After the sadness of my last retirement blog it will be nice to get back to a more balanced view of our retirement lives. I’ll take a few words to bring you up to date with what’s been happening. The short answer is – plenty. And this despite our efforts to slow down, simplify, reduce…
Category: Happy retirement
Retirement blog : Retirement life in all its bits and bobs
We’ve eventually made it back to the barn which is where I’m writing this retirement blog. For some reason, of late, we’ve confined ourselves to the Leeds house. So no barn / vineyard trips nor to the family mansion in Derbyshire. But I’m not entirely sure why but I’ll try and explain. Partly it was…
Retirement blog about TV bingeing
I was thinking of what might make a decent topic for a short Friday blog. I was a bit stuck and then there it was right in front of me – literally. The ‘it’ was the TV and on this particular day (Tuesday as you ask) I had had plenty of time to consider the…
Short Friday retirement blog about being a farmer
I have frequently written in these retirement blogs about the importance of having an identity in this phase of our lives. One that replaces our overly, worked-related identity that probably saw many of us through the middle years of our lives. As I’ve said this past identity can take a bit of replacing for some…
Retirement blog : Let the good times roll, or maybe not
In the spirit of coming out of lockdown yesterday, as it will be by the time you read this retirement blog, we decided to cut loose a little. Maybe we’d better enjoy this period while we can, given the Indian variant hovering above us like a biological sword of Damocles. As if I don’t have…
Does retirement give a person a sense of belonging?
Number 14 in the retro retirement blog series. Again this one from 2013, so early days indeed. How different would it be if I’d written it today?It would have a picture up front rather than at the end (and a strange choice of image it is) otherwise I’m not sure. My wife and I went…
Retirement blog : It’s the destination not the journey
Delegation now there’s an interesting word. Probably fair to say that it is a concept and action (if you’re lucky enough to have somebody to delegate to) more associated with one’s career rather than one’s retirement. My broad assumption before retirement was that the retirement period would be a time when having chosen carefully my…
Retiring from education
Number 11 in my retro retirement blog revisited. A slightly strange topic but then this was 2013 and times change. Is being retired from education any different than being retired from any other job or profession? I must confess I have thought quite a lot about this state that people call retirement, but I haven’t…
Short retirement blog: dreams, part 2 – shall we go to Greenland?
What was it that ‘him’, (or her), upstairs said about ‘him’, or her, down below – that s/he makes work for idle hands? Maybe so, all I can say is that the sooner this lockdown business comes to an end, the sooner I’ll be done with all this retirement foolishness. It’s foolish in the sense…
Retirement blog : An ‘interesting’ week
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So said Charles Dickens at the beginning of his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. In my case I’m referring to last week. Most of the week was full of failed challenges and technological irritations. Then, at the very last moment, 3 o’clock…