Music in retirement and a tale of two guitars (as above) . It wasn’t meant to be like this but that’s the way it was and none the worse for that. This weekend was bonkers. You know what they say about waiting an hour for a bus to come and two come along together. My…
Category: Learning new skills
Retirement and St Patrick’s night gig
Retirement and St Patrick’s night gig story. I’m writing this on Thursday morning and I have to say right now, I’m nervous. Why should a retired man be nervous on a Thursday morning you ask? Well broadly it’s to do with this retirement business of setting myself challenges in order to convince myself I’m still…
Retirement and musical aspirations, part 1
So now, retirement and musical aspirations. There’s definitely a moral to this retirement blog although I’m not quite sure what it is but there is. As you can probably guess from the title it’s something to do with spending money on music-related gadgets, for lack of a better word. And the fact that I’m not…
Retirement Hobby: Collecting art
What is a retirement hobby? At the risk of appearing a bit one-paced, another idea from last weekend’s Observer. This from a supplement entitled Make a New Start in 2022. Subtitled ‘tips and ideas for finding a new adventure in the new year’. Among the usual suspects – cookery, volunteering, gardening, kayak racing, music and…
More retirement reflections. Part 3
Ahh, retirement reflections, a good or bad thing to do? Mrs Summerhouse asked me how I was feeling on one of our morning dog walks and I replied, I feel a bit in limbo. I’m not sure I’ve ever used this particular word before and it struck me as slightly odd so I looked it…
A short, Friday retirement blog: Expand that podcast with passion
Without playing jazz in my retirement life, as I mentioned in my last retirement blog, there may be a bit of a gap in my activities and consequently in my satisfaction levels with my retirement. It may be the folk fiddle group that I’m going to try out on a Thursday night* might be the…
The search for a new identity in retirement
Number 32 in the retro retirement blog series originally written in January 2014, but still a continuing theme in my retirement blogs today – how to develop a new identity in your retirement. An interesting graphic at the end rather than at the beginning as I do now. More in the way of psychology than…
Retirement blog: So learning does go on
One aspect of my retirement plan which has suffered somewhat over the last 18 months has been my goal related to continued learning. On the whole, prior to the pandemic, this aspect of my retirement has gone pretty well. I’ve managed to keep what brain cells I have left ticking over by setting myself mostly…
Learning new skills in retirement – the good, the bad and the ugly
The next in my series of retro blogs from 2013, early December in fact. It’s a retirement blog about learning new skills when retired, song-writing in this case. It’s also contains early thoughts about setting challenges and self-esteem. Quite interesting on re-reading which is more than I can say for my song-writing effort. The blog…
Retirement blog : Podcasts, the thing for retired people?
I admit I’ve struggled with my podcast, The Vineyard Years, since my chum became ill and had to give up taking care of the technical side of putting out this podcast. It’s one of those tasks that has a level of skill that does not come naturally to me. As I’ve said before I think…