Retirement blog : Review of 2019

Another year that only lasted 8 months. I wrote the same thing this time last year. This has to stop, my life is whizzing past and I’m not getting full value. I know I wrote this last year because, out of curiosity, I re-read my review of 2018 retirement blog. I scored that year an eight and Mrs Summerhouse, with her eternal rosy glow, scored it a nine.

I’m not sure I can match my score of 2018 in 2019. I mean how do you score a year that had a number of, potentially, serious health scores but which turned out to be alright. Score it low for all the stress and worry, or score it high because you got away with it?

I will wait until the end of this retirement blog and see how the rest stacks up. In order to avoid wild fluctuations of subjective opinions on the year, I rate it against my main areas of endeavour. My main chosen areas of activity in my retirement have been the vineyard, my music and this blog. They are reasonably accurately recorded in my faithful diary (as above) now entering their 40th year, with next year already to go.

So, in that order, the vineyard does not get this assessment off to a good start. Given that we had no grapes at all this year after a cracking year last year, it’s hard to score it above a 3. But if I were determined to put a positive spin on things (not my default position I have to say) I’d say we’d learned a lot and we’ve definitely improved the look of it and worked on the windbreaks, so maybe I’ll stretch it to a 5.

Musically, things have gone quite well. I’ve made more public appearances and joined another group. The latter has allowed me to pick up the guitar again which, considering I’ve got 20 plus of them, can only be a good thing. The performing started in Ireland back in May and finished this month playing in the fiddle group and an end of year jazz piano gig. Unlike last year when I left one group, this year I’ve increased the number of bands I play in. So no difficulty in scoring this area an 8.

I usually try and throw a few learning experiences into the melting pot and this year I managed two Guardian visits to London in February and July. The first was about turning your blog into a brand. Clearly unsuccessful. The second, a bit more bizarrely, pitching ideas for articles to newspaper editors. Even more unsuccessful. On the other hand my learning in the musical sphere has continued quite nicely. I’m not going to score this ‘learning bit’ but if I did it would be high on the scale.

This retirement blog has gone fairly well also. As I wrote recently my subscribers have increased; my ranking on Google, although variable, has overall improved. True the number of comments I get hasn’t increased but for sheer tenacity and variety of ideas I think I’ve done well. So I’m giving this a 7.

So far so good, at least so clear. My health and fitness I’ve touched on and, for reasons given, are more difficult to rate. The bad news is that I’m probably a bit more wobbly than last year and maybe a little shakier, maybe not, hard to say. It feels like I’ve deteriorated but then my natural outlook inclines towards the negative. You probably haven’t noticed.

There have been all the tests for nasty things which turned out well. And, at a general level, we continue to walk the dogs twice a day. You wouldn’t call it boot camp standards but it keeps the body moving and the joints freed up. My weight has remained reduced and fairly steady. My arthritis has probably got worse talking of joints and, if I had shares in Voltarol, I’d be a rich, although stiff, man. Maybe a cautious 7.

Travel usually figures somewhere in these retirement blogs, if only the lack of it and ‘is it the missing link’. I have to say that I’m (finally) less inclined to look up wistfully at aeroplane vapour trails and wonder where in the world they’re heading. At ground level we’ve done OK. We did a three week trip to Ireland that took us beyond our usual stomping ground.

We didn’t however manage a September break. Obviously didn’t feel we needed one. Nor did we quite manage a hotel stay a month, as I planned, in the sense of going away every month but we did probably (I haven’t counted) manage about 12 this last year over the whole year. In days gone by when we used to travel all over the place I used to judge a year by the number or exoticness of foreign parts we’d graced with our presence. Not no more. Helps the carbon footprint I guess you might say.

I’ve written a couple of times about the pleasure I get from DIY / physical labour. The feeling of achievement from actual tasks completed. Some of them from my own efforts like my new tool store, but even paying people to erect our second summerhouse or (nearly) a new, waterproof garage roof. That simple feeling of getting a job done has played a part in my judgment of 2019.

As I’ve written before, any person that puts their well-being in the hands, feet or otherwise of a sporting team or individual, is a complete idiot. Yes, my hand is up, that’s me I’m describing. Occasionally of course such mindless devotion pays off as in the Cricket World Cup or a Ben Stokes innings against Australia. More often it does not – another flaccid year from my football team, Nottingham Forest, altho’ ….

A couple of disappointments this year. The perennial one of not publishing a book either about this blog or, more specifically, about our vineyard (heading for 70,000 words in blog reports). I haven’t even plucked up the enthusiasm to put the latter into an Ebook. Something I’ve done twice before. Maybe, a bit like the travel, the attraction of the activity is beginning to dwindle with my increasing age.

So there we are a retirement blog about the retirement year, 2019 for yours truly and Mrs Summerhouse. Not too shabby overall. I’ve largely controlled the areas that can be controlled and tried not to sweat the area that can’t, although I’m not in any way saying I’ve done this  successfully but God (or whoever) knows, I’ve tried. But when you have bloody Brexit and the election it’s hard to ignore ‘the outside’. We vote, we fail. But overall the above is enough to give the year an indecisive 7.5. Mrs Summerhouse rated it at an 8 (she worried about my health). So at least we’re moving closer together in our retirement years.

I hope I’ve managed to avoid sounding like one of those bloody ‘round robin’ letters people send this time of year. Sorry to those of you that send us them. And a happy new year to you all and thanks for reading, assuming you have been.