The year, for us, was divided clearly in two. The part before retirement and the part where we had retired.
I won’t lie, at times it felt that the day would never arrive, but the final month was so rushed that I ran out of time to do stuff, and had to give my soon to be former employer some of my own time to return their equipment.
Jools loved her job and the excitement of it, she felt she made a difference. For better or worse, I felt I wasn’t making a difference, and trying to reconcile that with my job as a lead auditor was difficult.
The start of the year begins with promise. Promise of more light, more warmth, and for us, more time to do the things we would rather be doing other than work. Jools wasn’t sure she’d enjoy retirement, and neither did I, especially once the days begin to drawn in in the autumn and there is less to do outside.
But after more meetings with our financial advisor, we were assured that we should stay in Chez Jelltex, and just enjoy the ride.
Looking at my shots of the day project, the ninth year I have done this, January and February seem mainly to be taken up with looking for signs of spring: snowdrops, aconites and lesser celandines locally, and in woodland, bluebells, anemones and the such. And butterflies.
In work, my employer worked me hard to get best value out of me in those last 12 working weeks. I did a large number of audits, wrote the reports, presented the findings and followed up on them, as well as trying to close out findings from previous year’s reports.
I can say I did my best.
At the end of February, I went to Denmark on my last ever business trip. It was supposed to be in conjunction with yet more audits, but details never became clear, and it was agreed not to do them, and I was free to travel without much work to be done, as it was my grand farewell.
I had to fly via Amsterdam, giving me a layover long enough to get a beer and people watch, as I’m won’t to do. But at the airport, walking from the gate to immigration and back out again, it was clear I was not that mobile.
This was clearer when on my last day in head office, I could not stand for longer than a few minutes as my colleagues said nice words and presented me with gifts.
I used to walk round Aarhus, but on this final trip, I would walk from bench to bench, annoyed at myself for letting things get so bad.
On the plus side, I was able to meet several former colleagues on the Friday night, and again on the Sunday in Aarhus and Esbjerg, for a few drinks and a catch up, all of us knowing this was really the last time.
Between, I stayed at my friend, Shaggy’s, place in the countryside to drop off some Bovril, Marmite, pork scratchings and share a few beers. We served in Germany together back in the 90s, and it was a real bonus to meet up most times I visited Denmark for work.
Back home, and there was a rush to finish all the tasks for work, and to prepare for retirement. I had not had a private phone for over a decade, so had to buy one, and after much pressure from colleagues kept my old work number as they all said they wanted contact details. Even if almost none of them ever called, except when prompted by myself.
So it goes.
Spring was in full effect, the days letting longer and warmer too. On the Monday of my last week, I had an audit, and had to write the report and present it before I finished on Friday. This meant my frazzled brain struggled for two days with the detail, but my co-auditor helped out and it came together.
So that on the 21st March, I did my travel expenses. Presented the audit findings and had one last farewell meeting with my department colleagues. I had pressed to have a meeting with HR about why I was leaving, and to make sure lessons learned were, well, learned. But he only got back to me two hours before I was due to finish, so declined, and when the time came, turned the loptop off for the final time.
I went straight on a Zoom meeting with Danny Baker, and he was stunned when I told him the conversation was my first task as a retiree, as I had finished 30 minutes previously.
Two weeks later, we were due to go to India, so Sylv was coming down to look after the cats and cat sit, so I went up with Jen to collect her, and before we arrived at her place, I visited head office in Warrington for the last time to drop off my IT equipment and get witnesses that I cut up my company credit card.
I was free.
That night the three of us went to a pub for a slap up meal and a few beers, before the next morning, loading the car for the drive back down to Kent. Where Sylv stayed at Jen’s for a week before moving in as we left to meet the taxi near Sandwich, that would transport most of the group to Heathrow for our evening flight to India.
You can read of our adventures in posts from April, and pictures of the wonderful things we saw and did. But again, for me, a stark reminder of how unfit I was. I had uncerated legs, caused by bad circulation and retaining water. 24 days of inactivity in India, either on planes, buses or in jeeps meant we did little actual walking, and only made my legs worse.
It came to a head as we arrived back in Delhi, and as I walked up the air bridge, sores weeping on my legs, I went to take a deep breath, and there was no air to breath in. My heart was pounding, and I had no energy to walk to the top. I made it, but sat down. Jools taught me some breathing exercies to help bring my heartbeat down, but for the remainder of the trip, I was unable to do more than walk to the jeeps or along to our hotel room.
The tour was changed, partly, due to my condition, which hurt.
Once back home, I filled in a form for our GP, and he was so concerned, I had an appointment with him in half an hour as my symptoms were the same for heart failure.
Very serious stuff.
Thankfully, after arriving back, my breathing improved, and we began, slowly at first, to go to the gym.
The phsio, Ray, who we go to, told me what was wrong with my legs, and culd only be fixed by increase bloodflow, and cycling would do the trick, I knew.
