There’s just no getting away from it, the papers are full of it. It’s that time of year, the time to review the year just gone. 2020, that is, in case you’d forgotten. I do it every year in this retirement blog so better maintain the tradition. Marvellous thing tradition especially in these non-traditional times.
First the broad picture. It’s been shit, right? Well, no actually it hasn’t been that bad. I realise for those of you reading this who have had a bad time I’ve completely pissed you off already, but no use pretending is there? Oh, and excuse my language but it has been a f—– of a year in some ways.
True, over the course of this exceptional year, my health has somewhat deteriorated but given I’m now 72 and a half, this is to be expected. Yes, I’m at the point when it’s easier to reference what’s OK rather than what’s buggered, excuse my language again but as I say, it’s been a …. True the unending struggle to keep my weight and blood sugars down has felt like a losing one but let’s be clear about the state of things.
The reality is we’re both (at the time of writing) still alive and I can honestly say that (at the time of writing) we’re unaffected by Covid in any of its forms. That’s in terms of our own actual health. True we’ve had less pleasure this year in the sense that we didn’t go on holiday, stay in any nice hotels, travel to our other properties, have pub lunches and the vineyard has been a disaster. But look on the bright side, it could have been worse.
Of course for most people I suppose the fact that they’ve been restricted in being able to see family and friends has been a problem, right? Well, again, no. Our son’s in OZ so we don’t see him anyway other than through a Skype or WhatsApp screen (welcome to our world). This hasn’t inhibited his ability to ask for money, enhanced it if anything and maybe all this world-wide doom has made me slightly more giving – maybe.
Our daughter and son-in-law have been regular visitors and even done our shopping during the worst periods (thus far that is). Which leaves our friends. I smile weakly and reflect and, sorry about this, I haven’t missed them one little bit. Well, maybe a little bit, but nothing I can’t handle. I guess Mrs Summerhouse has missed her sisters but frankly since they all discovered virtual reality (a step up for three of them), they’ve been fine.
So honestly the people side of things has been mostly on the plus side. True the music side of my retirement life has suffered somewhat and I’m aware that those musicians who ran our classes / groups have and continue to suffer. We try to help where we can.
From a purely selfish point of view I have to admit lockdown has been musically disappointing. What seems like the perfect opportunity to develop new skills, to practise more dedicatedly. Hasn’t worked out like that at all. Without the incentive of a ‘public’ performance I’ve done very little. I am working on a new approach which I mentioned briefly in my last blog and I’ll no doubt report back on this in the coming weeks. If this works then I will have used lockdown to develop some new skills but, as yet, this remains a distant goal.
Not being able to visit our vineyard has left a bit of a hole in the year but I’m writing more retirement blogs and getting the vineyard portion of these blogs published as an eBook and paperback and then these gradually ‘released’ as podcasts, has been compensation.
Over the last year Mrs Summerhouse has gone all electronic. As big a surprise to her as to me. She’s running her Zoom yoga class every Tuesday morning without any help from me. I do continue to upload her yoga clips to the rest of the class and send out her yoga worksheets by email.
Just recently she’s gone all digital (with my help) with her doodles. We’ve been posting 2 doodles a day as a form of Advent calendar. A small sign, having missed the actual Advent window project, of our increasing ‘involvement’ with our neighbourhood. Something I would not have predicted at the beginning of the year being historically even more anti-social neighbour-wise than towards dear and closed (sorry that should say close) friends. God bless you all.
So the advent doodles can be counted as a success -just. It raised £100 for a local charity even though it was our £100 not the neighbours as none of them took up the opportunity of buying the originals, even though the money would have gone to a local charity. Hmm. But yes, overall a success, I think.
As for the rest of our lockdown retirement, we have of course our dogs. I’ve read that many people are bringing canine chums into their lives to compensate for any human absences in these challenging times. I just hope they don’t think they can send them back when no longer required. A dog, unlike a turkey, is not just for Covid. We have had our dogs for over seven years and, by a wide margin, they have been a Godsend (or whoever sorts these things out).
Without them there’s no doubt we should be in worse physical shape than we are. OK, we’re not great, wouldn’t call us Olympic standards, but not bad. So it could be a lot worse but for two roughly one hour long walks each day – rain or shine. Mostly rain and a lot of mud and that has been a pain. Not sure what the Chinese have to say about it, but for us it’s definitely been the year of the dog.
So I’m looking at this review retirement blog and wondering, is that it? Is it a fair representation of the year 2020? I think so but if I have any further thought between now and posting, I’ll let you know.