Retirement life complexity, like a jigsaw, but that doesn’t fit together, unlike the above image. Gosh golly there are times when this retirement blog is hard to write. I’m not sure whether this is because I feel I have nothing to write about (this at a time when our lives have never been busier) or whether the topics I have in mind I actually don’t want to make subjects for this blog.
This wet, Monday morning is just such a time. It’s funny I’ve been retired for eight years and so theoretically Monday mornings in the classic OMG, I’ve got to go to work form, shouldn’t technically exist. And yet, and yet…
I’m in worrying mode – the vineyard where we’ve been at the weekend, for example. It’s coming on stream after the winter and so are my worries. If you read the separate vineyard blogs you will get some idea of what’s available to worry about, so I won’t repeat them here. Suffice it to say, there are plenty.
On the music front I’ve hardly touched my new toy but I’ve committed to printing out all the required music for my folk fiddle group instead of contorting to read other people’s music and we have three gigs coming up for me to worry about. So plenty going on there.
Our America trip comes ever closer with our Ireland trip in the autumn. Both, the American trip particularly, give plenty of opportunities to worry. Car hire and credit card details, ESTAs, insurance, train tickets, hotels, flight times and connections and just this last weekend National Health Covid vaccinations app. Helped by the children, a sign of things to come? Mrs Summerhouse has it (the app) now, thanks to our daughter, I do not.
And all this is for fun. As of course, in the sense that I’m not obliged to do any of them, are all my other retirement activities, this blog included. And then on top of all these concerns there’s life as we know it Jim – health concerns, for example. This after a visit to the trainee doctor (our practice can’t seem to get or keep proper doctor’s, there are fewer and fewer photos of actual doctors on the board and none of the one’s I used to know). This one is going to have to work on his bedside manner.
For example, my referral to the prostate specialist seems to have got lost in their system. Which means after nearly a year of waiting I have to ring the dreaded surgery. I can no longer assume it’s just slow. After what seems like a year of waiting for them to answer the bloody phone, the person who answers the phone says no, we haven’t got it on our system, no referral was ever made (this was last July), I’ll make it again and call you back in a couple of days. He doesn’t. Another lifetime’s wait in the phone queue. I get an appointment with what turns out to be the trainee.
Ironically all I wanted was my referral to be made not to see a doctor. But if this is the game I must play so be it. I went to see him (the trainee) last Friday. He wants to talk about my diabetes as an explanation and cure for my peeing (sorry if you’re of a sensitive nature, stop now) not the referral to the specialist prostate person. I have to be quite firm about what I want from him. But he still comes away with a PSA test, Diabetes (HB1AC?), Poo test and an appointment with the diabetic nurse. I can tell you now this won’t play well but that’s for later. I get my prostate referral reinstated and, as an added bonus, a referral re my polyps. Well, I did warn you.
And then there’s life in general – fuel bills, cost of living, driving and mad cyclists and distant wars for which we try and do our pathetic best, waiting for parcels to be delivered. You know just all the usual detritus of life. No use moaning about it. So at times like these I do what any sane person might do, I bury my head, not exactly in the sand but rather in a book. But then the question is am I reading for stimulation or comfort? At such times, that’s an easy question to answer. I’m looking for comfort.
In fact this was the intended topic for this blog, retirement and comfort reading. But it’s turned into a ‘writing as therapy’ blog instead. For example, last night, as something of an antidote to a trying day and in an attempt to quieten my troubled mind, I read Agatha Christie. My other comfort reads are books about trains preferably old ones and, wait for it, ghosts. You wouldn’t believe how many ghost stories there are in the world and that’s not including the 12 on this blog.
Retirement life complexity
So there we are not the blog I had set out to write but one that helps me somewhat even if you find it entirely depressing. Not my intention I assure you. I merely hope that favourite saying of my grandma, misery loves company, finds some resonance with you my readers. What’s that? You think I’m a miserable old git. Maybe, you’re right.