A retirement homecoming blog. Oh to wrap myself in the comforting routines of home*. This after a hectic two weeks in the USA and a particularly fraught journey home which left us quite battered and bruised and which I may write about at a later date, but for now let me return to the welcome home theme of this retirement blog.
It’s good to be sitting on my favourite sofa surrounded protectively by familiar cushions and dogs (I’ll come back to the latter at the end of this blog). I’ve been reading a review in the Observer review, of Melvin Bragg’s latest book, Back in the Day: A memoir. The reviewer, Rachel Cooke, ended her review with this paragraph –
Somehow those tears again – it brought things back to me, and by so doing, it made me remember what’s really important in life: how glad I am myself to be tethered to certain people, certain places.
Made me go all misty-eyed about the importance of being home after our trip. Then watching Jay Blades on TV revisiting the home – Hackney – of his youth and its importance in his life (No Place Like Home). I won’t say it gave me a warm glow about my own home town, Heanor, Derbyshire, but it certainly did about my current home.
Would I have noticed and would these topics have resonated with me to quite such a degree had we not just arrived home from our trip? Can this be us, noted world travellers, livers of life in three different countries? Now somewhat delicate from a mere two week trip to the USA? And would you believe we lost weight after two full-on weeks in America?
It’s true then we’re getting old and consequently our resilience is definitely reduced. This includes my capacity to cope with those inevitable slings and arrows that always seemingly inevitably await us on return from any holiday. In this case that means the speeding fine that’s caught up with me, a missed holiday appointment about my prostate, van to be repaired, Facebook page to be fixed and a panicked re-order of my medication owing to a miscalculation on my part about how many tablets I had left.
That said, and on the half full glass theory, I have to admit that there have been some significantly good things to mark our homecoming. In no order that I care to assign they are –the dogs were pleased to see us and although they may have had a great time with Uncle Paul (our dog sitter), they have settled nicely back into their routines with us. Second, I got a letter on Saturday that simply said – I am pleased to let you know your DAT scan is normal. This means you do not have Parkinson’s disease. Well thank f–k for that, is all I can say. She (the doctor) also said, I look forward to seeing you in due course, whatever that means.
Finally, and last but by no means least, my team Nottingham Forest have been promoted to the Premier League after winning the play-off final at Wembley. A result I contributed to in my own small way by not watching a second of the game. I turned the TV on at the very moment the game finished and shared in the joy of the celebrations. I will admit a tear or two came to my eyes but it’s been 23 years since we were here, so I think I might be permitted a little tearful joy. Oh and our plants had survived, whether due to our neighbours attention or lots of rain, I’m not yet sure.
So if you believed in such things, I think I can say that God, or whoever decided these things, has done his or her best to balance my feelings of batteredness on our return home. Maybe more than half-full on further reflection.
All I have to do now is cope with our son’s presence who comes home (his home) tomorrow from Australia for the first time in three years, for three weeks. That’s going to be interesting and will definitely require some resilience.
Retirement homecoming summary
We actually got home on Friday and it’s taken me this long (Monday) to get round to writing this. I have had neither the physical nor the mental strength to tackle it. Jet lag I suppose, at least that’s what Mrs Summerhouse and I are attributing our lethargy to, but who really knows?
*An image of our front path. You walk along it to get to the house, obviously.