I think I’ve written this thought before but hopefully it bears repeating; in a world that seems to constantly be contracting, a person has to work harder and harder to keep one’s options open. The temptation is, many years into retirement, to go with the flow and settle for or even enjoy a life of less and less, but dear readers we must fight the temptation.
Writing this blog gets harder and harder but I continue to grind it out once every two weeks because, well it’s the right thing to do, at least I think so. This last week a couple of things have happened to me that seem to carry with them a not so hidden message.
Throughout our lives two restaurants have figured large. One is Salvos in Headingley about half a mile from where we live. It’s been a family go to for over 50 years. The second is Veeraswamy’s, billed as the UK’s oldest Indian restaurant, it’s on Regent Street, about 200 miles from our home but again it’s been our restaurant of choice in London for again over 50 years. And what do they have in common other than being favourites? Well, they’re both closing. Another not so small example of our increasingly restricted world.
But what’s that you say? Rage, rage against the dying of the light and the closing of our favourite restaurants. And so last week I set myself a couple of ambitious tasks. The first involved me climbing the stairs to the attic to play my first, most expensive and best keyboard. I was curious to find out how it compared to my most recent, much cheaper, keyboard, the one I’ve been playing of late. To cut a long story short it was much better. And why was I pleased? Because climbing the attic stairs is an effort and so is playing any keyboard. I played vaguely jazz which I’d been putting off playing, so all good.
The second achievement, and this one has been plaguing me in the middle of the night for several months. We have a Land Rover, Defender but I haven’t driven it probably for about 6 months. It’s been sitting in our drive looking sad and neglected which is what it is. It’s been calling to me as we drive off in our other car, driven by Mrs Summerhouse, to walk the dogs. Quite heart-breaking. So on this day I recharged the battery and took it for a drive. Not very far just round the neighbourhood but hey, it’s a start. Now I just need to keep it going.
I know the above don’t sound like great achievements but you will just have to take my word for it not only were they ‘biggies’ but also the impact on my self-esteem was massive. I quite felt like a different person*. Go figure.
So I promised you something more positive as a topic for this blog and this is it. The moral of the story is, well it’s obvious I think.
*Oh and we took the doggies to the pub, not a favourite restaurant it’s true but then they wouldn’t have been allowed in either of those, so look on the bright side – again.