A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

   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...

  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 ...

  These days post can be somewhat disappointing with a mixture of unsolicited flyers and marketing mail coupled with the occasional missive from a bank or government department. Imagine, therefore, my excitement when I received not one but two thrilling envelopes in one delivery earlier this week. The first contained my free bus pass. Having celebrated at long last reaching the much postponed state pension age, I decided that I might as well apply for one.  It's not that I'm planning to give up driving but using buses in cities and popular tourist areas like the Lake District can  be useful, especially when parking places are either a rarity or cost the earth. I'm not yet convinced that I'll ever use it on one of the village's 4 buses a day but do have a hankering to venture on a long bus trip challenge. Home to Lands End in 14 days, or however long it takes to make all the connections, is the kind of trip you read of people taking.  Has retirement actually come to ...

  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? ...

  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...

  There's something very special about New Year. There I am at 11.59 pm on 31st December waiting for the clock to strike; I whisper a few resolutions; the New Year rushes in and I am a transformed being. Except it doesn't work like that. Least of all last night, when I couldn't keep my eyes open late enough to witness the ushering in of 2022. It continues to be a hard life in retirement (she says smiling).  I was up this morning, however, with a good thirty minutes to spare before welcoming the first dawn of the new me, assuming of course that I had remembered to make some resolutions.  I hadn't.  It wasn't so much that I'd forgotten to make any as, to be honest, I genuinely couldn't think of any. Of course, nobody's perfect but in retirement where everyone strives to live in the present, resolving to socialise frequently, regularly ring Great Aunt Betsy (another figment of my imagination), shed pounds or come up with anything to alter your life for the ...

    ( Image by pasja1000 from Pixabay ) It was with some amusement that I learnt Abba is not only releasing an album but will also be undertaking a series of live shows in London next year. That's not bad for a group now in its seventies that hasn't performed together for almost 40 years. Except, they won't be appearing in those live shows themselves but in virtual form with digital versions of the group members as they once were.  I'm not sure I'd like to be reproduced on stage as I was in the seventies, unless there's some kind of bonus that arises from being able to dance in platform shoes. However, you have to admit that it's a somewhat novel way of maintaining your youthfulness and I suppose demonstrates the next and inevitable step from video to hologram and beyond. Perhaps we will all one day spend our later years entertaining in virtual form, letting our avatars do the hardwork whilst we sit back and enjoy retirement. Incredible as that may seem, at...

  Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay According to the newspapers it's reckoned that by 2030 the employment market is going to be brimming with over 65's, if the analysis by the Office of National Statistics of 2019's Labour Force Survey is correct. I wonder what everyone will be doing and will I be in a minority of people of a certain age who have gone down the retirement route instead? With this in mind I can't help pondering on that advert by Dominic Cummings on his blog. Is now the time to actively seek some work experience to add to my CV before I reach the second half of my 60's? He suggests that he's looking for "data scientists, project managers, policy experts," and "assorted weirdos and misfits with odd skills." As I have no experience of the first three, I'm going to have to narrow myself down and apply for the fourth. It says apply by letter (one page maximum), so here goes: Dear Mr Cummings, I wish ...

So what did you do over the summer solstice and the long days surrounding it? It's the time of year when I try to ensure that the vegetable patch is fully set, leaving the second half of summer to enjoy its returns as well as the delights of the rest of the garden. This year, I also went to war. Not in the conventional sense, although for a moment Mr Trump had us all rather concerned on that issue. Instead it was an enraged onslaught against the seemingly increasing slug population in the garden. Obviously I did my research first. Then alarmed by the statistic that a garden can host 200 slugs per square metre, roused myself to defend the immature plants that I was transplanting from the greenhouse.  Over the years, I have tried all kinds of tricks but does anything genuinely work, especially when those darned things reproduce asexually and apparently up their reproduction when vast numbers fall on the sword of the combatant gardener? Scared by the knowledge that t...

