A few weeks ago I started to write a blog entitled before and after. The idea being I would write about life before my prostate operation and then, after it. But when my operation was cancelled owing to a mysterious (and still remains so) stomach ache, the idea became rather redundant. Well never let a…
Category: Mental health
Am I an outsider as a retired person?
An outsider? There’s a word I’ve noticed has cropped up more and more frequently of late, both in written and spoken form. That word is outsider. I must admit I’ve never thought of myself in these terms even though I think some retirees come to see themselves in this way. That said I do see…
Self Esteem and Retirement, a retro blog
So self-esteem and retirement. My first retro blog for a while. This one from February, 2014. This was very much the kind of retirement blog I planned to write, i.e. one with a significant psychological content and as it applied to retirement. The further I’ve got from my retirement beginning the less the psychological content….
Retirement homecoming
A retirement homecoming blog. Oh to wrap myself in the comforting routines of home*. This after a hectic two weeks in the USA and a particularly fraught journey home which left us quite battered and bruised and which I may write about at a later date, but for now let me return to the welcome …
Sleeplesssness in Retirement : retirement advice
I dug this retirement advice blog out from my archives because sleeping has figured in a couple of blogs recently. I’ve referenced this blog before but I thought I would go back in time, to February, 2014 in fact to the original. I have to say it is a little bit weird and again very…
Retirement anxieties: better or worse?
Despite some concerns, retirement anxieties even, we invited some friends round last Wednesday night (it being the first Wednesday of the month (actually it was the second) we gathered together, as tradition dictates) and with the support of lateral Flow tests all round we decided Covid be damned. After the meal we fell to talking,…
Retirement blog: a trip to hell and back
Does being retired make a person more prone to the kind of intolerance described in this retirement blog? I suspect that getting older does help you lean in this direction. Don’t know what you think. If you’d told me that I’d be writing a retirement blog about a visit to IKEA or that Hieronymus Bosch…
Retirement blog: The role of resilience in retirement
Resilience is a concept I was always very fond of as a working psychologist. I still am quite attached to the idea of resilience in my retirement. The problem is I’m losing it. I think we both are, Mrs Summerhouse and I. We seem to be more easily pulled out of shape by life’s, often…
Retirement blog : More not going gently
I don’t think I could be accused of going gently into that ‘dark night’ about which I waxed so eloquently a short while ago in these retirement blogs. If I were so accused I would simply present my accuser with this photo from my latest grand project. The more astute of you will realise this…
Retirement blog: A therapeutic response to bureaucracy
They say the Devil makes work for idle hands. Some people think that retired people have too much time on their hands and this leads to these retired people getting involved in unnecessary projects. Ones that raise their stress levels with little benefit overall to their well-being. The project below may well come into that…