A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  The hallmark of retirement has to be opening the door to a raft of new experiences. This can involve travelling, but more and more frequently I have found that the time retirement bestows enables unfamiliar adventures much closer to home. Indeed fresh perspective and novel opportunities can often arise unexpectedly and from out of the routine and mundane. This past week has been no exception. Following on from the acquisition of The Bug , I decided that I was too cowardly to try out the self parking function alone so called into the car dealership where the salesman was more than willing to show me the vehicle's capability. Nothing ventured, nothing gained but apart from deriving a good laugh at The Bug's choice of parking spaces (at one point it parked on the access route between two rows of parked cars, blocking everyone else in) and failure to recognise all the obvious ones, it is not a function I anticipate much need for. Indeed the demonstration convinced me that I have ...

We have just returned from one of our twice yearly stays in the Langdale Valley in the Lake District. It is not unusual for an August visit to be tinged with hints of autumn. This year, however, we were surprised to note that yellowing leaves and the first signs of autumnal colours are more noticeable at home in  North Yorkshire, attributable, I guess, to our summer of drought. The Lake District never seems to suffer from a shortage of rain, or at least not when we visit. This year was no exception and whilst the weather was warm, we certainly experienced some atrocious downpours.  We were delighted to be accompanied by all the family including, of course, Grandotty and Little Sister. The great benefit of grandchildren those ages (two and a half and  four months) is that neither is particularly suited for long and high fell walking. This means that Grandma had the perfect excuse, in addition to her dodgy knee, to opt out too and instead spent her days by the river, tracki...

  This morning proved to be the perfect antidote to all that juggling . I made it to the gym for 9.00 am and circuit training. Then, with almost a 2 hour gap until a Yoga class, I gravitated to the spa area for the first time this calendar year. A typical March nip in the air did not prevent me from venturing into the outdoor jacuzzi where, surrounded by rising bubbles and with a view over the open countryside, all felt well and tranquil. The steam room, infra red sauna, and rain-forest shower prolonged the effect. Lounging in the tepidarium after a soak in the hydrotherapy pool (more bubbles), life felt peaceful once again. I lingered over dressing and drying my hair; those daily tasks that are usually rushed. Then finally a flowing Yoga session after which I emerged back into the world, serene and calm. It never lasts long though does it? A ten mile drive to my local town and a frantic search for a parking space before arriving for a hair appointment with only a minute to spare....

  It's taken twelve days to log in, but finally I'm creating my first blogpost of 2025. We enjoyed a very traditional family Christmas with close family staying for 10 days and during that period of time  we caught up with extended family too. There was the inevitable surfeit of food and I confess that exercise and healthy eating very definitely took a back seat until they were resumed last week. As ever Grandotty is the gift that keeps on giving  and having got over the nasty cold she kindly passed onto me at the beginning of December, she arrived with another one. No prizes for guessing who succumbed immediately they left. The pitfalls of grandparenting has to be that lack of immunity to nursery matured viruses. I have been considering a need to decelerate a little in 2025. Simplicity and the Zen zone it is argued require us to slow down to enjoy and appreciate more. I hadn't envisaged that curbing the pace of life would be enforced rather than engineered, but hey if co...

  It was my third morning back at the gym today. Apart from forgetting my trainer shoes (again!), I confess to being modestly proud to have survived unscathed. So far there are no screaming muscles, my joints aren't stiff and I'm ready to do it all again tomorrow (trainer shoes packed in readiness). Conscious of  fast approaching the era for physical decline, yesterday I found my attention online diverted to a somewhat old study on the benefit of being able to sit down onto the floor and then stand up again without using your hands. I surprised myself by being able to do this relatively comfortably. That's just as well, because the study from more than a decade ago suggests that failure gave a seven times greater likelihood of dying within six years. On the one hand that could suggest that this blog might be around for a while yet. On the other, and on the basis that I'm pretty sure I probably couldn't do that in the early days of retirement not to mention during th...

