A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Experience suggests that the weather is always somewhat disappointing on a Bank Holiday weekend. The last three days have been no exception. We've had a couple of minor rain showers but mainly it's because of the way temperatures have plummeted after last week's magnificent highs. Not that I've ever felt particularly affected in retirement, after all there's always the week before and the week after to revel in, with the genuine prospect of some good days amongst them. Whilst a dismal Bank Holiday Monday was a source of grief when working, in retirement it hardly matters especially as generally we try to stay put and avoid the crowds.   With favourable albeit cooler conditions outside, I've been trying to bring a sense of order back to the rather overgrown wilderness that is our garden. Of course, it's not the best time for pruning with birds nesting all over the place and digging over borders has been a non-starter as the ground is currently like concrete...

  With all this glorious Spring weather, I certainly feel grateful to be back at home. The joys of pottering in the garden and listening to the birds singing are mine once more. Everything has burst into flower, especially the apple blossom and, so long as we do get rain before too long, it looks as though it could be an impressive crop.       Mind it's not the only plant that's proudly strutting its flowers at the moment. I have a cactus that's over 30 years old and can usually be relied on for a delightful display of colour at this time of year. Last year, in exile, however, it didn't bother. I know how it felt! This year, it's clearly glad to be home, just like me. In retirement we've reached an age where hopefully we feel comfortable in our own skin, our slippers and  our hearth-side. I don't actually have a fireplace, but I get the meaning. After a whole year adrift off foreign shores, finally I feel content once again. The bags or should I say plethora...

  After my last blogpost, you'd be forgiven for thinking I'd dashed off for a sabbatical on a desert island thus explaining my apparent absence from this platform. Sadly, and much as I might wish otherwise, I've instead been maintaining the huge effort required to re-establish our home. I'm not sure if it's age that's catching up with me but I'm certainly not finding it as easy as I might have imagined. There again being forced to knuckle down in retirement and tackle work that I would not have chosen, if it weren't for the circumstances, is a strange phenomenon after the carefully orchestrated freedom of the past decade. That said, I did manage to squeeze 6 nights in London when I helped out with Grandotty's childcare. I'm unsure what the expectations of me were but, for some bizarre reason, the Eldest and Dilly seemed to think I was the ideal person to  sort potty training. Perhaps they assumed that my memory would extend back 30 plus years to ...

   I had a birthday at the weekend. Falling, as it does, in the early part of March, it was always touch and go as I grew up as to whether it would snow on the big day or not. That hasn't been an issue in recent years but this year delivered up a first. When Mister E and I took a break from decorating at our home, as we get the unaffected areas prepared for our return, we sat on our patio area and ate lunch (sandwiches from a Tupperware container) outside! Since then, normal service has resumed and when I set off for the gym this morning it was, of course, sleeting.  Needless to say I am now keeping a careful eye on the forecast which currently says it is going to rain non-stop on our moving date. Fingers crossed that it is as inaccurate as ever. In the past, I have often mused over the fact that I am now able to plan my days around the weather. There are some commitments, however, that even in retirement I realise I'm desperate to keep, rain or shine.   ...

  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 ...

This past week, there has been progress. A small mechanical digger, a wheelbarrow and shovels plus 2 men to operate them have wreaked havoc on our drive. They dug a trench from water meter to house wall and then into the garage, laying the new waterpipe complete with aluminium barrier.  With piles of earth everywhere, along with that trench, it was hard not to recall the throw away comment of the Project Manager months ago when he indicated that once they started to dig, the garden would resemble the Somme. He wasn't far off. Fortunately they've done a good job of putting everything back the way it should be. Now it's simply a question of waiting for the plumber to connect the house fittings to the pipe, followed swiftly by the joining of the new pipe to the water meter and at that point our supply of safe drinking water from the tap should resume. Talk about excitement; it won't be a moment too early when it happens. I think the fervour hit the Project Manager too as h...

  It is said that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. Embrace positivity and turn your misfortune into a beneficial and perhaps even enjoyable experience. I thought I'd come up with something similar within the constraints of my greenhouse recently. Somebody earlier in the year suggested that I grow cucamelons. I confess that I found the prospect of growing a cross between a melon and a cucumber rather exciting, duly sowed the seeds and nurtured the seedlings that followed. There was no hint on the seed packet as to how large the fruit grew and I think, understandably, I was expecting something perhaps mango sized.  When the plants became overcome by tiny fruit, at best 2 centimetres in length, I reached out to colleagues in the village gardening club for guidance. The consensus was that this was the limit of their size and that they go well as an addition to cocktails as well as being eaten as a sweet canap é . Reader, to my mind, they can best be described ...

