The following is a quote from a previous blog and, in turn, from the BBC news website – ‘work is fundamental to the good life’. And this was in the context of an article (Why do people lie about being retired?) about why many people found retirement so hard to cope with.
Can it really be true? Fundamental that’s a pretty strong word. I only ask because my retirement, these last two or three weeks, has been full of physical labour or work if you want to use the term. They’re all three vaguely garden-related and, bear in mind, as you read this, gardening was never ever on my list of activities to engage in when I planned my retirement.
As Oscar Wilde might have said, to have a gardening project at one property is careless but to have three such projects is beyond coincidence. You must like them or, dare I say, need them, to give meaning.
The three projects involving physical labour are as follows. The first, at our main home, concerns trying to cut the hedges*. No ordinary hedges these, they go all the way around the property and, since we lost our gardeners, they’ve grown massively out of control. So, in parts, they’re over 15 or even 20 feet high. Privet, laurel, beech, you name a hedging plant and we likely have it. It’s a big job stretching over several days.
You would have to be here to witness the techniques we’ve used to get the bloody thing under control. A variety of cutters – hand held shears, electric, battery (the neighbours), petrol driven, straight blade, right-angled (efficient but bloody heavy), secateurs, loppers, you name it. Then up normal step ladders, very high ones, ladders, a platform you stand on, planks on the top of the roof rack on the Land Rover. Whatever it takes to get the job done.
The second project is up at our vineyard. This is also a biggy, as might be expected, but at least it’s at ground level. I’ve written about it in some detail in a recent blog so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice it to say that when we’ve gone up to the barn there has been no sitting around relaxing, it’s been all hard graft.
Finally, there is the Derbyshire cottage project. This is quite ambitious. I started it before the hedges and the vineyard came on stream but it’s there now. Consequently, when we go down to visit, once again there’s work to be done. This gardening scheme involves turning the jungle into a jungle with a path through it. If the project ever gets completed it will involve stepping stones on blue slate chippings (as in photo above in case you were wondering about its significance). If the project goes the full distance it will also have lighting and statutory at strategic intervals. That’s how ambitious it is.
In fact it’s a bit more than that because if I ever cut through the jungle and come out the other side, in Peru or wherever, this will reveal the greenhouse that my grandfather built many years ago. I’m seriously considering renovating it or rather having it renovated by my neighbour down there. But that won’t be my work, so in terms of this blog it doesn’t count.
So if that all sounds a bit odd for a retired person, here’s the really strange thing – I enjoy it. True I’m quickly knackered but I get a feeling of accomplishment that’s not easily found in other areas of my retirement. And as if all that wasn’t weird enough, the final coup de grace, this feeling of accomplishment really annoys me.
I’d better explain, although I’m not entirely sure I can. It’s something to do with feeling I’m only really worthwhile as a human being if I’m working. And that’s a bit sad if you think about it. Especially after six years of practice. After all I didn’t stop working with all those grand ambitions for my retirement to carry on working all over again.
Damn this debilitating link between work and self-esteem. Will it never go away? It’s like that film, was it Nightmare on Elm Street or that other one? You know the one where the villain (Michael was it?) will not die. He keeps popping up when he should be dead. He’s nailed down and then up he pops. That’s my take on work and retirement.
It’s not as if I planned any of these work projects. I didn’t sit down and think to myself now what does my retirement need to be really fulfilling / satisfying? Nope, they just popped up, unbidden. I felt obliged to do them. Well two of them, I admit the winding path was an unnecessary extra.
I think I’ve got it nailed down and bless my soul up it pops. Like feeling a sense of being a good guy when I (and Mrs Summerhouse) have finished the hedge / pruned back the vines / made my windy path, and on and on.
The ‘it’ is a relaxing, pleasurable yet fulfilling retirement. Not much to ask when you roll the adjectives together like that, is it? It’s the pleasure I get from finishing** these projects that is so undermining, and yes, I know that sounds very strange but there we have it. As Shakespeare put it, aye, there’s the rub. Good man with the words was Bill.
And so there we have it. The question remains open and that question is – is there any merit in working hard when you’re retired? Well you tell me, if you’re reading this blog you’re presumably retired so who better to answer the question than you. So is there?
*And I’m not even going to mention relaying the paving slabs on the patio when my neighbour had some spare sand he was happy for me to have.
**At the time of writing this retirement blog I have to confess none of these projects is actually finished but we’re close enough with the hedge to get a vague feeling of what satisfaction feels like.