A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

Many years ago, in that world of work I invariably wore black . Dull, sombre coloured suits with white blouses and heeled shoes were viewed as appropriate attire for both office and court room. I think there was even a myth that black flattered and slimmed. Hence I had a collection of LBD's for evening events and even black swimwear for holidays. In retirement I realised that they served little purpose. Getting rid took much longer, but I think I finally got there in 2021. Today, however, looking through my wardrobe where various hues of blue dominate, the thought went through my mind that whilst there is no black there is no purple either. I was thinking of course of that wonderful poem by Jenny Joseph, " Warning- When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple ."   Scanning the poem in my head, I realised that I don't have a red hat (unless the pink one I now wear in the garden in winter, after it was partially eaten by a moth, counts). I haven't taken to spending m...

I have just returned from another enjoyable but exhausting trip to London to see our granddaughters. On this occasion, rather than driving, Mister E and I took the train and the journey proved to be the only part of our four nights away when I got the opportunity to sit down with a book. I had deliberately chosen something light and recommended to me on the basis that it was funny and astute, a little in the style of Jane Austen's humour but set in the late 1960's. I'm not at all sure that it completely lived up to that description but it had a certain wit and whimsicality that captivated me regardless. The book was 'Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont' by Elizabeth Taylor and it depicts the interaction between various long stay, elderly guests at a hotel on Cromwell Road in London. I was intrigued to turn the pages in circumstances where friends have often suggested that in our dotage it would be preferable to check into a good hotel rather than a care home. Mrs Palfrey w...

  There’s a meme circulating on the internet at the moment to the effect that for the first time ever a British woman finally went out, leaving her cardigan at home. Today, amidst all this glorious sunshine and stifling heat, I did likewise! There are some things that never change though: I still had an umbrella in my bag! Image by  emmabeyjd  from  Pixabay

    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 ...

  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 ...

  Oh my goodness. I'd never considered retirement could be pressurising until recently when , just like those jolly times in a working life, I've found myself juggling.  There's still no working boiler at home but our return date remains fixed and is ever more imminent. Consequently anxiety levels are rising and there's now decluttering at both ends of our personal property chain too. I'd like to think that letting go after you've gone without for almost 12 months would be easy, but sadly I'm still finding it challenging! Then there's decorating to finish, whilst dodging workmen and dust to complete it. Not much multi-tasking there you might think, however I failed to factor in my mother undergoing her own little crisis and the time it takes to provide support and solutions. Regrettably, her end of the retirement spectrum is less alluring than mine, although no doubt I'll find plenty of material to blog about if I ever reach my nineties. What I think...

  I spent yesterday afternoon in my volunteer role as trustee of an almshouse. After reading an article on The Guardian website earlier in the week referring to research over the decades on the benefits of volunteering, I  could have felt very smug indeed or at least basked in the higher echelons of a score on a happiness and well-being chart.  It seems that helping others boosts our health in a variety of ways, but with one proviso, namely that you have to do it for solely altruistic reasons. If you do, however, body and brain are allegedly repaid in a multitude of ways including the easing of inflammation, the boosting of mental health, the building of resilience, feeling fitter and even living longer. One study also suggested that volunteering with three different organisations gives you an increased benefit. Darn, I may have been volunteering in three directions when I first retired but life has a habit of getting in the way and of course I've deliberately shed roles ...

  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 ...

  We returned yesterday from one of our regular trips to the Langdale Valley in the Lake District. Oh my, how it rained during our week long stay; torrentially, for days or so it seemed. It started an hour or so after we arrived late on Saturday afternoon and then continued almost unabated until Thursday when we had intermittent showers. Sunshine finally arrived on Friday when we were at last able to leave waterproofs on the peg and don T-shirts instead. Years ago, when I was working and holidays were a precious resource, a week's drenching of that magnitude would have been viewed as a vacation disaster. Even in retirement and until recently, I might have viewed it with severe disappointment. These days, less so. Living temporarily as we are on an urban housing estate, plunging ourselves into the joys of woodland living, overlooking a roaring beck with a backdrop of fells (we couldn't see anything higher for the low cloud), was an absolute delight regardless of the tempest arou...

