A retirement blog about a typical retirement week?

A week in the life of a retired person. I’m not saying this is every week but the things that happened are not totally untypical. I will leave you to judge whether this is an emotionally healthy way to spend one’s retirement, typical or not.

From last Monday it went something like this. On the Monday night, it being the summer break for Monday night jazz, I decided to try a little Irish music. My problem is musically, well there are a number but one of them is that I have this image of myself as able to turn my hand/s to any kind of music at the turn of a lead sheet. However, while this may be the dream, it is not the reality as Monday night proved. I was poor for a number of reasons. And you’ll have to take my word for this.

It being the holidays I had assumed it would be a quiet Monday night at The Chemic pub. I was wrong. There were 18 people in total including another guitarist. He was in situ when I arrived. This threw me a bit. On the two evenings I had previously attended I was the only guitarist. If I had been able to sit opposite him it might have helped because then I would have been able to see what chords he was playing and copy him. I’m good at that. Not the case on this evening, people were in position when I arrived.

On my last visit, with fewer people, I had been able to listen to what I was playing and, where necessary, self-correct. This time with 18 people going at it, I couldn’t do this. I don’t know the reels and jigs they play and although they are (say compared to jazz tunes), relatively simple, you still need to get the chords in the right place. Anyway long story short, I struggled and had to get by as best I could.

As coincidence would have it I was sat next to a cello player, she had a diabetic meter attached to her arm. I suppose I could have ingratiated myself to her by telling her about my diabetes but on reflection this seemed a bit on the needy side. I wondered if she knew the chords. I have no idea how a cello player works but I’m betting not by knowing the chords. And true enough her assistance amounted to her saying, I think there’s a B minor in it somewhere. Hmm, not a massive help. I did my best and left with my image of myself as a musician with a wide range of talents, somewhat dented.

Never mind next day was the opportunity to restore my battered self-esteem by engaging in a task over which, theoretically, I had full control. Namely erecting my latest shed. Actually a tool store but a shed in all but name which was, yes, you’ve guessed, a tool store.

Putting up (Mrs Summerhouse and I) this latest addition to my collection of sheds and summerhouses, was not without incident but you wouldn’t expect it to be would you? First, it wouldn’t fit where I had planned it would go. The floor dimensions were OK but the height was not, on account of over-hanging branches. Solution, either cut down branches or re-site shed. The latter was the easiest. And yes I know I should have measured the height but it looked like it would fit. As we know looks can be deceiving. So it proved.

It went up OK in its new spot and when erected it was flat enough, vertical enough and square enough with the paving stones on the ground. In other words it met the ‘good enough’ standards that have applied to my actions my whole life. I’ve never been either a perfectionist or a finisher. If I ran out of paint or glue or wood, whatever, during a DIY task well there wasn’t an incomplete job that couldn’t be disguised by moving a picture, plant or piece of furniture. As the Irish say, that’ll be grand. Next job. I get easily bored.

Just as well Mrs Summerhouse is not of the same disposition because the bloody thing, which was bright orange (as you can maybe see from the photo showing just the front of the roof and the inside), took some disguising. We had a brief discussion about whether we wanted this latest addition to stand out (as does number one summerhouse) or blend in. We went for blend in and, as we had a tin of dark grey stain left over from some job or other, grey it was. But the orange insisted on shining through. Obviously its preference was to stand out, not blend in. Two coats so far and counting.

I can’t resist a photo of the store with some of my tools in it (see below) I say ‘some’ because it filled up far more quickly than I had anticipated. My cunning plan of having all my tools under the same roof, which incidentally, at the time of writing, still hadn’t got the felting on*, fell a little short. A typical lack of finish, the roof that is, from yours truly but a silly one because without the felt it leaks (on my tools).

That brings me to Wednesday of the week. Today’s tasks, get the van MOTed and buy 15 bottles of wine. I expected the first task to be a problem (it’s an old van and would surely fail its test – it didn’t) and the second one to be easy. How difficult could it be to buy 15 bottles of wine?

Strangely it was very difficult. I should explain. I was buying 15 bottles of my friend’s wine, he who died recently, it was a part of his wine collection. What you might call his cellar except he kept them under the stairs. I digress. I wanted to buy some of the wine we used to drink together back in the old days. He introduced me to a number of wines I didn’t know and couldn’t afford if I had known them. He bought some good wines. Now many of them were still here after he’d gone. There’s a moral here somewhere.

His wife had had his collection valued so each bottle had an ‘independent’ price on it. Despite the fact, when he was dying, he said to me, on more than one occasion, I want you to have those bottles of Burgundy that we liked so much, when I’m gone, his wife did not see it the same way.

So fair enough I might have felt a bit of a heel taking his wines for free. Maybe. So I paid the valued price. Choosing 15 out of the collection and trying not to think about how much money (£353) I was shelling out for what could have been free, was hard. And just to make me sound like a better person than I actually am, it was sad thinking of him and all the wine he wouldn’t now be drinking. When it was all done, my wines chosen and paid for and heading home, I reflected on what an emotionally draining experience the simple act of buying wine had been.**

And we’re only up to Wednesday but as I’m well over my 1,000 words I’m going to stop. I’ll maybe tell you about the remainder of my week another time. Right now I’m exhausted, tiring even to write about. And they say retirement is meant to be a time to relax. Read this retirement blog and judge for yourself.

*Roof now felted.

**At least I hadn’t paid out £17,000 for his BMW as one friend had. He got a speeding ticket on his first drive I’m told. Must mean something.