Can I make a recommendation on the best way to recover from a long trip ? Bizarrely: take another vacation! At least that's what we've just done. We had a week at home where I resumed my gym class routine, caught up with administrative tasks and household chores. Then, 8 days after we'd returned from a summer month in New Zealand, we drove across the Pennines for a wintry week in the Lake District.  Of course, as we always stay in the same place, it is a little bit of home from home and a place to relax and unwind. Well that was the theory when we were working, although I do wonder when I recall a week, in a period  between home-helps, that I had to take my ironing basket with me. The creased clothes may have been real but they were also a metaphor for the mental baggage that we conveyed back and forth with us too. This month the limited time squeezed between trips forced me to complete the laundering. It's a task that's easier to accomplish ...

Yoga yesterday heralded another session for personal growth when our lifestyle guru steered us into an imaginary garden and encouraged us to nurture seeds of positivity rather than weeds or negative thoughts. She urged us to connect an adjective expressing a commendation for ourselves to the words: "I am." I'm not sure that it was her intention but by the end of the session I had awarded myself numerous accolades, some of which I am far too modest to list, but otherwise I can share that I am: happy, healthy, loved, relaxed.... True or not, it is certainly a fillip to one's self-esteem to recite your accomplishments to yourself. Try it by telling yourself that you are beautiful; it certainly brings a smile to your lips if nothing else. Sometimes even in retirement we need a boost and of course it is no longer going to come from a promotion or payrise, let alone a bouquet of flowers from a grateful client. Compliments from family and friends a...

 My journey of discovery across Planet Retirement has demonstrated a desire to live simply , liberating myself of extraneous stuff to concentrate on the important matter of enjoying a purposeful life. Millennials, placed in a position where we are told they will never afford to buy their own homes, are doing likewise, refusing to accumulate a myriad of possessions in their rented rooms and preferring instead to spend any spare cash on travelling. At least  they are certainly going to transition into retirement easily when their time comes. Figures reported yesterday, however, show that the closure of high street shops continues unabated. Walk down any main street in my locality and the number of premises boarded up or occupied by charities is alarming. With the failure of  multiple big names in recent months, it is clear that the change in retail therapy patterns is having an effect. Obviously parking issues and online shopping are creating some of the impact ...

I have been musing for sometime about how we are defined by both ourselves and society and how easy it is to gain our self-identity from the job that we do. My thoughts on this were provoked still further by the discussion, to which I contributed, in the comments that followed the blog entry across on Satisfying Retirement entitled " 5 Things a Retired Person Learns about Life after Work. " Ask a career housewife what she does and the stereotypical value of paid work is reinforced when she replies: "Oh, I don't work; I'm just a housewife." Similarly, a person carrying out unpaid voluntary work can be inclined to say: "I don't work either, I'm just a volunteer." Somewhere along the way society has instilled the idea that working for anything other than money is less valuable in itself than paid employment. Little wonder, therefore, that in retirement, after our two score years or thereabouts in the workplace, we add t...

There is much talk these days about mindfulness and living in the moment. I'm afraid that I am not a great one for meditation and when I have tried, have enjoyed nothing more than an opportunity to daydream as my mind wanders, flitting like a butterfly. In this morning's yoga class, the instructor tried that long familiar technique of focusing on the breath and asking us to bring the mind, whenever it chose to take a little saunter, back to the breath. I think I'm a useless case, because I actually revel in those small mental rambles. Retirement, of course, is the perfect time to really start living in the present if you haven't already honed the technique. When you are working it becomes routine to think about the weekend or a forthcoming vacation and then when you are away from your desk to think about the files piling up awaiting your return. We may have spent our lives fretting about actions in the past and worrying about the challenges around the co...

There seems to be a continuous debate online as to the terminology to apply to our generation. "Seniors" is a popular description and certainly better than "senior citizens" or "the blue rinse brigade." "Boomers" is widely used and clearly preferable to "the over-sixties" or even "pensioners" and don't get me started on "old-age pensioners": yikes! As you've probably noticed I tend to use "retirees" on this blog but that's probably a reflection of my legal upbringing where there's a tradition of  adding "ee" or "or" onto the end of all kinds of words (think "mortgage" or "grant"), rather than a sensible vocabulary choice. Recently,  however, inspired by receipt of an e-mail from that well-known do-it-yourself store, B&Q, I thought for a moment that "diamonds" could be the perfect name. With their association to sixty years ...

