To be precise, I am only semi-retired. I am still working a couple of days a week, driving a van around the South of England which suits me very nicely.
Anyway, I’ve got that out of the way so here goes. I had the idea for a blog so that I could record my thoughts and experiences during an unusual period of my life. Having worked for one employer for almost the last 32 years I decided it was time to call it a day. Although I moved from a high pressure job to one that was a lot less stressful for the last 3 years, I decided enough was enough. I wasn’t unhappy but realised that I was tired. I always tried to make a positive contribution to the company but all of a sudden I became tired of fighting the same battles day after day and, at the beginng of October 2019, gave the company 6 months notice. They took a while to understand this! but eventually employed a replacement and I was able to leave at the end of March 2020.
In fact my last working day was March 12th. We went to the U.S for a holiday, shortened to a two day visit by Mr. Trump, and when we got back, I went back to work only to be sent home in case I had Covid-19. I didn’t but enjoyed the bonus holiday. All very strange.
So now I spend most of the time at home and, as we are not able to go out because of the lockdown, I have been giving the garden some attention. At last. The point of this post is that although I don’t miss working full time, I do miss the routine. It is very difficult to make a new routine as the whole point of retiring is to escape the daily grind, please yourself, be lazy if that’s what you want to do. Easier said than done. There is so much to do that I feel guilty if I have a lazy day so I come to an agreement with myself that, as long as I achieve something every day, even if it is something small, that’s OK, I can take the rest of the day off. It still feels a bit strange. But considering we live in a world where everything is being shaped by something we can’t even see, a virus that we have no immunity to or tretment for, I guess that a little more strangeness is something I can learn to live with.
Pete's Blog. Dorset and Beyond 