  Could the nightmare finally be over? Not the one about the house as sadly that's destined to continue for a while yet, but perhaps the other one involving my car.  It didn't feel like that at the weekend. After picking the car up on Thursday evening, complete with all kinds of new parts, it drove just like a dream. Well, for all of 3 miles anyway. Then the nightmare began again as the inside became flooded by petrol vapour. There were profuse apologies yesterday when the garage checked it over and conceded that the mechanic had inadvertently nicked the seal on a hose causing a vapour leak. They sorted it as a matter of priority and thankfully I am fully mobile once again. I was straight back to the gym and a weights class this morning. Talk about being out of practice. The weights were fine, but I forgot my trainer shoes and water bottle! All part of retirement's rich tapestry of incompetence and brain fog, or perhaps, after reducing life to walking pace, speeding it up a...

  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...

   I've never been the kind of person to get excited by cosmetic trends encompassing anti-ageing products until the sudden appearance of lines on my face has recently had me wondering if I should perhaps be a little more aware. Don't get me wrong, Botox and chemical fillers, let alone nips and tucks, hold no appeal whatsoever but perhaps the idea of ageing gracefully does, certainly since those wrinkles suddenly started to appear. I was sure there had to be a reason for the abrupt materialisation of creases across my brow but the only one I could think of was that operation back in February 2022 when my ready supply of oestrogen was whipped away. At least that was my train of thought until recently when my attention was drawn to the results of a study which suggests that rather than ageing gradually the human body suffers two dramatic bursts of depletion at around 44 and again at 60. Okay, so those ages are history on my part but it does explain what feels like a sudden surg...

    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...

  We spent last week in the Lake District, treated to the torrential rain and wind provided by not one but two storms. On the plus side, as the height of the beck outside rose and rose, it was a great excuse to simply stay in on a couple days  to play with our granddaughter who joined us there with her parents, the Eldest and Dilly.  The net result was that I made up for the lack of fell walking by the number of circuits completed around the sofa chasing one small toddler who is now so confident on her feet that she is trying to run whilst squealing with delight. If that wasn't exhausting in itself, the lively debates that happen with an eleven month old certainly are. Armed only with a vocabulary of four words she can certainly argue. The first two words are obviously Mummummum and Dadada but when the second two are very clearly "yes" and "no," the adults are in trouble! If I had any doubts whatsoever on the reproductive score, I now fully comprehend why givin...

  No, it may be 9th December but I haven't yet been to a Christmas  Disco. I know there's something about regressing as you age but going back to those teenage years when the whole of December seemed like one endless party isn't something I've yet subscribed to in retirement. That said, the Fitness Studio at the gym was recently upgraded to include vertical fluorescent strip lights on the walls that can be set to flash and change colour. Far superior in fact to the projected colours at the local community hall that my 15 year old self  frequented. In Keep Fit to Music the other day, the memories came flooding back, even if I was lying on the floor at the time in a hip bridge. I assure you it had nothing to do with any historic attempt at break dancing (which, in my youth, certainly hadn't caught on where I grew up). Rather, I think it was inspired by the Christmas soundtrack that the instructor had introduced by way of seasonal gesture.  All those Christmas melodies...

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...

  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...

  I can't say that I generally feel the cold. Indeed Mister E and I are happy to keep our house at a maximum temperature of 18 to 19 degrees celsius. It's just as well bearing in mind that we have had no oil supply to run the central-heating boiler for several weeks. That really didn't matter when we were being blessed with summer weather but the recent tilt into autumn has certainly not gone unnoticed. Whilst an inability to warm the bathroom radiators to dry towels, along with a lack of heat in the utility room for airing clothes has been a nuisance, it's hardly been a great bugbear. Gradually, however, there's been an increasing awareness of the chilly evenings and I've found myself reaching for a fleece to put on. With some heavy rain and no sunshine, the effect has become pronounced. So much so that, travelling to London on Saturday, I was really aware of arthritic inflammation and pain in my left hand. Whilst Mister E drove, I found myself rubbing the swol...

  This weekend marks 5 weeks of living on bottled water. Not the most auspicious of anniversaries, coinciding as it has with Plastic Free July and ruining all attempts on my part to live more sustainably. So the stress runs on, but we are building our resilience.  In my case, I have found that throwing myself into exercise classes and some heavy gardening certainly helps and undoubtedly has me falling asleep even before I get into bed. Last weekend the Village Gardening Club co-ordinated a tour of members' gardens. Rain had forced me to abandon any effort to weed and I confess that my flower beds, with some in an ongoing state of renovation, were an embarrassment. I devote my time in early summer to the vegetable patch and then never find a weather window to sort the rest of the garden; it's usually too wet, too windy or too hot making the clay soil seal like concrete. However, shamed by the success of others and helped by ideal conditions, this past week Mister E and I have f...