So, starting from 15 minutes twice a week, I built it up two or three minutes a week until I could do forty, then as summer moved into September, at which point we realised how less busy the gym was at weekends, so suddenly we were going four times a week.
After a gym visit, my feet would shrink back down to normal size nines, but over the next few hours, fluid would return, and so on and on. Until the fluid did not return. My swollen legs remained thinner, to the point where Jools noticed muscles and tendons in them. Finally, the ulcers stopped. Just dried up and have not come back, at least for the last two months.
All my cargo pants are now too big, so we donated to charity or thrown in the bin, and jeans that had been hanging up in the wardrobe, unworn, were now brought back into use. I won’t pretend one or two pairs are tighter than I’d like, but I am sure they’ll get looser in a few weeks.
I also cut down on drinking. Christmas notwithstanding. I worked out, it wasn’t hard,, that I was drinking a lot of wine per week. Easy to do when it comes in boxes. The final straw came when I had a blood test in August, and I was diabetic.
So, I reduced by over half my alcohol intake, didn’t drink three days a week, and just had a small bottle of beer other days.
The other positive impact has been improved skin condition, and non-itchy scalp any more. All good news, and a reason not to stop what I’m doing.
As the weeks and months passed, we found more things to do, and found ourselves busy most days of the week, doing something. Easy when its spring and summer.
I joined the U3A, and created a group to go churchcrawling. After all, its one of the things I know a bit about. So, once every two weeks we meet up at a church I suggest, and I curate the visit and try to not get the group too bored.
They say they want to continue not just in the new year, but through next winter too. I just hope I don’t run out of interesting churches!
The one thing we did want to do this year was to renovate the kitchen. This is probably the most disruptive work you can have done in a home, and although the selecting wat we wanted at the warehouse showroom was great, as the week approached when work was to start, I began to regret it.
That was nothing compared to when after the first day, the kitchen and utility room had been stripped or everything, just the bare walls, and so there was no going back. The next day, the new electrical cables were embedded in the walls, and so began the two and a half week process of installing the units skeletons, and gubbins.
After then days, they were all in, and two guys came with a laser machine to measure for the worktops, which would take a week to cut to size. A week later, the tops were installed and the faca fitted, the sink and hob fitted, though the glue would take a day to set. So, some 13 days after work began, we had a sink and cooker with hob we could use.
Through the weekend, the walls were painted, this took longer than expected because as the weather changed towards winter, paint took longer to dry. But at the end of day 17, it was done. The guys left and we had our dream kitchen.
And that brings us to November, and the long, gentle slope towards Christmas and New Year.
Neither of us really miss work now. Well, that’s not true. We miss people, and maybe the problem solving and so on, but the freedom to do what we want when we want is intoxicating. And I don’t think we really want to go back to work, even if they could offer us enough.
I can have a hair cut any morning, not just Sundays. And if we want breakfast or lunch out, we go.
And same for orchiding, I can go midweek when there are less people about, or when the weather is fine, and rather go out the whole day, if needed a few shorter trips are done.
I could turn my attention to the wider world and its problems, but you hear enough of that on news broadcasts. Its as bad as anything I have known during my life, and only likely to get worse in the new year.
So there’s cheerful.
We didn’t go to the cinema this year, nor the theatre. And I saw just the one gig, The Wedding Present on a very warm evening in autumn at The Booking Hall, some 39 years and nearly three months after I saw them the first time.
We only bought one record this year, the new LP by Public Service Broadcasting, but then took me over 250 days to get round to play it.
I read a bit. Mostly non-fiction, but the final instalment in Phillip Pullman’s Book of Dust series was published and read. Not sure what I was expecting at the end, certainly not the one Pullman wrote. Still it was an enjoyable tome.
Little TV watched either, and no inclination to. It is now 16 years since I stopped going to sea, and my TV addiction never really returned. We watched some over COVID, but I soon grew bored and stopped.
Pretty much all I watch is football. Because it takes my mind of the shit going on in the world. I try to block most of it out, but am aware of the dreadful events in Gaza and elsewhere, which the west fails to stop, instead sells Israel more weapons.
I turned sixty in August. We had been planning events for a while. I say planning. It was more like talk about planning. The problem was, that it fell on Bank Holiday Monday, and everywhere was booked up years in advance.
And then the thought of spending hours in a hall with music booming out and having to dance, and it costing in excess of £1100 an hour for the privilege. We talked about it so long, we ran out of time, and the last minute plan to go to the Hoptomist for the afternoon was cancelled as Sean was working on his house instead, so could not attend.
It is also twenty years since I left the RAF. Five more years than I actually served. I did attend two ceremonies: one the unveiling of a memorial to those of our trade we lost at the National Memorial Arboretum, then to attend the Remembrance Day Parade past the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
So, in short, its been quite the year. One of the best,
wishing you all a very Happy New Year.
Back home, the shopping was put away and the bird feeders topped up. They squawked their pleasure at this, or anger as my slow work as they were hungry.
