A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

    I had intended to write a blogpost on 9th May about the VE Day tea party the day before at the almshouses where I am a trustee. Normally I'm somewhat sceptical of such events, when so many lend themselves to hijacking in the cause of jingoism. This party had, however, been requested by the residents in circumstances where at least half of them still had memories of the end of the war back in 1945. It succeeded in hitting the right note when the Chairman asked everyone to acknowledge those who had sacrificed their lives and although there was flag waving (for a press photo) and singing; Rule Britannia and its ilk were avoided. The residents themselves had assisted in the preparation of the decorations including jars of flowers, where the red, white and blue effect was valiantly achieved with the help of a permanent marker pen! In any event, I digress because there is a reason why I never wrote that blog entry and it came in the shape of a wonderful 2.48kg bundle when Dilly ...

  I think it's well understood that as we get older we can find it harder to recall information and easier to misplace items. Just like the rest of the body, the brain begins to show its age too. I'm fortunate in that, to date, I have always had a good memory but, like everyone, I can and do mislay things. Experience over the years has suggested, however, that most things I lose are invariably found in the first place I look, although rarely on the first occasion that I look there. Commonsense suggests, of course, that they would hardly be mislaid if I immediately found them where I thought they were. Historically the main items that go walk about in my particular case are keys and spectacles. Recently I was unable to find my house keys. I was certain that I had them when we moved and the first place I searched was my gym bag after a hunch that I'd put them there on my first gym visit after our move. Despite emptying the bag of its contents, they were not there and searchin...

   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.   ...

  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...

    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...

  We can all go through life attacking imaginary enemies if we so choose. Don Quixote tilted at windmills, but I dare say today he'd have equally mistaken a row of pylons for evil giants.  In retirement my choice has been to avoid conflict, as I try to negotiate my way to a place of calm and stress-free Karma. Unfortunately in recent weeks, it has not been so easy.  There is one chance for the floors  of our home to be reinstated properly. We have no confidence that the insurance company's contractors can deliver. Would you employ a crew used to digging holes and trenches to put everything back together again with the finesse of a master housebuilder? We are understandably running scared. Work has ground to a halt and having sought expert advice have been left even more concerned. It's just like being back at work, waking in the middle of the night to confront the worries of the next day. Even then, I doubt I ever dreamt about filling in floors nor planned conversati...

  It must be a month ago now that houses around us suddenly began to be decked out with arrays of  pumpkins, cobwebs and spiders. The most amazing thing was that this decoration took place almost entirely during the hours of darkness, so we would awake on a morning to the sight of yet another house embellished by attempted creepiness. It's all been something of a change to the relatively staid, mundane and unornamented surroundings of October in our home village, all no doubt a reflection on the contrasting demographics of the suburban outskirts where we are temporarily residing and of rural hamlets. Last week we played host to Grandotty and parents, meaning that our age statistics were more in keeping with the rest of the street. Needless to say Grandotty revelled in constant walks to see the spiders.  "Spider! Quick, quick! Run, run!" became a constant refrain. I swear I've never enjoyed (or perhaps even noticed) the run up to Halloween before. That's the great ...

  Yes, the house is broken but it is supposed to be being put back together. Except, when we last visited, somebody had decided that it would be a good idea to relay patio pavers at a noticeably higher level than those that had not been uprooted. It's not that I'm opposed to terracing but not across the patio please. So now there's another job to redo and so possibly delay our return still further. You really can't make this stuff up. It's tempting fate to ask to be given a break, but that's exactly what I did get last week, except this time it's the car that's now broken too. My fault for hanging onto it too long, I suppose. I had thought I'd try to embrace the whole retirement ethos of driving around in an old vehicle, being unable to decide what exactly to upgrade it for, especially now we appear to be entering the sunset stage of fossil fuel driven vehicles. It was a silly move based on the idea that, whilst I'd always needed a reliable car ...

  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...

   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,...

  Our final stop and the fourth out of the nine islands that make up the Azores was Terceira. We based ourselves in Angra do Heroismo, the most important city in the Azores historically and with a certain period charm and grace that we had not identified on our other stops.  All of the islands have their own individual characteristics and just when you think that you cannot imagine there being anything unique on another trip to view volcanic craters, you are proved wrong. This time, I actually entered a inside a dormant volcano vent and even ventured through ancient lava tunnels. The celebrations for the Festival of the Holy Spirit continued here too but unlike the parades in Ponta Delgada , we encountered White Night when everyone wore white and a band played in the town square.  Terceira is also known for its bull fighting and running where the bull remains tethered to a long rope and is not killed. Although there were instances of both taking place during our visit, w...

    After a brief sojourn in the UK to provide sufficient time to process the laundry from our last trip, vote in the General Election and catch yet another awful cold, we headed south again. This time our destination was Ponta Delgada in the Azores. You may recall our aborted mission to reach there in 2022. This time we decided to eliminate the risk of an ocean crossing by flying directly to Sao Miguel, 41 years since Mister E sailed there from Dartmouth in a small 34 foot yacht. It was something of a history test for him as he sought to get his bearings but, in so doing, becoming resigned to the fact that the spot where he had tied his boat to a buoy is now buried under a concrete extension to the port infrastructure. He also bewailed the tourist industry that has developed since he plus his crew of one had arrived as something of lone adventurers back in the day. At least he was thankful for the absence of the packs of wild dogs, as he described them, and our hotel accommo...

  I have already referred in passing to our trip to Portugal from which we returned on 4th July. It was a fascinating journey arriving in Lisbon and returning from Porto in the company of a small group of similar aged travellers. I suppose the big question is, can I recommend it for retirement vacations? Like so many of the world's popular destinations, Lisbon and Porto in particular were very crowded with lengthy queues to enter the best known attractions; the number 28 tram had standing room only and allegedly carries pickpockets as well as tourists in a city renowned as one of the safest in the world. The railway station in Porto with its beautiful tiled frescoes is awash with sightseers making the simple act of boarding a train something of a squeeze before even reaching the platform.   Away from the better known towns, life is much more peaceful and the Douro Valley astoundingly beautiful. Wine, port and traditional pastries made to old recipes were abundant. Our accommod...