And now retirement health. After quite a focus on my musical aspirations, which is far from over by the way, I thought it was time for a look at a different aspect of my retirement life. I can’t honestly say it’s any more optimistic but it is at least different. This one inspired, is that the right word, by my difficulties in climbing our stairs. All three sets of them. The handrails are more helpful on some than others. The ones in my late mother’s house come in pairs. One either side obviously. Who’d have thought that these rails put in for my aging mother should prove so helpful to me now.
Having been so ‘inspired’ I found myself reading through the various supplements in the Saturday papers (we bought a Yorkshire Post as well as our usual Guardian. It helps to get a fundamentally miserable and local view of the world, don’t you think?)
Anyway buried under all this journalism both local, national and beyond was the supplement that really caught my eye while seeing the world through health-related eyes. It’s a kind of catalogue I suppose entitled Good Ideas, Smarter Living. And just to give it more credibility it tells us it was established in 1975. So somebody must be buying this stuff.
It’s not so much that the ideas are ‘good’ I mean who wouldn’t love a plug-in (to a plug socket) heater but what is really significant is which of the ‘good ideas’ I am drawn to. How our interests change over the years, not for the better but definitely different.
For example, the first items I’m drawn to are, a ‘practical kneeler that becomes a comfy seat’ this for working in the garden if like me I suppose you can’t kneel down, can’t get up if you do and can’t bend over. Oh joy. This is topped by a ‘roll through the gardening’. As it says, why crouch and shuffle to weed flower beds when you can sit and roll with ease?’ We don’t really have flower beds as such and weeding has never been high on our list of gardening priorities. Even so it’s hard not to be impressed with this baby. I’ve even included a photo to let you be similarly impressed.
Hearing aids, bath mats with improved stability, safer stylish steps, foot stimulator, gloves for hands on pain relief, wart removers, toe nails clippers… I think by now we’re getting the idea who these ‘good ideas’ are aimed at. And these are just the ones fit to include in a family blog. But I do not mock. Five years ago the above would have had little interest so the ones from the above list which don’t interest me now, surely soon will.
Two others areas of interest with a slightly different relevance are jigsaws and diabetic socks in the supplement. The latter one of interest, for obvious reasons, are the diabetic socks. I cannot for the life of me understand what is special about socks for diabetics like me. I read the text. They’re seamless. No ‘nasty constriction rings’, feet fresh and dry, no pressure hotspots, for those who value ‘all day comfort. Most of us I would think but maybe I’m missing something? Oh yes, the price £19.99 (call it 20 quid) for, get this, 9 pairs. Why nine for heaven’s sake? I must be missing something.
And the final item of interest for an entirely different reason is jigsaws. If ever there was a human activity that could be easily dismissed, scoffed at even it was doing jigsaws to ‘pass the time’. True we have friends, university lecturers before retirement, who do them religiously, but then they’ve always been a bit weird.
But now our grown-up children are doing them. Even stranger, at least to my simple mind, they set aside an evening to do them and, listen to this, they call it jazz and jigsaw night for God’s sake. I didn’t even know thy liked jazz, I thought that was me. But here we are. I tell you the world has gone mad. Lockdown has a lot to answer for.
So I’ve got this far without really dealing with what I intended to be the focus of this retirement blog, namely, my health. I was going to write about acquiring new pains. You just get used to your normal pains, mainly fingers and feet when you get a new one, in this case my right knee and, as above, in climbing the stairs. But I’m not going to write that now, I’ve moved on.
As I have with my diabetes report. I can’t say much about this because I was supposed to make an appointment for a blood test and this back in December. These were the parting instructions from my diabetic nurse in October. I haven’t felt inspired to make the appointment because my own blood sugar results have been rather disappointing. Makes sense I think you will agree.
Retirement health summary
I have just been rudely interrupted by a squirrel emerging from our chimney, gas fire lit and all. How he squeezed through the gap I will never know. We heard firking about but didn’t expect him to explode into the room. And neither did our two dogs. They already heartily disliked him for teasing them while outside in the garden but in ‘their’ room it was simply too much. They chased him across the room when he found the French windows locked he turned round and headed in the opposite direction and hid under the sofa until we got the dogs out of the room, opened the windows and he made a run for it. His flying leap as he crossed the threshold was wonderful. He could not have left with a more squirrel-like two fingers. Hopefully he will have learnt a salutary lesson. Just as well a heart condition is not, as far as I know, one of my health problems because having a squirrel explode into your living room, I can tell you, is quite a surprise.