It’s that time of retirement again. It’s one thing that hasn’t changed in the last eight years of retirement. In fact it hasn’t, as far as I can remember changed in the last nearly 50 years we’ve been married (Mrs Summerhouse and I, and she tells me, on reading this, that it’s only been 35 years, certainly feels longer). The date may vary from year to year but its inevitability doesn’t. Sure as eggs are eggs it rolls around each and every year. And it’s rolled around this weekend.
I speak of course of the dreaded sister’s weekend. The weekend when the doggies and I are left to fend for ourselves. Of course the doggies have been involved only for the last eight years. before that for many years it was just me. For several years before that it was me and the children. No prizes for guessing which period I preferred.
In those years when left to my own devices I could literally please myself. Stay in bed on Saturday and Sunday morning and read, go to the pub, eat fish and chips until they came out my ears. Not a nice image but you get the idea. No, with the dogs, much as I love them, they do cramp what I choose to call my style.
This year is slightly different to preceding years in that we all came down to the Derbyshire cottage on Tuesday, Mrs SH has stayed with us until today (Friday) and then she’s off to her sister’s, just a few miles away, for the weekend. It doesn’t help in one way, we are still left to look after ourselves but at least it does stop me worrying about her driving back from Cheshire, taking the train back from Devon or wherever else they have elected to meet up in some holiday cottage or other. So be grateful for small mercies.
This weekend is also slightly different in that I am somewhat debilitated by the fact that I’m injured. I mean my Achilles injury and now, a bonus point for a different kind of pain actually in the same foot. But I try not to hobble around looking too pathetic. I dare say if I was actually dying, she would call it off. But I’m not, well, only in the sense that we all are, so she hasn’t.
So just the usual pandering – two microwave meals bought for my Saturday night dinner, Danish pastries for breakfast, a couple of bottles of wine and once again the suggestion of fish and chips (and mushy peas) for lunch on Saturday. Sounds alright when you put it like that, doesn’t it?
What’s not so pleasing is the dogs wanting feeding at 5 0’clock in the morning and letting out for pees and poos. This is what they get Mrs SH up for when we’re here. Something to do with them not sleeping in their cage at the cottage because there isn’t one. So at this point, it remains to be seen if they try the same tactic with me*. I have noticed they’re quite hard to resist but we shall see which of us emerges victorious.
So here I am we’re going out for lunch as a final pandering and I’m pondering on the weekend stretching ahead and wondering what we will do. The downside to being at the Derbyshire cottage is that we don’t have a TV so that’s one option that’s ruled out. In previous visits I might have done a bit of DIY or gardening, but as I say I’m injured (don’t like to talk about it) so that’s ruled out. Reading it is then.
*They didn’t at least not until 5 o’clock.
It’s that time of retirement summary
Probably by now you’re probably thinking something along the lines of you pathetic old git, get a life. Well no doubt I will over the course of the weekend but I have to admit, it’s not going to be easy.
Sorry this is brief but I’m too busy fending for myself (and the doggies of course).