Being retired
If somebody had told me 10 years ago that I would enjoy being retired I would have doubted it. I loved my job; I loved the structure it gave my days. Getting up at 6:00 AM was no problem. Leaving home at about 7:00 AM got me to town in 45 mins and starting work at 8:00 AM. Of course I also loved the travels and meeting other people. I could not imagine enjoying living without this.
I must admit, however, that the last 2 years of my working life were not the best. Things had changed a great deal with the change of management. This change meant that much younger people came into the company (maybe too many at the same time) and they thought they knew everything better than those who had been there for a long time (sign of getting old?). True, some changes were necessary but when I think back some changes were not for the better. I used to think that we were all working for a common goal – i.e. we were all working to make a profit for the company as a whole, of which we would obviously also benefit. That seemed to change to ‘every department for itself’ after the changes.
I have now been retired for over 5 years (how time flies!) and never looked back. I took to it like a duck to water. I never missed the structure! Who needs structure? I can now do what I want to do, when I want to do it. It does not mean that I get up late. It would be a shame to sleep the time away when there are so many things I want to do.
Since my retirement our life has changed completely. The long haul travelling days are over and I do not miss them. Life seems to be more tranquil even though we never have a boring moment. Funnily enough, I even find that I have less time to read (which I love doing) than when I was still working.
We get up at about 7:30 without the help of an alarm clock, walk the dogs, have breakfast and watch the news on TV for a while. Than we both do what we want to do. Of course for Alan that depends where we are and what time of the year it is.
We shall be staying in Scotland for another few weeks before leaving for Ireland. This means for Alan that there are only small jobs to do (at the moment he is fixing the curtain rails for the back door!). This is not a bad thing because he worked extremely hard in our garden in France this summer. For him the time in Scotland is a very quiet time. This will of course change again as soon as we are in Ireland! There the hard work in the house will start again.
We also enjoy going to auctions. We have to start being selective now because the place is actually filling up and I have to remind Alan every now and again that we do not need any further chairs or tables or corner cabinets (we have no further free corners) nor any further grandfather clocks (we have one here and two in France).
Time seems to fly and I will do another write up next week.