I suppose it is inevitable that as one gets to ‘a certain age’ the inclination is to look backwards rather than forwards. I can’t quite remember what inspired me to choose ten years as the point in the past to mull over but that’s Ok, it’s my blog and I can do whatever I want and I choose ten years to reflect on.
Having chosen this year, 2015 of course I began by revisiting the review of that year appropriately entitled Reviewing my third retirement year which 2015 was. Which meant I had been retired for a mere 2 and a bit years and reading this blog it was immediately apparent that we were still very active and even ambitious in our goal setting as retired people.
From all that we were taking on at this distance it seems there were three main aspects of definite significance. The first and they’re in no particular order, is that 2015 was the year my mother died. The last of my familial relatives. She was 94 when she died so had had a pretty good innings not that she would have viewed it so positively. I’ve occasionally wondered which of my two parents I shall emulate lifespan-wise. Mother, 94 or father 42.
Or will I just split the difference which as the mathematically inclined among you will calculate is 26. So if I add 26 to 42 (my father’s age) I should make it to 68 ooer, I’m well past that so maybe I’ll have to rethink that calculation.
Anyway apart from her demise she was responsible for a feature of our retirement, inheriting her house. We had planned to sell the house but for various reasons this didn’t happen and we decided to make it our country cottage in Derbyshire – the county of our births and a pleasant place to visit, which we do. It’s as close as we can get to anything resembling travel since our health issues came along to colour our lives. So although we didn’t want to keep the house, fate has decreed that it is still, ten years later, a positive part of our lives.
Another significant feature of the year 2015 was that it was the year our son left for Australia and gifted us his gardening business to run. Which we did for two years and what a misery that was. Couldn’t do it today but then we were ten years younger and a good deal more resilient and physically fit. I’m sort of glad we did it just to say we ran a small business but it was hard work and, after two years, well, good riddance.
On a more joyful note this was the year our daughter got married and ten years later they still are, something of an achievement in this divorce laden era. We’ve just bought them a selection of tin objects on account of the fact that supposedly that’s how you celebrate ten years of marriage. We see them on a regular basis and they are as kind and accommodating to a pair of old gimmers as we have any right to expect. So that’s all good.
And so that’s enough of the review. Reading the above blog from that year I am struck by the breath of our activities. I’m full of admiration for our spirit then and amazed at how much we have simplified our lives. I’m glad we did all that stuff when we still could but not at all sorry that its behind us rather than in front of us, if you see what I mean. Still here’s to the next ten years assuming we live until we are 86. Blimey not much to ask is it?