Let me set the scene: I was in the kitchen finishing a cup of tea at the end of a late lunch, following on from a busy morning when I had assisted my fellow almshouse trustees at an Open Day.  Suddenly an enormous clap above my head jerked me up and out of my seat, the drink splashing across my knees. The noise was accompanied by a flash of lightning and then the skies opened and the rain came down in torrents. The electricity went off momentarily interrupting Mister E's televised viewing of the World Cup, but he instantly became more interested in seeing just how much rain was falling and to what extent it might replenish those empty water butts. As soon as he mentioned those, I felt a sense of guilt. Zeus the ancient Greek god of the sky, had responded to my request in style and made no secret of announcing his presence, hurling thunderbolts in the process. I understand now just how easy it must have been to get duped into worshipping a pagan deity. I almost ...

The first page of a new year and with another 364 days to go we all need to be working together to plan a happy ending. That anyway was my thought as I contemplated the making of this year's New Year's Resolutions.  I was actually surprised to read that most people's resolutions involve losing weight, taking more exercise and making time in their busy lives for family and friends. To think that there was a time when I actually thought that I was unique in both my ambitions and failings. Now that I know that fellow humanity shares so many goals and aspirations, I want to reach out with this year's resolutions to strive for objectives we can all embrace together. 2016 was an appalling year on so many levels, so I now undertake in 2017 to: 1. Make someone smile every day 2. Ensure I have a good daily laugh too (I sense my family groaning already at my sense of humour) 3. Stand up for what I believe in and endeavour to engage others to fight the cause (oh dear m...

On Monday I met a friend at Yorkshire Sculpture Park . It takes over an hour for me to drive there but it was a beautiful day, the roads were relatively empty and I enjoyed the journey. Perhaps it was a snippet that I heard on the radio or maybe a latent thought in the depths of my mind, but I began to ponder on similies for the retirement experience.  "It's been a little bit like space travel," I told myself, "A venture into the unknown." That didn't feel quite right. After all I can't honestly say that I have spent the time since June 2014 exploring distant planets or even the moon. Later as we wandered around the Park admiring the large outdoor sculptures we entered the garden area where an exhibition of Not Vital 's work is being set up.  Chased-steel pieces, reflecting the light and surroundings were mesmerising and as I stared at a moonlike orb, it came to me.  Retirement isn't akin to space travel at all; instead it i...

A dilemma frequently faced by Mister E and me in retirement is our choice of entertainment. We can agree on art exhibitions and even television documentaries but when it comes to live art or the cinema, we have, shall we say, a divergence of taste. So much so that last summer we bought a second television set (I know which household really survives on just one television these days?) in order, with my new found leisure time, to treat myself to my own choice of film or drama series, rather than the crime and terror which I am convinced dominate Mister E's viewing. In London last week we encountered familiar territory as we wrangled over which West End show to see.  "They don't do shoot-outs or car-chases," I maintained, as he wrinkled his nose at the thought of 'Phantom of the Opera' or 'Billy Elliott.' I am pleased to advise however that a compromise was reached and we both willingly went to see the first night of " War of the W...

One of the experiences that I love about visiting big cities is the mixture of old and new that is so missing from more parochial areas, like the one that I live in. Whether it be a cocktail of young and old people, ancient and modern buildings, new and traditional ideas, imported and staid cultures, they all add to the vibe and excitement. Sadly with much of rural England becoming a haven for over fifties to grow old in together, there can be a lack of ideas and the animation and boost which they bring. Whilst nobody necessarily embraces change, without it surely we are doomed to stagnate? So it was that wandering around London this week I found myself uplifted not only by the cocktail of nationalities but also by some of the views that I am sure many would groan at, complaining about the desecration of historic and long standing landmarks. As in Soho   or Lincoln's Inn Fields; Canary Wharf from Greenwich; the ever changing London skyline; ...