A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

Unbelievable! Six years ago today I left the world of work . It really was a different world and so long ago now that I can hardly recall it. It has become something of a tradition for me to do a blog post on my progress moving through retirement as each anniversary has come around. A little reflection and a snapshot of where I have reached on my journey around this phase of life. Looking back, it is interesting to see that a year ago I was referring to an aura of calmness that was creeping in, as finally I felt able to abandon the mad rush to go everywhere and do everything. Little did I realise that by neither design nor device, coronavirus would intervene and force me to slow down regardless. I guess it's lucky that I was just about ready for that. Retirement: exploration of a new planet or a personal trek in the quest for happiness and fulfilment. I discovered fairly early that, despite my grasshopper approach, it's not as one might imagine a long bucke...

I have received a letter inviting me to take part in a Covid-19 testing research study. It's being undertaken by Imperial College and Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care and is intended to help the Government work out how many people have the virus in different parts of the country. The letter actually reads like an invitation to enter a free prize draw: "We have chosen your name at random...Go to the website..Enter your details..If you sign up, we will send you a package.." Until you read the small print on the back and there it is in black and white: "The test...may cause some mild short-lived discomfort." Now the dilemma this letter poses is, of course, threefold: 1. On the basis that I had a test only last week, will another one distort the testing figures that the Government proudly displays at its Daily Briefing? 2. Knowing how eye-wateringly uncomfortable the test is, could I actually administer it to myself properly?...

  Image by Pexels from Pixabay Non-essential shops re-opened today and, if the camera doesn't lie, people were queuing outside waiting for the doors to be unlocked. I stayed well clear, so cannot vouch for the accuracy of the reports. Assuming that I understood the Chancellor correctly, he was actually urging us to get out there and spend in order to save British business and help arrest the economic decline. Yes, he was asking us to visit retail outlets branded as non-essential by the Government itself, in order to buy the goods which they sell and which, therefore, by definition we do not need. Now that's a message that takes a little digesting. After all the bellicose rhetoric the Prime Minster in particular has been using, I thought, in the spirit of the 1940’s, we were very much required to "make do and mend". Didn't I replace my sewing machine specially? At least it will come in useful for making all those masks we have to cover our face...

Image by Florian Berger from Pixabay I seem to remember playing Hunt the Spoon in the dark with friends at early teenage parties. I can recall the squeals of anguish but as to how difficult or easy it was to actually find the spoon, I forget. Mister E and I have invented our own updated version of the game for lockdown. It involves copious amounts of gardening where I wander around outside, trowel in hand and then, suddenly and inexplicably, lose it. The following hours or even days are spent aimlessly walking around the garden trying to find it. Sadly, my favourite trowel, having initially turned up behind a pot after presumably falling from a wall, has now been AWOL for 2 weeks. I was using it to refill patio planters, hanging onto it as I walked from one part of the garden to another. Although I cannot believe anyone would be so stupid, I can only conclude that I have inadvertently buried it in one of the pots. Poking bamboo canes into them to see if they might strik...

Whilst I might prefer to forget it, every good series deserves a cliffhanger as well as a grand finale. So continuing my recent episodes on hospital visits, I'm going to report on yesterday's little trip which I am now hoping will be the last I have to make for a long time, certainly in connection with this particular problem, anyway. You will recall that the Nurse rang last Thursday to say the results of the previous tests were contradictory and, therefore, inconclusive.  When she said that they would like me to go back in so they could just have a little look up there, I knew, of course, that she was lying . A diagnostic examination? Possibly, but there's always the fear of a little more, not least when she said I needed to have that COVID 19 swab test and had to make sure to take a couple of painkillers; I hadn't required either of those before the biopsy the previous week and that was hardly pleasant. Trembling with trepidation, I nonetheless presented...

I'm unsure if another exciting trip to the hospital today was part of my exploration of retirement with all its new experiences or simply an occasion to be poked by somebody in scrubs and a mask. This time it was for the Covid 19 Nasopharyngeal Swab Test we've all been hearing about and that I said in my last post I would be getting.  Oh my goodness, do they really send them out in the post and expect to get proper samples back? I must be a glutton for punishment because I've just watched the Government video to check if it's the same procedure and yes, the principle would appear to be the same. I suspect, however, that distance makes a fundamental difference. With a professionally administered test, forget the gentle brushing of the swab over the tonsils. My instructions were, "This has to go to the very back of your throat and to get it there you will gag" and I did, eventually, on the fourth or fifth take. You see there's no accounting for...

  Image by Sathish kumar Periyasamy from Pixabay Who'd have suspected, but it seems the Health Secretary must be eavesdropping on this blog and has read my last entry. I say that because why else would he suddenly announce yesterday that all hospital staff must start to wear masks as well as visitors and patients too? Perhaps, like me, he had previously assumed that was happening as a matter of course. Meanwhile, it is really a shame that Clap for Carers is no more, because, having been assured that I would receive my test results in the early part of next week, the Nurse rang on Thursday morning with them. Underpromising and over delivering, the NHS can do it too and I certainly would have had no hesitation in giving its staff a round of applause from my doorstep that evening. The only downside is that half of the results were  inconclusive. It seems therefore that my last visit was simply a rehearsal and I have to go back next week for "further investigations....