A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Yesterday evening the Prime Minister was urging us to have "a jolly careful Christmas." This evening a joint statement covering the four nations of the United Kingdom has been released indicating that up to 3 households will be allowed to meet to enjoy a festive celebration between 23rd and 27th December. Sounds like the virus could be in for a treat, with payback in January just before the potential roll-out of a vaccine. Its last hurrah if you like! There are serious caveats. The joint statement itself warns that "this cannot be a normal Christmas," and, "even where it is within the rules, meeting with friends and family over Christmas will be a personal judgement for individuals to take, mindful of the risk to themselves and others." Conscious of our normal pattern of family meet-ups at the end of the year, the proposed relaxation of restrictions offers all kinds of possible permutations. Obviously we need to consider them in detail once we have bett

  (Image by Thomas B. from Pixabay ) "Retirement- what if it's not right for you?" was the intriguing title of an article in one of those financial magazines that plop through our letterbox from time to time. This particular periodical from a local firm of financial advisers arrived a month ago, but I am only now taking advantage of the colder, darker hours of this month's lockdown to get on top of the piles of correspondence awaiting attention on my desk. The gist, of course, was to keep working if you want to and for which there could be a myriad of reasons in support. However, you do need to be aware of certain taxation pitfalls, especially if drawing down on pension funds whilst working part-time. I suppose it wasn't quite what I was seeking to read when, apart from the obvious "but I can't afford to retire" argument, I was anticipating a lot more around the theme of being afraid of stagnation, so that I might have the opportunity to analyse it

  I noticed that some of the newspapers have reported on figures recently published by Public Health England suggesting that, deprived of their friendship groups, the retired are turning to alcohol for comfort during the pandemic. Apparently we need something to spend all the money we are saving as a consequence of being deprived of holidays and eating out. Constrained, lonely and flush with cash we are hitting the bottle! Speak for yourself (hic..) but it must be a trend that has passed me by. I confess that back in March,  lockdown did seem a little like the beginning of a long holiday, meaning that Mister E and I perhaps cracked open a bottle of wine on a school night or two. However, we quickly realised that we were potentially in the clutches of the epidemic for the longer term and the novelty soon wore off. In any event a more detailed analysis of the figures suggests that the percentage of the over 55's who admit to drinking more is actually a minority, so perhaps I'm no

  Image by ivabalk from Pixabay A week ago today we went back into lockdown, the calendar is once again empty and, unlike the springtime, the weather is less than inviting for lounging around outdoors. To be honest it's been one dank, grey day after another. We've still been outside even if the time has been spent keeping warm through the art of digging, with tools downed by 3pm when poor light inevitably stops play.  It may only have been 8 days but already I'm conscious that I'm struggling to recall the day of the week on waking and may have to resort to marking time by counting the number of Great British Bake off episodes watched. It's not that I'm even a great fan but sometime you just need something to make you drool and much better to examine cake from the side of the screen where there can be no temptation to consume. Heaven forbid  any further expansion of the waistline as a consequence of a circulating virus and an order to stay at  home. Of course, I

  Surrealism or beyond reality is closely associated with the art movement to which Dali, Miro and Breton belonged. There's supposed to be a clear demarcation between the surrealist movement with its creative depictions of subconscious awareness and those strange or ethereal experiences we describe as surreal. I'm not at all convinced that I understand the difference, least of all in recent days when the objective phenomena of the real world seem to have been taken over by the bizarre. Take the garden, for instance. Here we are at the beginning of November when I desperately want to tuck my pots and greenhouse up for the winter but still the plants are blooming. Will the tomatoes actually ripen before the frost bites under the unheated glass? How long before the geraniums fade and I can empty the hanging baskets? Should I feel at fault for picking the last of the summer's roses to enjoy indoors? Can the vegetable plot  actually continue to feed us through the winter? What o

  Image by Suhas Rawool from Pixabay I see this week the British Press has picked up on a study published in New Ideas in Psychology. It's by Norwegian expert Hermundur Sigmundsson and is titled Passion, Grit and Mindset in the ages 14 to 77: Exploring relationship and gender differences.  The media reports are obviously easier to read than the scientific analysis and their coverage of your get up and go leaving at the age of 53 has been amusing to say the least. Despite conjuring for me an image of John Wayne in True Grit, it is nevertheless an accepted given that passion, grit and mindset are amongst the most important attributes required in order to be successful . Sadly the study shows that the correlation between the three has broken down by our early fifties. We can get through with sheer tenacity but the passion is gone, or we still hold the belief but lack the energy. I guess I'm living proof of creeping cynicism as I age, an increased boredom threshold and yes my vita

Image by Lynette Coulston from Pixabay I believe we are all getting just a little bored with the restrictions on our lives emanating from Covid-19. I'm certainly fed up with attending meetings on Zoom rather than in person and no, it has nothing whatsoever to do with my lack of photogenicity. I think what I miss the most though, are the casual face to face interactions with strangers and acquaintances; everyone seems so stressed at present that few wish to linger and chat, with or without a face mask. It was certainly a bit rough of Kim Kardashian West to rub it in, however, with her insensitive viral tweet: "After 2 weeks of multiple health screenings and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time." Mind, I'm not sure which I'm more jealous of: a trip to a private island or the multiple health screenings. Neither are readily available