A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

The past few days I've been going grey. The height of fashion some might say or just a sign of the times. The green shade was so last century; it's time for a complete revamp. I'm not of course talking hair colour but rather walls. Grey, it seems is the new magnolia, fast overtaking all those washed out green and beige (greige) shades and harsh whites as the current neutral backdrop for the home. Now that the days are lengthening and the sun sitting higher in the sky, somewhat predictably in the annual cycle of retirement, I am again overtaken by the nesting instinct and a  need to decorate and declutter.  Scandi minimalism; I'll get there one day.   

Oh dear, apologies one and all, I have been inadvertently absent from this site for longer than I had intended. The truth is I have set myself a new challenge. I had thought that retirement would bring endless time and opportunity to work through my stockpile of books after decades during which reading was pretty much confined to leisurely holidays in the sun supplemented by occasional interludes before bedtime. The reality has been very different and with trips abroad now devoted to travel rather than relaxation, the opportunity for a sunbed and a ready supply of novels next to it has eluded me. As a result I shocked myself in my second year of retirement by reading only half the number of books I had generally been accustomed to completing and have been trying to reverse the decline ever since. Now I love immersing myself in fiction; lock me away on a Saturday afternoon with a copy of Tess of the D'Urbevilles and I'll emerge with tear stained cheeks, totally dra...

After the potential grumpy old woman's mutterings in my last blog entry intimating a clear dislike of change or interference, I thought it was important to redeem myself today. At risk therefore of being labelled as a typical Guardian reader (I'm certainly not an active fashion consumer with a taste for designer labels but concede, without apology and as my retirement is evidence of, to inter alia liking to think I’m part of a progressive audience with a love of travel, art and culture), I just wanted to say how much I love the paper's new format, especially the Saturday Review and Travel sections. Who would have thought that I could ever read a newspaper in tabloid form?  It just goes to demonstrate that there are changes which I can still truly embrace and any apparent lack of positivity in retirement is not yet to do with ageing (I hope).

Readers of this blog will know by now that I enjoy modern art and sculpture and have spent many a day visiting galleries and exhibitions, admiring sculpture outdoors as well as inside. Whilst staying in the Lake District last week, imagine, therefore, my excitement to learn that a piece for a new exhibition called Lakes Ignite 2018 was to be installed only a half mile or so up the beck from where we were staying. Called Ordnance Pavilion, it has been created by Studio MUTT and is intended to acknowledge the impact Ordnance Survey mappings have had on our interaction with the landscape. Last year the Lake District was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site with the intention that this would help preserve and protect this beautiful English National Park with its rich cultural landscape. Lakes Ignite 2018 aims to celebrate this designation. Now I like art to surprise and leave a lingering memory or conundrum to puzzle over. This piece certainly did that but maybe ...

It is hard to visit the Lake District and not be reminded of Alfred Wainwright , the celebrated fellwalker and author whose Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells in seven volumes remains the leading authority on hill walking in the area. Whilst out in the open air last week many of his written thoughts also came to mind. The joy of shared experience and of the human sub-conscious perhaps, or an attempt to answer the most profound of questions that haunt our every moment. Wainwright's answer however, whilst illuminating, fell short of providing a definitive answer to that one word question, "Why?": "...more and more people are turning to the hills; they find something in these wild places that can be found nowhere else. It may be solace for some, satisfaction for others: the joy of exercising muscles that modern ways of living have cramped, perhaps; or a balm for jangled nerves in the solitude and silence of the peaks; or escape from the clamour a...

This post comes with a health warning: the title reads, "Disappointed by a Lack of Traction." That is "traction," not "attraction."  Okay warning over, what is Caree blogging on about today? Too old for acne, she can't have discovered another wrinkle, surely? No, let me say again this post is about traction or rather a lack of it.   There I was after a week of relatively mild weather thinking Spring might be just around the corner when boom another snowfall hit, all 3 inches of it and life was thrown into chaos. It must sound ridiculous for those who live in countries used to regular winter snowdrifts but believe me, it now only takes a couple of millimetres and it seems that the whole of the British Isles grinds to a halt. As I have written on various previous occasions, one of the great things about retirement is the ability to fit one's life around the weather. So much so that treacherous road conditions throw up two obvious ch...

 So today turned out to be my big day and after two weeks in the grip of an influenza like illness (as I've seen Australian flu defined) I finally returned to the gym. When working it was accepted practice to attempt to struggle on regardless and when you did succumb to a virus, to return prematurely often causing what seemed to be a resurgence or lingering of symptoms. That said, the company of others, a change of scene and an assignment to task the brain can work wonders at uplifting the spirit. In retirement, however, it is  easy to cosset yourself at home, break all contact with humanity and allow yourself to be nurtured slowly back to health. The trouble is staying in and warm, can become somewhat tedious after a time. Further, woe betide, if you allow yourself to fall into the trap of thinking that the older you get the longer these things take to shake off. With that mindset, I could stay in bed for months. So a little like returning to work, I decided to ...