  Well I never! Several years ago I changed the background and layout of this blog and in so doing and for no obvious reason lost the ability to reply to specific comments. Ever since, I've been obliged instead simply to make my own comment in response. Today and as a consequence of circumstances of which I profess no knowledge, my right to comment has suddenly returned. I know that as we get older, we are supposed to become more set in our ways and dislike change, but this is one alteration I certainly approve of and long may it last. Whilst referring to change, a main topic of discussion at the gym this morning was inevitably the weather. There was a general concurrence that this week we appear to be edging noticeably towards autumn. Now that's a change I honestly don't like too much, especially when we waited so long for summer sunshine to make an appearance this year. Of course August is rushing by, the nights are definitely getting darker sooner and before we know it, ...

   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,...

  Never before have I been so grateful to hear that one little word, "broken." For months now, witnessing the alarming increase in NHS waiting times and repeated examples of maladministration, I have had concerned discussions with friends where we have bemoaned the fact that just when we might be on the cusp of needing it the most, the NHS clearly cannot cope. Of course, those conversations have taken place against a backdrop of Tory propaganda telling us how many more hospitals have been built, staff recruited and additional spending deployed. In truth that £350 million a week promised on the Vote Leave battle bus has never been needed so much. Such a shame it was never ever going to be deliverable. Thank you, therefore, to the new Health Minister, Wes Streeting, for saying yesterday what we have all known for sometime: The NHS is broken. How refreshing to hear something that accords with public perception instead of the constant lies and slogans of the previous incumbents. ...

  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...

  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...

  The temperature has plummeted outside but thank goodness. At least it might kill off some of the nasty bugs that are doing the rounds not to mention those that would otherwise be plaguing the garden later in the year. I'm still hunkering down, although fortunately the sniffling is subsiding and if it hadn't been for all the black ice, might have been tempted to attempt a return to the gym this morning.  I've only had one foray out in the last fortnight and that was to fulfil a longstanding hair appointment. I paid the price the following day with something of a relapse whilst the journey home, as dusk was quickly turning to darkness, was sufficient to put me off ever venturing out again. First a Jack Russell barking at the end of a farm's drive decided it wanted to hurl itself at my car, presumably to ensure I  kept moving which, after swerving to avoid it, I duly did. A sigh of relief, at which point two deer with a joint death wish leapt out in front of me; emergenc...

  2024 started in the same way that 2023 ended: with a family gathering. On New Year's Eve we met up for a meal with the more northerly branch of Mister E's side of the family. Then, on New Year's Day, we gathered again with the Eldest and Youngest at a holiday home for 3 nights in order to attend my nephew's wedding. Are there ever happier family occasions than weddings with the opportunity to catch up, in a joyous party atmosphere, with relatives you don't see as often as you would like? Unfortunately Covid intervened to prevent my mother coming, whilst my granddaughter succumbed to chicken pox meaning that neither she nor Dilly could travel. There must be something about weddings and viruses that seem intinsically linked for us in recent years, but at least Mister E and I were unscathed this time around. Mind it could also  have been much worse as the groom had unsuspectingly visited my mother the week before and was feeling so ill on New Year's Day that we w...

  I guess the title Christmas Yoga conjures up images of various poses in Santa Claus hats. Whilst a few eager contemporaries squeezed in a yoga session yesterday morning, the rest of us waited until early afternoon to make an appearance in the function room of a local public house for a festive get together. In retirement large Christmas social events can be pretty much non-existent. Indeed I'm sure I've left the days of polite conversation, wine and canapes under a ceiling of gawdy decorations, behind me in the business world. Yesterday was something quite different. A group of approximately 2 dozen retired ladies, who are committed to practising Yoga (at least now and again), dispensed with their leggings and instead congregated in their best frocks to enjoy a Christmas dinner together. The bar did a roaring trade, a relatively sedate quiz became a raucous affair and the laughter, chatting and occasional outbreak of song, went on for more than 4 hours. There were crackers an...

  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...