Yesterday was my birthday. I was and am, 73. I couldn’t honestly say I’m thrilled by being 73 although when you get to this stage in life there is just a small element (which I suppose might increase as I get older) of thinking well, at least I made it this far. And I don’t have to think too hard to remember chums that didn’t.
This is inevitably an aspect of retirement that will figure more and more as we go on but not for this retirement blog. Quite the opposite in fact. This is going to be a cheerful blog and this mainly because I had a nice birthday. It has not always been thus in that I’ve had some fairly ghastly birthdays in the past.
And the slightly strange thing about this birthday is that it was largely unplanned. As you may remember this is an anathema to me because I’m something of a control freak. And the rule in our house is that the birthday boy or girl has to make the decisions about what he or she has to do. There’s almost an element of ha ha, you have to decide because it’s your birthday.
So the end of the day was planned and the irony is that this bit actually unravelled somewhat. I’ll return to this in a moment. But the day began with the customary morning dog walk. But we were slightly late on account of all the time it took to open my cards (2) and unwrap my presents (also 2) both from a challenged Mrs Summerhouse. Because we were late the cafe in the park was open and we had flat whites and Danish type pastries. Impromptu but really nice all the nicer for being spur of the moment.
Back to the presents, just let me say in passing, huh, if she thinks buying for me is hard she should try buying for her when her birthday and Christmas are just a few days apart and she typically has no idea what she wants. As she says, if I’d have wanted it I would have bought it months ago. Thanks a lot, that’s very bloody helpful.
Anyway I unwrapped my presents – 2 books and a jumper / sweater, whatever they’re called in these times. Only problem was the jumper whatever was about six sizes too large. So this was where my birthday went slightly out of control but in a good way.
Mrs SH decided to return it to M&S. Rather than her doing this alone we decided we would make the trip into Leeds part of the birthday treat/s. So off we went with the dogs into the city. I took the offending jumper in to the shop and exchanged it for a linen shirt which was exactly the same price, clever or what? Well, no, it turned out to be two sizes too small when I got it home and tried it on. I don’t know who the standard is in ‘standard fit’ but fit it did not. That goes back today but without the rigmarole of yesterday.
But at this point I didn’t know this so off in blissful ignorance we went to a city centre pub we used to frequent when we lived in the apartment in town. Like many a pub in these troubled times, they had created an outside space kind of on the roadside. We didn’t realise there was a garden in the back. In the olden days, pre-dogs we didn’t bother with such things, we were strictly an indoor drinking couple. Not planning or doing one’s research can have some disadvantages.
Anyway the front of the pub was fine and we had what they called tapas – shrimps, cauliflower and battered mushrooms and a nice bottle of 19 Crimes (Australian of course and a bottle of wine which, if you had the right app or something, actually talked to you. Yes, I know check it out. We knew nothing of this until the young people arrived in the evening).
At this point we were due to return home but then swept along by nostalgia we decided we would walk through the city to the area where we lived for a year in the city centre apartment and revisit the neighbourhood.
I thought we might have a cocktail by the canal / river at a bar called The Lock (very appropriate as there was indeed a lock). So we sat on the terrace in the sunshine, with the dogs and had a couple of glasses of Chenin Blanc. I love the country and our barn / vineyard but I still love the city vibe, slightly battered by Covid though it was on this trip. At one point I sat there with my glass and just Millie (Mrs SH and Archie had set off to fetch the car to save me walking on account of my injured leg which I mentioned in a recent retirement blog. Millie, sensible as ever, refused to move, so she stayed with me). It was a relatively rare moment of contentment, just the two of us.
So home via a chat with parking attendants that were still there 10 years after we moved out, a walk in the park for the doggies. Then at home, a sit on the sofa and a snooze watching The Open (golf) and then the young people eventually arrived. They were late on account of having lost their car keys. So this part of the day that was planned became unplanned but pleasant nevertheless. We talked, among other things, of our plans for the cabin, cleared up one or two loose ends. But that’s a story for another day. So to bed a brief read of one of my new books (a biography of DH Lawrence courtesy of present from number one daughter) and so to bed. Overall a very nice and varied and off-the-cuff kind of birthday. If I have to be 73, then this was a good way to do it.