Retirement Life In The Week Ended 23rd March 2025

This was the busiest of weeks. Anyone who thinks retirement is a walk in the park should have spent time with me! It was just as intense as any week at the office,. I am so grateful not to have a job at the moment. Caring has reached its pinnacle. Am I about to go down the other side and have a more relaxed life? Here’s what I’ve been up to.

What I’ve Bought

My credit card is being hammered at the moment. Mum and Dad are nigh on skint until they receive the proceeds from the sale of their own house next week. So I’ve been buying washing machines, wardrobes and the like on tick. Fear not for it will all be paid off between the next payment due date without any interest charges.

It’s not just essential whit goods and homeware I’ve been buying. One of the nicer things that I splashed the cash on was a framed and mounted version of this photo that I took on the iconic Southend Pier one December day just before dusk. It has pride of place in their living room above the mantlepiece to remind them of the city where they lived for nearly sixty years.

For their bedroom there’s another image of Southend pier, an original watercolour by Paul Franks, an Essex artist. This was a bargain eBay find that I’m delighted with. With all this Essex themed art I’m hoping that it will provide Mum and Dad with some wonderful memories and that they won’t be too homesick in their new Devon home.

What I Planted

The Szechuan pepper seeds that have been sitting in my fridge for a month to ‘shock’ them were planted this week. They are now sitting in my greenhouse which is rather toasty. It’s just come to mind that this process is a bit like a reverse sauna for seeds! Anyway I hope the extreme temperature variations wake them up. I’ll take a photograph when they emerge. Apparently each one will turn into a shrubby plant. They’ll be some to give away and I want to pop one in the backyard at home.

I’ve also planted out two rhubarb crowns that we grew from seed. I’m dead impressed. that you can do this. They going to live alongside an established plant and create ‘Rhubarb Row’ at the very front of my allotment.

What We’ve Achieved

We finally completed on my parent’s bungalow on Thursday. Here’s my little Mum in her empty kitchen in my big purple puffer jacket. She couldn’t wait for me to go upstairs and get her own coat and was out of the door to have a look as soon as I collected the keys. She was so pleased that everything is so accessible. The kitchen is well equipped but compact and there’s a lovely walk in shower..

And so my blog posting may be a little bit shorter than most weeks. I’ve just been too busy to write very much at all. The latter part of the week has been spent unpacking stuff from the removals van, accepting deliveries and assembling furniture. All this hustle and bustle is in the name of getting that little house ready to be my parent’s new home from next week onwards.

I thought that it was all going swimmingly until we had to call an ambulance out for Dad in the early hours of Sunday morning after he fell three times. Luckily it’s probably just an infection or the consequences of dehydration. It’s a bugger to get him to drink enough. Anyway in the morning he was nearly back to normal,. Good news for the imminent move on Monday. Figures crossed for us!

What I’ve Got To Look Forward To

Starting next week my parents are going to have a personal assistant to take over a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing for them. And of course they’ll be more independent in a more suitable environment. I’ll still be there for them but my involvement will go down a notch. The level of care that I’ve been providing isn’t sustainable over the long term.

To celebrate the partial liberation from our caring role I’ve booked a few nights in a campsite in Cornwall for the beginning of April. Part of the reason is to mark my sixtieth birthday. There will be no big party just lots of cycling, swimming in the sea and pints of the Cornish lager, Korev in cute little pubs. And I might sleep a bit. It’s been something that I’ve been going short of over these last arduous months.

I’ll reveal our exact location when we’re away in a couple of weeks time. I’m excited as it’s an area that I’ve been longing to explore.

And Finally

Among the mayhem I have managed to write consistently. Okay I missed a day but I’m being compassionate to myself under the circumstances. Do you know that if you write just three hundred words a day you can knock out a book in a year. That’s the aim anyway. This is a photo that I took in Porto’s wonderful Livraria Lello. Look out for a publication with my name on it in a bookstore near you shortly!

Disclaimer

This post contains links to companies and organisations just because I’m happy with the products or services that they supply or I’m spreading the word about what they do. There may also be affiliate links to Amazon for books and other items that I am personally recommending. If you decide to make a purchase from them, I might get a little bit of commission at no cost to you.