Some things don’t entirely change in retirement. Every year about this time Mrs Summerhouse goes away for a weekend with her sisters – there are four of them. This was the weekend just gone. This was, however, the first time she had gone away and left me with the pups and the first one as…
Diabetes report, half way through the month
If you remember I have been given a month to shape up or go on insulin. This is my half way report. But, before I deliver it, first let me go back in time. When I first got diabetes in New Zealand in 1995, after a period of feeling deeply sorry for myself and in…
Vineyard 15 : There’s an awful lot to do but I guess that’s good
This, technically, is my June blog but we’ve been so busy actually working in the vineyard I haven’t quite got round to writing about it. I have heard it said that vineyards on average require a day a week’s work for every acre of vines. Well we have half an acre planted in our experimental…
So how was that for you?
I know you’ll be on tenter hooks wondering how our trip into Leeds to witness the historic start of The Tour de Yorkshire, Tour de Yorkshire, Tour de Yorkshire went. So I’m going to take the unprecedented step of publishing a follow-up blog the day after the first one. I wasn’t keen on going at…
Tour de France, Tour de Yorkshire, Tour de France dans Yorkshire, etc.
I have worked out how to get people visiting my retirement blog. I discovered it after posting my blog about my night with The Eagles. People googled, I guess, Eagles tour Leeds, and the poor sods ended up on my blog. So I now see another golden opportunity to increase my visitors by including as…
Health, diabetes, exercise and retirement
Maybe it’s a phase I’m going through but I seem incredibly busy, it’s dangerously close to that irritating phrase beloved of retirees, Ooh, I don’t know how I found time to go to work. So it is for me at the moment. I have blogs lined up ready to go then something happens – like…
Retirement : a time of love and hate
I will just say this, I’m retired and a fine example of a grumpy old git. I say this to set the context for what is to follow. Last night we went to see The Eagles at the Leeds Arena. Isn’t it marvellous how, in old age, you can’t remember their names even though you…
Ghost Story 8 : The Stone Circle
Number 8 in this series of ghost stories. That means only 3 to go unless I try and write more. I don’t know whether these stories will be missed. I don’t know whether anybody reads them, certainly I have never had any comments about them so maybe I really am just publishing them for my…
The fairly merry month of May : a retirement reflection
So here is the latest in my series of reflections on our time as a family, spent living and working in New Zealand. Things were improving by this time but there were still plenty of challenges and frustrations. Self esteem figures quite a bit. As I’ve suggested elsewhere retirement seems like a good time to…
Podcasting, the future of retirement? Not so sure
Let me begin at the beginning. Several weeks ago I attended a course run by The Guardian (the third one after self-publishing and blogging I’ve attended – fits with my learning new stuff goal) this time on podcasting. The course was run by Viv Oyolu and there were 6 of us on the course, 5…