Life’s journey in a collection of suitcases. Do you have a favourite suitcase? by Graham Turner Western perspectives on success and failure are often correlated with setting clear goals and working towards achieving them. The argument goes that failure may therefore occur when goals are unclear or non-existent. Success, we are encouraged to believe, involves…
Never give advice
I’ve never really been a big fan of poetry. I’ve tried to be but it’s not happened. I even have a section of this retirement blog dedicated to poetry but, as you might see, that section has but one offering and that many years ago. I had a friend who wrote poetry and I had…
Retirement and friendships again
Over the life span of this retirement blog I have written several blogs about the role of friends when one is retired. In a recent blog I said I would write about friendships and here we are. Way back when I wrote one entitled ‘retirement blog and old friends’, I speculated, at that early stage…
Navigating the rollercoaster ride of retirement. Some reflections from my theme park of experience.
Written by Graham Turner. ‘Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter’, said Mark Twain. As I approach 70 years of age, I am trying to convince myself that age doesn’t matter, and some days I win, and some days, I clearly lose. Having taught in schools…
To have and to hold…
When my father died my mother had inscribed on his headstone the words, ‘to have and to hold and in time let go’. It’s from a poem I believe although I do not know which poem I’m sorry to say. It surprised me a bit because I never really thought of my mother as a…
What’s the point in having retirement data?
Over the extended life of this retirement blog I have written on a number of occasions about the role, of what I have called, ‘data’ in supporting a quality of life particularly as I have undoubtedly got older. Some people have associated this activity with, what has been called, (as in the article I am…
Adapt or… be miserable
The older I get the harder I have to work just to stand still. Not the most positive start to a retirement blog but there it is. I still feel that my original retirement goals are right for me but they’re difficult to maintain. So I’ve had to cheat / adapt a bit whichever word…
Vineyard 99 – Now this is real chaos
In my, now not inconsiderable, experience it is generally a good thing to plan your retirement around certain key goals. For example, in my case, writing a blog, playing music and creating and maintaining a vineyard. Perhaps it would be wise, however, not to see these goals as a forever thing. Inevitably, I think they…
And still no regrets?
Just so you can refer to the original it’s The Ten Best Questions the retired person can ask him/herself. And why am I referring to this now? Well see the picture above in last week’s Guardian. Hey I thought that’s my idea. Still no regrets that we didn’t publish it way back when but, prompted by…
Review of 2024
It’s customary for this retirement blog to review the year nearly gone by at about this point. In order to make this as realistic a view as possible I have been rereading this blog from a year ago and of course checking with my diary. If you’re going to engage in this kind of activity…