A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Who would have thought it?  Yesterday, according to my Fitbit app, I walked more than 5 miles without leaving the house; most of it was between wardrobes and the bed where robe contents were displaced and sorted. Now in the course of  the motivational training sessions, I was warned that one wardrobe and a time limit of 4 hours were desirable. However, when Mister E expressed interest in getting his hanging rails decluttered too, it seemed opportune to keep going. After all when the man who cannot even bear to throw away a cardboard box, admits his closets need a good tidy up and needs help to do this, who could possibly refuse? To be fair, he took to the process with a great deal more realism and less sentimentality than I did. In the end the hangers on his rails move freely whereas mine are still a trifle squeezed. Looking at the number of empty coat hangers we produced, I'm ashamed to say we must have jettisoned at least a hundred items between us, most of which were old work

 Saturday is the big day. It's been a long time coming but after participating in an online hub on decluttering this week, the weekend is when I seek to address my wardrobe. To be honest I couldn't see what all the fuss was about when I signed in on Monday. It was a timely challenge in that after redecorating and repurposing the built in wardrobe/cupboard outside our bathroom, I have any number of items now strewn on a spare bed that require hanger space somewhere. With wardrobes full to the gunwales a serious declutter is necessary. Naively, therefore, I thought I'd be filling charity and rag bags by Tuesday morning but that is not how these things work. It's been back to the old preparation, preparation, preparation with the motivational message of "Failing to prepare is preparing to fail." Anyway it transpires that opening the wardrobe door and simply jettisoning everything that falls on your head or you take an instant dislike to, is not how these things

  Altogether it's been a good week. Transformative even, one might say. Not only did I finish painting a cupboard outside the bathroom, amongst other places, but we also made it to IKEA for the storage boxes I wanted to go into it. Best of all, I managed to construct them without any assistance from Mister E. Creativity comes in many forms, be it screwing together pieces of wood or arranging the finished product on shelves. Brutal simplicity is the best description for the effect achieved, I think, and I confess I still can't pass that particular cupboard without a little peek inside to marvel at the conversion. Also, I got the result of the antigen test I'd submitted for research purposes into Covid-19. "Antibodies clearly detectable," it says. I guess I'd have been seriously perturbed if it had revealed anything else, but it's still good to know that the vaccine has done the trick, for the moment anyway. With a second dose since, I am reassured as to

    Well it took me so long to get started on this decorating lark, you might think I'd be attacking it as I would the 100 metre dash. You are possibly correct in that respect, except these days my sprint would be more akin to walking pace and that's the speed the painting is going too.  I'm intermingling it with tasks in the garden, as well as taking to heart that the key to a good result is preparation, preparation and yet more preparation. The great thing about retirement, of course, is that you have as much time as you want to throw at these assignments. You are not being paid, so pick the hours to suit and spend as many as you want on the job in hand. Freed from the workplace mantra that time is money, you can be as much of a perfectionist as you choose. Love it or loathe it. If the former why not indulge yourself with a few extra hours of enjoyment? If the latter, why bother at all? Obviously my intention is to maintain the impulse to move things along. I'm aware,

  Even in retirement and depite reaching that third age or whatever, you can't deny the power adult kiddies still have in provoking excitement and anxiety in equal measure, deep within. So it is that today I have a big beam on my face, or at least I have since 15.40, when the eldest touched down at Heathrow. Before that I was gripping my nerves tightly, anxiously following his 28 hour journey on a flight tracker. More than 4 years ago now, we waved him off as he flew out to New Zealand to begin a new chapter in his life. Today he began to write another when he returned with his long-term girlfriend who is also now his fiancée to take up new positions in London. They are obliged to quarantine for 10 days in self contained accommodation, so it will still be a while before we actually see them, but just to know they are back on home soil is more than sufficient for a permanent grin and lightness of heart.    

  (Image by David Reed from Pixabay) It might be all those Scandi-noir series we watched last year or, now I've matured a little, an aversion to the millennial green gracing our walls but, entrenched in decorating and decluttering, I'm aiming for a minimalist feel. So much so, that today we decided on a trip to IKEA for some wooden storage boxes to complete the look of the upstairs area that I'm very gradually painting at the moment. An incentive to finish what I've started if you like and believe me, with the contents of one large cupboard strewn all over the landing, I do need to get on. Trouble is we only got half way there when the tyre pressure warning light popped up on the dashboard. I slowly drove off the motorway to the nearest garage which, as we'd hoped, had an air supply. A visual inspection failed to reveal an obvious puncture, so Mister E sprang into action, checking the pressure for each of the tyres and then inflating the culprit. Of course that the

  Mister E and I had our second vaccine inoculations yesterday. It was quite a carnival atmosphere in the sunshine with everyone in sunglasses, some in shorts, many stopping to soak up the sun on the benches by the pond whilst others had reserved seats at the terrace cafe. All it needed was an ice cream seller and the quintessential summer's day vibe would have been complete. Not that Mister E and I would have partaken, as we had travelled equipped with our own provisions, determined to make the most of the warm spring day with a picnic. Leaving the vaccination centre at Leyburn behind, we drove up the dale onto the top of Grinton Moor, stopping at an isolated spot at the edge of the road. The view was stunning but with a bitter north wind blowing across the hills, we had to add another two layers over our T-shirts.  This was no ordinary picnic either, as Mister E magicked folding chairs from the boot of the car, along with plates, cutlery and a culinary feast from out of a large c