Ramp up my retirement blog

Conjugate the verb to ramp up. I ramp up; you ramp up, he, she, it ramps up; we ramp up: the bloody government says it’s ramping everything up (but isn’t really). Even Mrs Summerhouse, as I mentioned in my last blog, is ramping up, in her case, her morning prayers. So I thought I’d better ramp (as in picture above) something up.

In my case it’s this retirement blog. I thought I’d better do my bit by, for as often as is possible, posting more than the usual two blogs per week. So here’s a bonus blog, written only this (Sunday) morning. It won’t be 1,000 words long and I’m not going to obsess about this. In these challenging times, flexibility is a vital quality. And that isn’t a joke, it really is / will be.

So I thought I’d write a short blog about self-isolating. Not very bloody original I hear you say. But you’d be wrong because, in my case, I’m going to say I need more than self-isolation, I need wrapping up in a strait jacket.

This might then stop the acts of madness I’m increasingly engaging in with the spoken or unspoken thought, well, I might as well, we could all be dead soon. Or that would be the gist of it. Those actions that seemed stupid, expensive, impractical or outright pointless before all this virus malarkey, now seem quite the way to go. I must admit I thought that this was normal retirement behaviour but now I realise we were merely playing at this kind of inconsequential behaviour.

Let me explain. In the last couple of weeks my carefully-controlled diabetes-related diet has gone to pot. We’re drinking more wine and starting earlier. Not massively so but noticeably so. Our meals have been less calorie-controlled and more based on whatever we happen to have that might go off if not eaten. The amount of food we waste has decreased significantly. Surely a good thing?

My attitude to book-buying, already on the brink of being uncontrolled, has gone off the scale sensibleness –wise. Yesterday I ordered two more books from Amazon (yes, I know but what can you do when all bookshops and charity shops are closed?).

Last week I bought from Machine Mart, before it was deemed non-essential, a nail gun. A man tool I’d always wanted but allowed myself to be influenced by the ‘you don’t need one because you’ll never use it’, sensible way of thinking. Now it’s pah, to sensible thinking. Buy the f—king thing. And I have. I can’t show you it because it’s up at the vineyard and we’re not allowed to travel there, but one day, you’ll see it – hopefully.

Even more nonsensical are purchases that hark back to a happier time. In 2004/5 we lived in Australia. In a lovely place called the Ferguson Valley in Western Australia. I’ve probably mentioned it before. One thing we liked about it was that just down the road from the house in which we were living, was a restaurant and vineyard called Hackersley. It was and I’m sure still is a lovely place. We were regulars you might say. The food (tasting plates) and their wine were fabulous. We were sorry when we had to leave and come back to the UK.

To lessen the blow we kept on their email list. As a consequence, we have received all these years, emails about events, menus, wines for sale etc. Nostalgia at its very best. The last message from them to scoot across the airwaves told of a sale of their wine. 25% off. My mind (tortured as it is) went back to those summer days looking out over the water and drinking their wine.

What a spiffing wheeze it would be to order some and have it shipped (at enormous expense) all this way. So that’s what I have done. True we haven’t heard the costs of this madness, but hey, unless it’s really big bucks, who cares. Unless I cack it before it gets here, that would be irritating.

And finally in this short blog let me tell you about the wackiest action of all. Taken by me yesterday as a direct response to all this madness and mayhem. I’ve put my name forward to offer Skype counselling to those in need. They probably won’t have me because I’ve been retired for a lot more than 3 years.

That’s the stated limit for being allowed to practice under the auspices of the HCPC (Health Care Professional Council – I think) our professional body. They emailed me and told me my name was still on their register should I want to return to work in these needy times. So I will wait and see if they accept my offer. As they say the Devil makes work for idle hands. I’ll stop there but I think you get the idea. I need roping down to avoid further madness, not ramping up.