiing and even wind-surfing. As somebody recently said to me, "Well at least you had lots of fun damaging them!" Frankly, I'm not sure that was necessarily case; certainly not the time my knee gave way jumping down from the airport shuttle bus on the way to the Alps and I arrived in the resort already hopping on one leg and never...

  What is it about water that entices us? Like all living things we need it to survive but how often have you read claims about its healing powers and the sense of well-being that it brings? The health claims extend to a myriad of wellness spas, not to mention the explosion in popularity of wild swimming. I cannot claim that going in search of running water is part of our strategy to build resilience . Indeed a brief trip last week might be better described as an escape from the issues that are besetting us. However, it's amazing how spending the night in a small hotel less than 40 miles away really satisfied that desire for peace and contentment and not just because we had tap water that we could actually drink and clean our teeth with!   After meeting a friend at Barnard Castle for the day, Mister E and I headed onwards up into the heart of Teesdale. We were blessed with benign conditions and as well as clean drinking water, soaked up the sight, sound and majesty of not one ...