If the above were true, which to some extent it is, then the last few years would have been pretty miserable. This last weekend was our first visit to the sea, since, well we couldn’t quite remember when. Certainly pre Covid which would make it 5 or 6 years. Not great for self-confessed coast lovers. The reason, as suggested, was partially the pandemic but then, at a more personal level, there was my health.
And that takes this last visit into different territory altogether. And this is an area I’ve written about in this blog many times before. Broadly this is the setting and meeting of challenges. More specifically it’s the idea that retirement needs to achieve a balance between setting challenges, but not so difficult as they are either impossible to achieve or, perhaps worse, generate a great deal of stress and worry in trying to.
Having suffered from ill health this last year or such that the setting of challenges assumes a whole different perspective. The strong temptation is to withdraw entirely into one’s comfort zone and assume a vegetable-like demeanour. So that would mean very little in the way of travel although, in our case, we still manage the odd trip to the Derbyshire cottage or vineyard / barn.
But a night in a hotel in Scarborough even though I used to work there (Scarborough not the hotel) and was quite familiar with and liked the place, no that was scary. Prior to the trip I began to assemble in my head all the things that could go wrong. The list looked like this – would the Land Rover even start given how infrequently we use it? Would I be able to drive it, given my foot problems? Could I make it all the way to Scarborough (at about two hours, twice as long as my drive up the vineyard)? Would we find anywhere to park and how busy would it be? Could we find a dog-friendly pub nearby? And the hotel itself with mixed reviews on social media although a place we had stayed before with enjoyable results, what would that be like?
Well you get the idea and was it not for the fact that the whole trip was set up and driven by the kids, I think I might have stayed at home. So much easier and safer. And therein lies the conundrum – whether to stay at home in a vegetative but comfortable state or push yourself into what often feels like an unfriendly world?
It’s a retirement problem if ever there was one. You’re getting on a bit which provides you with the excuse to take it easy but take that too far and before you know it you are indeed a vegetable sat in the corner dribbling. Tricky. In this case it was a relatively easy decision because it was Mrs Summerhouse’s birthday and the kids thought we should do something to celebrate. So who was I to procrastinate? Exactly, the grumpy old git that sits in the corner. Nuff said.
PS all the above worries proved groundless with the exception of the pub. The one I had checked out, on the front, near the carpark, dog-friendly was closed and not just for lunch, by the look of it permanently. Some things you just can’t overcome no matter how positive a view you take of retirement life. But then again Scarborough was at it’s most cheerful and sunny (see photo) so we had coffee and cake at a café on the front.