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 good idea go to waste after all I don’t have that many of them (ideas) these days, so I need to recycle. I’m writing this blog 3 days before my rearranged prostate operation, so assuming I make it out the other side I can write the after part maybe some time next week assuming I feel up to it. (Although as you will see it didn’t turn out quite like that).
There’s been plenty going on in my retirement life despite an almost total absence of blog-writing and music-playing – two of the main planks of my retirement prior to this fairly dreadful year. So apart from meeting with friends and spending some time in the pub, the only remaining plank has been our vineyard and that is generating plenty of tasks right now.
Which is bloody ironic because I was really hoping that this aspect of my retirement would not require any input from us this year. I had hoped that, given we’ve made no effort whatsoever to keep the vineyard in good shape (fertilising, leaf removal, tying up, spraying etc. etc. – although I must admit the children did cut the grass and prune vines earlier in the year), there wouldn’t be any grapes to pick. Or that if there were grapes they could be left to quietly rot away.
Good plan but by neighbour across the dale had different ideas. He has chosen this year to set up his own modest winery and, having no grapes of his own wants to use my (unwelcome) grapes to practice on. Fine but much as I have tried to remain uninvolved in this enterprise, it has not been the case. And also I’ve provided him with most of the required equipment – crusher/ de-stemmer; tanks. pump etc. etc.
So last weekend we were up there, not doing any picking, but helping him set up his winery and using our Solaris grapes to make white wine. To say he is needy sounds a bit unkind but so it is proving which doesn’t suit my current state of mental health. Hey ho. You might argue (and we’re going up to the vineyard again this coming weekend) that all this vineyard activity is taking my mind off the up-coming op and all its potential difficulties, which I will not go into at this stage. Plenty of time for such detail after the op.
In addition, The Oldie magazine (once you’ve advertised with them, they never let you go) have being chasing me to advertise with them this Christmas. I’m not convinced that the placing of an advert has any positive impact of my blog readership (I’ve tried it before) but, hey ho, I’ve agreed. Only problem being that I have, compared with previous years, posted very few blogs which in turn raises the question of what words I put over the image of my summerhouse in the advert. I’ve settled on, as you can see from the image at the top of this blog, ‘A retirement year of ups and downs’. Not exactly original and not even all that accurate as the year has been mostly downs with very few ups. Still I suppose it could have been worse and after next Monday (date of op) it might just be.
So, contrary to what I had planned before starting to write this blog, I’m going to finish right now, the ‘after’ part will have to wait, God (or whoever decides these things), willing, until after my operation, next week. Wish me well.