I couldn’t say that we only discovered Ireland when we retired, we’d visited the land of our forefather’s several times before that, but it was with retirement that we started to spend time there (mostly in the same cottage in Kerry) every year. We loved it, even without the family connections. Many of these blogs…
Ten years on and deep into retirement
I suppose it is inevitable that as one gets to ‘a certain age’ the inclination is to look backwards rather than forwards. I can’t quite remember what inspired me to choose ten years as the point in the past to mull over but that’s Ok, it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want…
Leave a legacy?
In 1994 I bought a book. Today I looked for it on my bookshelves and couldn’t find it. I did find the follow-up to the one I was looking for the one in the picture above. Both books were written by Stephen R. Covey something of a hero of mine way back then. And bloody…
A different perspective on life and retirement
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…