Retirement dreams. I have a dream, or rather I had one until this morning (Sunday). Then it was stepped on by an email from ‘my’ agronomist. Nothing directly to do with our current vineyard as you might have expected, but instead related to this link. Take a look.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/113518385?currencyCode=GBP#/?channel=OVERSEAS
I say nothing to do with our existing vineyard but everything to do with establishing a vineyard in Ireland which is where the above property comes into the picture, or at least did until his friend who happens to live near this property informed him and hence me, that it appeared the property was sold. Hence end of dream.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that Mrs Summerhouse, unlike myself, was greatly relieved at this turn of events. You see the dream wasn’t just to plant a vineyard in Ireland, it was to move and live there. This involved selling our main house and even applying for and probably getting owing to our Irish heritage, Irish citizenship. Something we’d started a couple of years ago and then put to one side.
This project would probably require it to be restarted primarily because we’d need free health care. Something that would be denied to us now we’re no longer EU citizens. So a bit of a pain but not impossible and certainly not undesirable, given my feeling about my own country, or at least its current idiotic government.
But this blog is about retirement dreams not politics. I’d attempted to sell the scheme to Mrs SH on the grounds of, I think we have one last, big project in us before we drifted peacefully into whatever sunset awaits us. She wasn’t convinced but went along with my idea probably hoping that something exactly like this would happen. This way my latest idea would simply die a natural death rather than being murdered by herself (as an Irish person might say). And so it’s proved.
But, in the absence of a concrete form, the question lingers on. Should retired persons go for that one last big ambition or just quietly fade away. Ah, that’s easy you say, you do a bit of both. But that then raises the question of but where do you draw the line. Which brings me full circle back to this particular ‘dream’.
Just supposing it remained a possibility should we be moving country, taking out new citizenship, selling our main house and either ditto with the furniture, books art work etc, etc. or taking it with us in the van which by the way is still not repaired (there’s a project that’s challenging enough some would say). Or is that simply asking for trouble?
Let’s face it, as you may have gathered from these retirement blogs we probably already err on the side of a dance card that’s too full rather than boringly empty. And this would be Mrs SH’s take on it
I admit I’ve spent a lot of time over the last week mulling over the plusses and minuses of this move, going back to the pictures on the website above and imagining what it would be like to be surrounded by 128 acres of land and a potential vineyard. Although my agronomist tells me a lot of the land is boggy and hence definitely unsuitable for vines. But this realism is easily ignored when the dream fills my head.
Retirement dreams summary
In order to get some sense of where this line falls I’ve done my limited running of the project up the flag pole to see if anybody salutes it. The audience for this flag-raising includes our daughter and husband (their silence has been slightly deafening since I sent them the link above) and discussing with our friends who came round for lunch last weekend. They can usually be relied on to reside in the ‘go for it’ camp. And this was what we got from them this time.
And then of course there was our agronomist (result above). So that’s feeling like a one all draw at the moment (or is it a two-one home defeat?), which is pretty typical when it comes to my retirement projects. Anyway not quite dead in the water, to wildly mix my metaphors, but probably irrevocably holed beneath the water-line. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Tricky business getting this retirement life ‘right’, particularly in the dream section.
PS I have a new dream, follow this blog to find out what it is.