A Retirement Blog by Caree Risover

Tax avoidance seems to be in vogue at the moment, certainly in certain quarters of elite society. Not to be outdone and since my last blog entry, I have: Participated in 5 Pilates, 6 Yoga, 2 Strength, 2 Abs, 3 HIIT and 2 Zumba classes; Been swimming twice; Met friends for lunch on 3 occasions; Prepared for and clerked a Parish Council meeting, typing up the minutes afterwards; Met a friend for a walk along the escarpment at the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors; Spent a week staying and walking in the Langdale Valley in the Lake District; Met up with my Sketchbook Group; Knitted a baby blanket and a couple of new born size hats; Kept up my regular visits to Mum; Read 2 books and started to follow various TV series (the latter is a complete novelty for me); Attended a meeting and to administration as a charity trustee; Acquired a steam carpet cleaner and set it to use throughout the house somewhat vigorously; Talked to all and sundry on the phone and face to face; Started a big clear ou...

  The fight or flight response which apparently evolved as a survival mechanism is still with us today. I was reminded of this twice in recent days. The first was when reading an article in the Guardian newspaper on studies showing that moderate stress is actually good for  us. The second was in a video from Action for Happiness where there was reference to negativity being a common human disposition arising from the need of our ancestors to be ever vigilant and on their guard, ready to fight or flee at all times. So there I was in recent blog entries revelling in the concept of finally learning to relax, when all along it seems that it's not necessarily a natural state and that a degree of stress actually promotes longevity. My inevitable reaction was that to be expected of the negative, cynical person that I am, namely: but cavemen never got the opportunity to retire and didn't live very long either! Obviously nothing that I have read this week alters the fact that chronic ...

  2023, can you believe it?  As someone who can't get her head around the fact that 1983 was actually 40 years ago, it's difficult! Yesterday I was reviewing 2022. Not the greatest of years, but at least life started to move apace again, after what felt like two years of treading water and stagnation. Today I am contemplating the 12 months that stretch ahead. There was a time when I used to make resolutions. I imagine like most people they went through a stage of encompassing losing weight and meeting up more. That certainly hasn't been the case in retirement where by 2017 they had become, shall we say, a little less tangible and orienting towards well-being and life-style principles. The following year, however, I opted instead to challenge myself by setting specific, measurable targets but in 2019 felt myself adopting an aura of retired contentment and living in the moment which didn't seem to necessitate any specific promises to myself or undertakings. Perhaps I'...

  New Year's Eve, a night for reflection when, as you may have gathered from my blog post here yesterday I am hardly in the party mood; instead I am full of cold and sick of people! Well the latter isn't qute true but you get my drift. Once upon a time when I was relatively young, staying in at New Year would have resulted in the initiation of a full medical examination. These days I don't even suffer from that relatively new disease known as the Fear of Missing Out. In fact, looking at posts by friends on my Facebook Timeline not to mention WhatsApp messages, staying in could even be the new normal. It seems I have reached the age when people wish you a Happy New Year at 8pm before disappearing to bed with a good book and a yawn. That's retired living for you; a few days of merriment at Christmas and it's enough partying for the rest of the year. Before I jump on the bandwagon and head up the stairs myself, I thought I really should take a moment to reflect on 202...

  Christmas comes just once a year but when it does it lasts a long time! At least that's how it feels after hosting the family for 8 days. Of course it was great to be back together once more but having 5 adults in the house for that long, increased by day visitors and on one night an additional overnight guest, is something neither Mister E nor I are used to anymore. Retirement has given us the house to ourselves, day and night, week after week. Sharing our space with others is somewhat strange, as well as tiring (or maybe that's just the thought of all the bed linen and towels that now need washing!). Lolling with a post-Christmas fatigue, normality is slowly being restored, or it  would be if I wasn't suffering from a running nose and sneezing. Typical Christmas guests, they may have gone but they always leave something behind and this year it was their colds. Proud of our potential Covid immunity after succumbing in October, we thought we'd  breeze through the ind...

  It's sometimes very easy in retirement to relax and lose track of time. Add that recent sunshine trip   into the mix and some might say I've reclined so far back into my metaphorical deck chair that I've entered a world of denial. Were you to ask me today's date I might struggle a little, save to say that I'm aware it is just before Christmas. How do I even know that? Well picking up the eldest and Dilly from the railway station this morning with a similar rendezvous arranged for the youngest later this evening might have something to do with it. Christmas visitors are here. There is no obvious stress permeating my being. Could everything be so well organised and planned that I'm ahead of myself? Sadly not, denial it definitely is and a feeling of floating on a higher plane, looking down and thinking no day in the year is ever worth getting frazzled over. Hence, this week I've been back into the gym, adding on a swim and spa; I've had a morning of stre...

 We managed to squeeze in another week away, this time making the excuse of dark winter days to snatch a quick stay on to La Gomera in the Canary Isles. Prior to the pandemic we had frequently taken a long haul trip at some point between November and January most years, after discovering that a quick burst of sunshine really does help us cope with the short days and cold temperatures that haunt the upper reaches of the Northern Hemisphere at this time of year. I guess you could call it a Vitamin D replenishment/Serotonin boosting visit. Just what the doctor might have ordered if we had thought to ask him.  As you can imagine with blue skies for most of the week and temperatures in the high 20's, it was somewhat difficult not to feel relieved, smug even, to discover that our travels just happened to coincide with a sub-zero Arctic blitz at home. Moreover we hadn't flown half way round the world to find it and in fact hadn't even strayed out of our customary time zone. With i...