Retirement Life in the Week Ended 3 November 2024

What I’ve Achieved

I’ve carved out some time in my day and have started to blog again. Yay! Surely that counts as an achievement? For years I used to post daily but it became too much of a challenge in terms of thinking of something to write daily and finding the time to do so.

This time around I thought that I’d share my retirement life in one hefty weekly chunk. You’ll hear about the minutiae of my life: where I’ve been; what’s been on my mind; how I’ve saved money; what I’ve achieved; what I’m reading or listening to. From time to time I might do an extra post if there’s something really meaty that I want to talk about. But let’s start off with some of the little things that happened in my life last week.

What I’ve Read

I have four books on the go at any given time. There’s three on my Kindle and I read a bit of each of these every morning in bed as part of my daily spiritual workout. Maybe that will give me something to talk about in a future post. Downstairs I keep a proper physical book, purely for my reading pleasure. Most of the time I pick these up from charity shops or they’re given to me by friends. I rarely pay full price.

My current piece of ‘light reading’ is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It’s an American classic. Goodness knows when I picked up my copy for a quid in the local Rowcroft Hospice shop. It’s been in my bookcase for quite some time.

One of the reasons that I’ve hesitated to start is that it’s over a thousand pages long. What’s more the print is teeny. That’s a pretty big investment of time for a book that seems to go against my leftish leanings and which the majority of critics and an American friend slated. But I’ve bitten the bullet and cracked on. And to my surprise, after the first one hundred or so pages, it’s not been relegated to my give away pile as yet.

What We Got For Free

We have a log burner in the lounge. This is it. I mosaicked the surround but Paul, in his capacity as a former heating engineer, fitted it, made the shelf and laid and grouted its base. A man used to come with a massive trailer of logs for us to burn in it but last year was different. We’re doing up our home and our DIY-ing efforts generated enough wood for the entire season. It’s made me reluctant to pay for firewood ever again. Funny how saving a few hundred quid a year focuses the mind isn’t it?

So we’ve come up with a plan. Paul now keeps a chainsaw in the back of the car in case we chance upon fallen branches. It might be a dodgy one to explain to the police if we ever get stopped but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We’re also scouring Facebook Marketplace for free wood and have come up trumps. In the last week we’ve picked up two car loads, filling our boot with offcuts from the home improvement projects of others. It’ll be enough to keep our fire stoked for at least a couple of months.

What I’ve Bought

It’s been a spendy week but hey ho! Sometimes I’ll go long stretches without buying anything non essential and then have a splurge. Picking up a Wentworth jigsaw in a local charity shop for just £2.50 was my only impulse purchase. These quality wooden puzzles with their whimsy pieces are a family favourite.

I planned pretty much everything else I bought. I’m pleased with the folding table and rechargeable lamp that arrived this week which means I can work and craft by the fire in the lounge. There’s also a ‘new to me’ dress from Made in Italy. It has massive pockets, perfect for gardening as they can hold my secateurs or a carrot or two.

I’m pleased with the Crivit running shoes. My original pair were in the middle of Lidl and they are high quality for their price. But all that pavement pounding takes its toll so I have to replace them fairly often. However they are never in store when I need a new pair so I look out for them on eBay and snap them up as they become available.

I’m must be on a roll with improving my fitness. I bought a skipping rope too. I gave it a try on Sunday while waiting for the kettle to boil. Let’s just say there’s room for improvement. I was knackered after just four jumps!

Lastly, I picked up some handy caps for our nearly identical outdoor keys, just a few pence each at the local shoe repair shop. They were so cheap that it may hardly seem worth mentioning them but they’re such a time saver. The simple act of color-coding has made popping outside to retrieve pies from the freezer in the shed a much easier job.

What I Found

I’ve spent quite a lot of time at the allotment preparing one of our plots for winter. We’re planning to sow green manure next week in order to improve its fertility. Fingers crossed. While I was there I harvested ginger root, cavolo nero, beetroot and some of the biggest parsnips that I’ve ever seen. I also came across this critter. Yikes! Maybe I was more alarmed than I should have been as I’d just seen a programme about people looking for non native reptiles in Florida.

What We’ve Been Eating

Given that they do down so well with the family I think that I should show off my naan bread, a wonderful accompaniment to a prawn and vegetable korma that I made this week. The simple recipe came from The Curry Guy, and is enough to make a hefty batch. The dough was a bit wet so I added more flour that the nine hundred grammes that the recipe called for. It rose well over the top of my huge old fashioned Mason and Cash mixing bowl and was enough to make ten large breads. Not to worry though. There’s leftovers in the freezer all ready for another day.

What I’ve Listened To

I’ve felt the need to improve my meditation habit recently . One of the problems is that I practise when I wake up but by doing this sitting in bed I’m prone to return to the land of Nod. So I had a brainwave and moved this little rush seated chair into my bedroom. Hey presto! The problem with sleepiness is solved.

By the way the cushion is from one of my favourite charities. Fine Cell Work teach prisoners and ex offenders to produce wonderful textile art to sell to the public. This cushion was designed by the journalist AA Gill and represents someone counting down the days before they are released.

And as if by magic or some wonderful form of synchronicity I came across this video, a collaboration from True Peace in a Pod. For beginners to meditation or people who’ve been practising for years and still think that crap at it, it’s a great resource.

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.