The last time, or was it the time before, we visited our land in Durango I bought a souvenir T shirt. I’ve still got it somewhere but it would be a struggle to find it. As I recall it said something like – vacationed in Durango – went skiing, rode the train, avoided gun-play (it’s a bit of a cowboy town). If I made a similar T shirt for Ireland, it would say – went to Ireland, walked the beaches, listened to music, avoided being egged over Brexit.
They’re definitely not happy though. Reading The Irish Times on the ferry coming back on Sunday there was plenty of vitriol aimed at the UK generally. A lot of it referring unsurprisingly to the right-wing of the Tory party. But most of it, somewhat to my surprise, aimed at Jeremy Corbin mainly for providing such weak opposition to Brexit specifically and as a political party generally. Seeing from the Irish point of view, I’m inclined to agree.
So we’ve been away over three weeks in total. I suppose we were never going to have a Brexit-free holiday especially as we were there at the time of local and national elections. At the local level the main winner was The Green Party, which nobody predicted but which, the vote showed indicated a very high level of concern (particularly among the young) about global warming, climate change and environmental matters as a whole.
Back in the paper, a few pokes at the English (Brexit is described in article below as a quintessentially English nativist project – lovely phrase but inaccurate as it applies to many of us), specifically the rich ones but also again, strangely, at those of us who were unable to see Maradona as anything other than a cheat rather than a great footballer. Can’t see the problem there but I am old enough to remember watching it happen. What I can’t disagree with is an article in today’s Irish Times by Chris Johns : No-deal Brexit now the most likely following May’s departure. Insightful and depressing. Read it if you’re interested. I’m trying not to be.
Anyway, so far that’s all more serious and depressing than I vaguely intended this retirement blog to be. As I’ve said before, beyond having the first line (which I had) I’ve no idea what I’m going to write about. Turns out thus far I’ve been writing about – if you’re looking for an escape from reality then a holiday in Ireland right now, is not the place, nor the time to go. Brexit, hard borders and even a united Ireland (depending on your take on this) make today’s Ireland a hard place to be.
So back to the T shirt. I’d like it to say, the empty beaches, the great weather (yes, really), the friendly people especially those who loved our dogs – beautiful dogs, lovely shiny coats, be proud of them. True there were times when finding a dog-friendly pub was hard work but, in the end, if the barman was allowed to make the choice, they welcomed us in.
Fortunately our dogs sat quietly under the table and were nice to whoever stopped by to admire them (often Americans who had been forced to leave their favourite pooch at home. I remember the days when we used to compare photos of our children now it’s pictures of our dogs on our phones, assuming they’re not there as ours were).
Now we’re back home and it’s hard to get away from the B word. If I made the T shirt featuring events since we returned home late Sunday night, it would look something like unpacked bags, put huge amount of clothing into washing basket, unpacked the pod on top of Land Rover (not easy even with help of souvenir step-ladders), looked for food to eat, tried to avoid B.
Now we’re back to being retired people facing all the usual challenges that retirement brings. You know all the exciting stuff – should I connect security camera with Ethernet cable; should I change to Talk Talk from BT in order to get a better broadband connection and pay more money of course; does the Irish music now take a back seat to my jazz piano; should we take a visit down to the Heanor house to see how my neighbour is getting on with the DIY except it’s DINY (do it not yourself) this week and get back before the dreaded sister’s weekend which this year is at our house so I have to leave with the pups (we’ll go up to the barn), will the new summerhouse come when scheduled and get erected in the right place; how will the vineyard especially our new vines have fared in our absence?
So all the predictable nonsense that an ordinary retirement life brings. This, given our Irish holiday didn’t bring about any great insights into how my retirement could be different. No clues to that elusive missing link and I’m beginning to think it doesn’t exist. I only mention this because when I was working, holidays were often a time for reflection and fertile ground for stunning ideas about how to initiate new, usually work-related, projects on my return, refreshed, from my summer break.
Ah those were the days. No, that’s not actually true because my new job projects inevitably involved other people and persuading them that my idea was something they really needed to be involved with. Not everybody shared my enthusiasms. Now I have nobody I need to convince and nothing to convince them to be involved in.
It’s interesting, to me at least, that this retirement blog is shaping up to be one of those classic return to work from being on holiday, reports. So how can a person who has been retired for over five years possibly get post-holiday blues? Bonkers. I mean it’s all very well hanging on to the past but at least choose the best bits.
You’ll be pleased to know that I’ll keep your informed over the next few blogs about how all my retirement enthusiasms – music, vineyard, summerhouse, DIY etc etc. progress. Hopefully the next few blogs will be a little sunnier than this one has turned out to be.