Slightly overlapping with my 30 cafes in 30 days challenge, I’m starting up a new 28 day challenge, the overlap and slightly shorter duration is necessitated by the logistical impossibility of eating garden grown food while on holiday in London with Steph. Since I’ve only just started growing my own...
One of my first retirement challenges is to complete 100 of the best walks in the UK, as a way to increase my fitness, but also as a way to introduce myself to many areas of the UK that I’ve not visited before. As my fitness builds I’m going to...
The Rivington Reservoir system provides me with a perfect local walking location. It’s only a 40 minute drive from my breakfast cafe of choice and yet is a fair substitute for the Lake District that’s twice the distance and twice as busy. It doesn’t provide the variety of the Lakes...
One of my first retirement challenges is to complete 100 of the best walks in the UK, as a way to increase my fitness, but also as a way to introduce myself to many areas of the UK that I’ve not visited before. As my fitness builds I’m going to...
I’ve just completed my first full week of retirement and my first impression was that not much had changed. I’ve been winding down for years and the last few months while recovering from a bad flare involved very little work. My first impression then was that this first week had...
As I explained in my last post, I’m embarking on a series of 30 day challenges and my first is close to my heart, cafes. I love visiting cafes, sampling the atmosphere and relaxing while chatting, eating, reading and writing. I must admit though to enjoying the routine of mostly...
From what I’ve been reading 30 days is the minimum length of time that it typically takes to establish a new habit or to replace an old one. 30 day challenges sound like a good way to have fun with the idea, and adding a few challenges into my life...
Now that I’ve retired from traditional work I have to face up to the fact that for the next 10 years I’m living off a fixed lump sum and thereafter living off a pension who’s value waxes and wanes with the vagaries of the stock market. Although I’ve lived for...
The main reason that I decided to retire was that work had stopped being fun. For over three decades I’d loved my work, it provided me with friends, status, accomplishment and lot’s of laughs and excitement, but gradually that changed. Conference calls replaced face to face interactions, strangers replaced friends,...
Well that’s it, this is the last part of a series of posts reflecting on the end of my traditional working life as I finally retire from work today. This post explores my first tentative steps towards laying out what my life’s going to be like now that I’ve retired...