  What I really love about retirement are the opportunities to take up so many new challenges. Today was no exception when I participated in my first session of Tai Chi. It may be classed as a martial art but judo it is not. When the instructor asked if anyone had any previous experience, a friend volunteered that she had watched Kung Fu Panda. Unsurprisingly he told her that would not help! Instead it was an hour of weight shifting, stroking sparrows' tails and turning large imaginary balls between our hands, all to a soundtrack of birds singing.  I entered the studio with no preconceptions (I didn't even know if we were meant to wear shoes or not) and left it calm but enthused.  Lesson 2 is on Friday. Somehow I doubt if we shall progress to exercising with weapons which I understand can include spears, sabres and fans. Instead the emphasis is on learning a set sequence of moves, working with internal energy whilst slowing the mind, breath and movement of limbs. As we ge...

  It's quite common in some of the Yoga sessions I attend for the instructor to open the class with a poem. Something short and meaningful that we can hold onto. A calming theme to focus on during the practice perhaps. Maybe my mind is just too active because it doesn't always have that effect. Yesterday was one of those instances and on this occasion the poem was called "Joy Chose You," by Donna Ashworth. She has the whole piece on her Facebook page if you are interested in reading it but in it she indicates that we "usher joy away because (we) are not ready for it." Instead we can be too busy getting our home clean and tidy or trying to perfect our lives or earn money, all so that we can live happily.  Joy, Ashton points out, however, "cares nothing for your messy home, or your bank balance or your waistline." Instead she claims it works by sneaking into the "cracks of your imperfect life" so you cannot invite it in, but only be ready...

Tax avoidance seems to be in vogue at the moment, certainly in certain quarters of elite society. Not to be outdone and since my last blog entry, I have: Participated in 5 Pilates, 6 Yoga, 2 Strength, 2 Abs, 3 HIIT and 2 Zumba classes; Been swimming twice; Met friends for lunch on 3 occasions; Prepared for and clerked a Parish Council meeting, typing up the minutes afterwards; Met a friend for a walk along the escarpment at the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors; Spent a week staying and walking in the Langdale Valley in the Lake District; Met up with my Sketchbook Group; Knitted a baby blanket and a couple of new born size hats; Kept up my regular visits to Mum; Read 2 books and started to follow various TV series (the latter is a complete novelty for me); Attended a meeting and to administration as a charity trustee; Acquired a steam carpet cleaner and set it to use throughout the house somewhat vigorously; Talked to all and sundry on the phone and face to face; Started a big clear ou...

  The fight or flight response which apparently evolved as a survival mechanism is still with us today. I was reminded of this twice in recent days. The first was when reading an article in the Guardian newspaper on studies showing that moderate stress is actually good for  us. The second was in a video from Action for Happiness where there was reference to negativity being a common human disposition arising from the need of our ancestors to be ever vigilant and on their guard, ready to fight or flee at all times. So there I was in recent blog entries revelling in the concept of finally learning to relax, when all along it seems that it's not necessarily a natural state and that a degree of stress actually promotes longevity. My inevitable reaction was that to be expected of the negative, cynical person that I am, namely: but cavemen never got the opportunity to retire and didn't live very long either! Obviously nothing that I have read this week alters the fact that chronic ...

  2023, can you believe it?  As someone who can't get her head around the fact that 1983 was actually 40 years ago, it's difficult! Yesterday I was reviewing 2022. Not the greatest of years, but at least life started to move apace again, after what felt like two years of treading water and stagnation. Today I am contemplating the 12 months that stretch ahead. There was a time when I used to make resolutions. I imagine like most people they went through a stage of encompassing losing weight and meeting up more. That certainly hasn't been the case in retirement where by 2017 they had become, shall we say, a little less tangible and orienting towards well-being and life-style principles. The following year, however, I opted instead to challenge myself by setting specific, measurable targets but in 2019 felt myself adopting an aura of retired contentment and living in the moment which didn't seem to necessitate any specific promises to myself or undertakings. Perhaps I'...