A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

Since retiring I seem to be taking more and more photographs. Obviously travelling to new places and oodles of leisure time to wander around with a camera provides the perfect opportunity. Moreover and whilst I had originally thought that I would enjoy learning to sketch and paint again, instead I have found myself drawn more and more to the digital world of the camera. So much so that having invested in a super duper compact pocket camera shortly after retiring, a couple of weeks back (somewhere between Madeira and Italy timewise), I upgraded to a digital SLR. Prior to the age of mega pixels, I did have an SLR film camera but confess that I rarely ever used to shoot with it in anything other than automatic modes. In retirement, however, I hope to be more creative and to this end signed up for and attended a photography workshop on Thursday.  It took place inside Kiplin Hall, the Jacobean Mansion built for George Calvert who, as Lord Baltimore was the founder ...

When you are young there are 18th and 21st celebrations, moving into young adulthood with weddings and christenings and then every ten years one of those BIG birthdays. Of course they continue in retirement, but it is also in retirement that the really significant anniversaries start to happen. Like so many people Mister E and I married at Eastertime and this year we celebrated thirty years together. We decided to mark the occasion with a trip to Sorrento in Italy where we were joined by what appeared to be an aeroplane full of older couples enjoying significant anniversaries too. Families and those in the decades frequently referred to as "middle-age" were noticeably absent, although there were some young honeymooners. Maybe it was our destination. The Bay of Naples, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coastline are all beautiful. Romantic Italy. I even heard someone say that the adage, "See Naples and die," was especially poignant. I don't think that w...

It has certainly been a magnificent Spring for colour. The daffodils seem to have been a little late, the tulips early and the mix of yellow with the pastel hues of the tulips and the scent and colour of hyacinths has resulted in a magnificent display wherever I have gone. A couple of weeks back, I also kick started  my own Spring colours with a review of my wardrobe. It followed, I confess, another ladies lunch with those fellow fitness junkies when we were treated to a presentation from the House of Colour. It seems that we are all pretty  much divided into four types of skin tone which dictates the shades we should wear. I declined the opportunity to pay a not insignificant sum to determine my perfect colour match (experience has already taught me that it is various shades of blue, especially aqua). I was, however, sufficiently inspired to take another look at the colours in my wardrobe where, whilst I was pleased to note that the workplace black was now ...

One of the benefits of attending exercise classes regularly is not the highly toned body that could result but rather the ready made group of like-minded people with whom you can share the pleasures of drinking and dining. This doesn't so much undermine the good work put in at the exercise studio but rather ensures that you return for more and work even harder to save spent calories for another meal out. I can honestly say that I did not know any of my new found gym buddies prior to retiring and yet now they are one of the mainstays of my social life (well we all like food). They are also a source of encyclopedic knowledge, saving me hours of online research.  For instance last Friday, the sun beating down as Spring very definitely arrived, we rounded off a hard week of Pilates, Fitball, Body Blitz, Yoga, Kinesis Hiit and Barre Concept with a short swim and a long laze in the outdoor hot tub. There then followed a quick stroll to a nearby hostelry where we discussed th...

Some people love Marmite. Mister E is one of them. Unfortunately I have only once managed to get past the smell in order to taste it and let's say that I was singularly unimpressed. If you have to consume it to be a vegan, no wonder I'm sticking to meat and dairy products. Of course I understand that  some people suffer Marmageddon moments when there is no jar in the house or Tesco falls out with its supplier and they struggle to even buy the stuff. On my part, however, it haunts  my life. I despise the stuff but am forever running into jars in  my kitchen. I hate the way it sticks to the knife that I invariably find myself washing to put away, or the way it seems to dribble down the side of the jar that I want to put back in the cupboard. Now I know its reputedly eco friendly, made locally from brewers' yeast and low in calories but still I have never been persuaded to fall for its purported allure. Today, however, I understand that I could be missing o...

We have just returned from a short trip to Madeira. A week to get outdoors in the sunshine and walk. I've always enjoyed previous trips to Portugal but Madeira was an island that we had always dismissed as being for older folk with what we imagined were elegant hotels on graceful boulevards with an all pervading colonial ambience from yesteryear. Initially we thought we were right about the older traveller. Although on our first day I managed to refrain from succumbing to a single senior moment, life was not so good for others. For instance, there was the lady at the airport who, upon arrival, removed my holdall from the conveyor belt in baggage reclaim and then took some persuading that the label with my name on it and the brightly coloured string around its handle meant that it was not hers.  Or, what about the gentleman who sat down in my seat at dinner whilst I was serving myself at the salad buffet? As I returned, he was in the process of drinking then spitting o...

This week I read " I Am Malala ," gaining an insight into the growth of the influence of the Taliban in the Swat Valley in Pakistan, culminating in the shooting of Malala Yousafzai. We are hearing so much about the growth of populism in the West that sometimes one needs to be reminded that the political situation is far more dire in other parts of the world. The populace that could least afford it readily parted with cash and jewellery initially in the mistaken belief that the Taliban would bring about much needed change and so alleviate the difficulties under which they were living. Illiterate and uneducated people, suffering as a result of a lack of action by politicians and disinterest as to their plight, actually thought the Taliban might improve their lot. Malala is, of course, described as the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban . After my visit to Runnymede the previous week, it was probably a fitting book to read. King John, forc...