I’ve written quite a few blogs over the last 13 years about regrets. Usually from the point of view of having very few of them and generally of having done what we wanted to do. But now, maybe it’s the number of funerals we’ve attended (2 or even 3 depending how you count them) that have given me, what shall I call it, a more wistful perspective.
So I’ve been making a note of those areas of our life that have given me pause for thought. I’m still of the opinion that on the whole we’ve done well in our lives and that this continues to apply to our retirement. On the whole we planned our retirement and, within limits, we’ve managed to make it work as planned.
But trying hard to recall and making notes in my diary (yes, I’m still using that as a form of emotional support), I’ve come up with 5 regrets, not massive or serious but when I look back there is a tinge of I wish I’d tried a bit harder with that. So in no particular order I lay my soul bare.
Convert the van
A few years ago my son ran his own gardening business. It went pretty well but not well enough to stop him packing up and leaving for Australia. In case he came back (which so far he hasn’t) Mrs Summerhouse and I ran the business. We employed two people for two years but it was bloody hard work and so with great relief, especially as he seemed settled there, we gave it up. Which left us with the company van (see photo above). I wouldn’t have bought a van but as I had one I had the brilliant idea of turning it into a modified campervan. Well, I got as far as removing the panel behind the driver and checking out the price of 2 revolving front seats. I also, Mrs Summerhouse reminded me, renewed the floor and put in two shelves (how could I forget?) I never did actually buy these seats and that was pretty much the end of this particular retirement scheme. Shame.
Save the greenhouse
My grandfather was an engineer and as they say, good with his hands. He built not one but two greenhouses at the bottom of the long garden at what is now my late mother’s house, the one we visit at periodic intervals. One of these greenhouses has gone and the second one (the big one) and the one I most regret is well on the way to falling down. A couple of years ago my neighbour (the one who looks after things including the garden at this house, and I decided it would be a great shame if this thing of beauty were to collapse like the smaller one. Great plan, then he fell ill and his brother who helped him with the fancy joinery also wasn’t so great, and so the scheme ground to a halt. It really is a long garden so I can’t see the greenhouse slowly deteriorating (past the point of saving) but I know it’s there and I regret not saving it while it was saveable.
Working in the ‘Stans’
From the local to the very not local. The ‘Stans’ is the nickname that UNICEF people give to those countries – Uzbekistan being just one – that the agency work in, in I suppose what would once have been called charity work. I would imagine that these roles are reversed now. Anyway for a year or so I worked for UNICEF in Turkey and Georgia. It was a very different end to my career and I mostly enjoyed it. The talk was (in Tbilisi) that the next assignment would be Uzbekistan. I was excited at the prospect. But then, as is often the way with these things, the contract fell apart (too complicated to describe here) and my trips to this part of the world ended. So no ‘Stans’. Now I’ll never know what that country would have been like. Again shame.
At this point this blog is 650 words long which, these days, is quite long enough. So all I will do is briefly tell you what the remaining two regrets are and maybe return to them at a later blog-writing stage. At number 4 we have planting a vineyard in Ireland and number 5, building a log cabin in Colorado both of which now seem highly unlikely unless I enlist the help of other able-bodied people. It is deeply ironic, when in older age, you have enough money but not enough physical strength to achieve, shall we call them, your dreams.