In my last retirement blog but one I wrote about the idea of having fun and what that might mean for the retired person. I don’t think I really answered the question so I’ll have another personalised go in this retirement blog.
I have had some help from a couple of my most reliable commenters. This after spending a lot of my retirement life trying to sort out the absence of my comments box so they could comment but then they comment on Facebook so maybe time wasted.
Most of this time was taken up with me trying to persuade my IT guy that there was in fact a problem. He kept saying it’s there (the comment box) and sending me screenshots of his machine to prove that it was indeed there. I sent him a screen shot of my laptop with no comments box. This was not fun. Funny what isn’t fun is much easier to define that what is. Not sure why this should be.
After emails and phone calls which just added to my irritation I asked him to come round to my house to look at my laptop so that he could see with his own two eyes that what I was saying was correct. He eventually agreed and fixed it but I still couldn’t honestly say this was fun.
Anyway my stalwart commenters briefly said a) fun just happened in an unplanned way and we just had to be grateful when it did and b) it’s a personality thing, if you have a sense of humour and laugh a lot you’re more likely to have fun. Fair enough to both these perspectives I reckon.
In response to these two points of view I think I can say that a) I’ve not had a lot of fun this week and the next time I write about my jazz evening I’ll elaborate on this. But b) we have solved a murder in our street. Again more of this later and c) my laughter has somewhat dried up this week again I’ll explain at a later date.
So what this meant was that we decided to travel down to the Derbyshire cottage for a wee holiday break. To engage in a fun-packed 4 days away. So far it went like the following and overall the events of the last couple of days lent weight to the view that fun was difficult to plan for.
For example, yesterday as this will be for you we decided that we would drive out to look at a lovely church – St Clements – in the nearby village of Horsley. Yes, old churches are my idea of fun or enjoyment at least. It was closed and nice though the churchyard was we missed out on the interior. So plan B as it was now midday we went to the village pub. Quite good fun but nothing ecstatic.
Before this we had gone to Asda to buy another shirt like the one I bought last time we were here. They did not have one, so I bought a pair of pyjamas and a book. Not a perfect fun substitute but not bad. Mrs Summerhouse bought some drain unblocker. Each to his or her own I suppose.
On Wednesday, i.e. the day before) we stopped off at one of our kind of favourite pubs – The Bridge in Duffield. We’ve enjoyed it on previous visits but the sharing plate of tapas and was not on the menu and much as I hate to say it the ‘new menu’ was a disappointment. There were two sharing plates on offer. The meat one was simply too meaty (pork crackling, no thanks) and the mezze (just vegetarian under another name. Ah sometimes you just can’t get ahead although the bottle of Viognier was fine and to end on a down note, the dessert which again we shared was another disappointment. Hey ho. As the kids might have said, are we having fun yet?
Which brings me in a reverse chronological way to Friday. Now this might be today or it might not. This really is the big one, the investment of all investments in having fun. This is steam train journey that I mentioned before I think. If this lives up to its billing this will be massive fun. But the way things have been going, nice try but no cigar, I might need a fall back plan here as well. I will pick up this fun-packed blog or very nearly tomorrow pm, so you need to wait until then to see if you can plan for having fun