A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

  Oh my goodness, it has been warm. 39 degrees last Tuesday afternoon was simply outrageous. It felt like a foreign vacation minus the swimming pool and waiter, which I now realise are vital in that kind of heat. Worse still the humidity gave birth to zillions of tiny sciarid flies, almost as irritating as mosquitoes which fortunately still haven't made an appearance in this part of the world. That said, at least retirement meant we could just give ourselves up to the heat and do nothing unless swilling the rear patio shaded from the morning sun counts, after all the water round my feet was the nearest I was getting to a paddle that day. I can't begin to imagine working in those temperatures although an air-conditioned office could appeal. In my case I have resorted to the car and the fitness studio for cool air to be piped in, well it's either that or shopping in the freezer aisle. Normally an exceptionally warm summer's day here might reach 27 degrees after which a 10...

  I took this photo  on a visit to Carlisle a few years ago. Had it a little more red and blue on the face, it would share a remarkable resemblance to how I look, at the moment! Yes, on Friday I continued this year's predilection for hospital visits and found myself back in the hospital waiting room nursing a litany of cuts, grazes, bruises and friction blisters. I think it counts as a sports injury sustained, as it was, on returning home from the gym when I decided to try a nose-dive from my front doorstep. The varifocal glasses I was wearing (and the undoubted cause for this latest attempt at self-destruction) dug hard into my face as I planed across the drive, swallowing grit and ultimately, as I lay recovering my breath and shivering with shock, dripping in blood. Three days later, I look as though I've only just survived a couple of rounds in a boxing ring with swelling above the left eye and a blister beneath reducing my vision and giving me a very definite street fight...

  So there I was in the sunshine, eating a lunchtime sandwich whilst sitting on the grass in a park adjoining the river in Bath. Suddenly I felt a whoosh of air and next thing the bread, butter and prawn mayo filling were flying through the sky in the beak of a gigantic seagull. I realise that seabirds like their shellfish; I even know that getting up snug and close to nature is good for you, but being mugged in broad daylight by a winged predator wasn't quite what I was expecting! Who even knew that gulls would be such pests so far inland? Let's just say the incident was traumatising and in addition to the involuntary squeal, left me shaking. That bird was enormous! Unfortunately it wasn't the only transgression I suffered during my time away. Indeed somebody clearly took a fancy to a decorative scarf I had with me and it disappeared. To be honest its value was negligible but the pedant in me that clearly sees right from wrong, still finds it difficult to cope with the ide...

 Just when travelling again becomes a realistic prospect, outside forces gather to make it potentially more difficult.  Stories abound of long delays at the passport office, so imagine Mister E’s delight when he got his new one back within 4 weeks. This time, however, he made sure to check it carefully as he had his old one for 6 years before noticing that his middle name had been misspelt. Shame on the Passport Office, it had done it again (adding insult to injury by returning the old one with a slip showing the correct spelling). Reluctantly concluding retaining a passport with an erroneous middle name (two Ls instead of one) could cause all manner of problems, he returned it for re-issue. There were the inevitable hiccups in endeavouring to communicate by telephone or email with what appeared to be an unstaffed office. Indeed the only responses were received on a Bank Holiday, two within twenty minutes and their contents in direct conflict with each other. In the end it sor...

  It is 8 years ago today that I left my office desk and took my first steps into retirement.  Fittingly, this afternoon I was reminded of some of the associated emotions whilst chatting to our next door neighbour who retired too a few weeks ago. Whilst he's clearly throwing himself into all those tasks that you let slip whilst you are busy working down to your final day, he also divulged that he is experiencing those horrendous nightmares where you wake up, palms sweating, realising that you were imagining yourself back in the workplace. At least I was able to reassure him that, 8 years on, not only would I be incapable of doing the job that kept me occupied and fulfilled for so long, but also I honestly would be unable to recall what used to be required of me, at least not sufficient to dream about it. Who would have thought it would be possible to get to that stage, but when life is filled in other ways, memories of the task of earning a living by pursuing a career do actu...

  I've been feeling somewhat overwhelmed for the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure if I've been overdoing everything or if the Covid Lockdown pace of life means I can never juggle all those balls in the air again. I even logged in to a live online lecture in an effort to unravel the mystery of  Embracing Your Limits . Apparently it's all about living in the moment, accepting our limitations and just enjoying that ‘we are’ without pushing ourselves unduly. Trouble is I go all out horizontal and there's still a pile of chores and administrative tasks to be completed when I return to reality, not to mention a blog entry or two to be written.  Perhaps the secret is to zone out permanently forgetting the present as well as the past and future, living in some kind of alternative reality. However, when retirement is already that alternate existence, it seems a bit extreme to be looking for another one. There again I'm not sure that anybody has said there's a limit...

    Just when you think those in charge couldn't get more ridiculous, today we learn that a benefit of Brexit is that we might want to return to Imperial measurements instead of those nasty European metric ones. Curiously a map of the world circulating online suggests that apart from the USA, Myanmar and Liberia every other country is fairly content with counting in tens and thousands. I guess those of us who are retired represent pretty much the last generations to have struggled at school adding and subtracting in £sd, as well as memorising all those weird and wonderful weights and measures. Unsurprisingly there doesn't seem to be an abundance of enthusiasm for our great leadership's latest contribution to the transformation of the country into a complete and utter laughing stock. Mr Johnson may very much want to see a Crown on his glass every time he toasts a departing member of staff, but he has overlooked once again that the rest of us don't get to party quite as o...