    Yesterday was the pits. At least that was what the email I received implied.   "I shall be arriving at 10 am to start digging trial pits," wrote the contamination expert. I'm not sure quite what I was expecting; some kind of lunar landscape interspersed with deep craters perhaps. Oh well if we haven't been able to get away and fly to the moon or indeed anywhere, creating the effect in your back garden might just have the same impact and without all the hassle of airport check-ins. In the end, however, the work was far less intrusive. Fear the worst and hope for the best they say.  Directly attributable to a month or more of detection work by Mister E and me, as well as too much time spent on hands and knees sniffing in strange corners, I'm pleased to say that we were able to direct the expert and his shovel to within a couple of feet of striking oil. It wasn't quite a spout bursting from the core of the earth but, drilling down and scraping away, he found ...

  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...

  I'm not sure why but I do love my garden. However, toiling for hours to produce fresh produce just at the time it is widely available in the shops and consequently relatively cheap, surely requires some explanation. I think it is that mixture of nature and nurture, not in the sense of the great psychology debate but from the perspective of getting up close and dirty with the first, whilst deriving pleasure and reward from the actual process of rearing all those seedlings and cuttings. Experimentation and creativity abound; the economics of production are irrelevant. However, there is no doubt that it can be back-breaking and tiring. Since retiring, I have concentrated on trying to reduce some of the more physical aspects of digging and weeding. Consequently, I now have a system for adding compost and turning the soil immediately each bed has been harvested, covering it with a weed suppression fabric until it is time for planting again. In the flowerbeds too, I have begun to use b...

  When you are working so often busyness, stress and fatigue are held up like an award of honour displayed proudly on your chest. In reality they are debilitating and in due course exhaustion can lead to burn out. There are still occasions when I feel overburdened but unlike my pre-retirement days it's so much easier to remedy the situation. This week, as well as all the cleaning up from last week's disasters and on top of my normal schedule, I've put myself under pressure by seeking to dig over, compost and re-mulch the garden whilst the sun shines and before the clay soil turns once again to something that resembles concrete. Contemporaneously I'm trying to build in a variety of self watering systems based on wicking and capillary actions. There are seedlings to transplant and pot on, as well as more seeds to be sown directly into vegetable  beds. It's a race against time and it feels like I'm losing. Nowadays I know that the most important things in life are ...

  Here in the north of the country we are suffering from a typically miserable (weather-wise) Bank Holiday weekend. Temperatures have struggled to make even double digits and it has rained almost continuously. Pretty much what I was trained to expect whilst working but, despite the flexibility that retirement brings, when you are conscious as to how far behind the garden is this season, it is potentially frustrating all the same. Moreover, I say that as somebody who, in retirement, claims not to "do frustration." Mid week it was a very different picture, the sun shone brightly, we had blue sky and although it was certainly not warm, it brought spring into the step as well as confirmation of the season. I've spent all winter looking forward to such days. They certainly impact upon behaviour as the need to nest-build and declutter strikes. This last fortnight we've been seriously affected, deciding to redecorate our bedroom from floor to ceiling. Is it just me or do ste...

  Yesss! It's hard to know how to express my delight but today was my first time working in the garden this year. To be honest, I wasn't entirely looking forward to what I anticipated would be a somewhat chilly occasion but there are a couple of pruning jobs that have to be undertaken in February and I had resolved to start them this weekend. Conditions, however, were so delightful that I extended my time outside and did three times what I had planned. I was rewarded not only with a front garden that looks distinctly more tidy than when I started but that feeling of being alive and at one with the world.  Bulbs are peeping through, there are crocuses in bloom and tiny buds aplenty. The birds were singing loudly and I even sowed some seeds to germinate indoors. The season of rebirth is beginning and in another month or three the bare shrubs are going to be resplendent once again in green. It's hard to describe how completely uplifting the whole experience was. Spring eases i...

  The weather has been a little tricky this year in the garden. The vegetable plot got off to a late start with frost persisting into May. It was mid-June before we began to detect any real warmth in the weather. Before we knew it, and despite a lack of sustained sunshine, drought conditions persisted and by August a hose-pipe ban was instated which, despite now weeks of wet conditions, I understand was finally lifted this week. Of most concern to me, however, is the rapidity with which we have suddenly moved from constant rain or drizzle to cold temperatures. Fair weather gardener that I am, I've been avoiding a soaking by seeking out activities more pleasurable than undertaking an autumn clear up. Obviously this means that now we have limited hours of daylight, grey skies and damp miserable conditions, I've been crawling around in the mud planting bulbs and clearing dead foliage.  What did I say in my last blog entry about letting go of anything that doesn't spark joy? Ex...

  Returning from a week away we have been welcomed by an abundance. Unfortunately not all abundances are welcome equally.     The fruit and vegetables were appreciated, less so the multitude of wasps helping themselves to the profusion of apples and plums. Then, of course, there was the big job of watering everything, although luckily there had been some rain during our absence and the water butts were brimming once again. Where, however, have all those cats suddenly appeared from? It seems they've taken advantage of our being away to add the garden to their territorial claims. Talk about an invasion; the battle to regain our land and expel unwanted visitors has begun. Finally there was the mountain of work (a dirty word in retirement). It wasn't just fruit picking for which I had to don leather gloves to protect against buzzing insect life but also, now that the temperature has cooled, the pressure is on to complete our current unfinished project of  restoring the ...