Today is my first retirement anniversary and it feels great! Deciding to retire was an amazingly good decision for me, much better than I’d hoped for and I had high hopes – although there were a few weeks of continuous rain over winter when I consider moving abroad for the...
We ‘enjoyed’ our first night at the Premier Inn Hub Hotel, mostly because of the endless amusement, actually all out laughing fits, we experienced observing the stupid design decisions that negatively impacted our stay. It seems most likely that the room was designed by a committee, the dominant member...
I was at the peak of my physical fitness and at my most optimal weight back when I was 25. Now I’m 52 and retired I decided that I would try and return myself to that same position, when I was able to commute 25 miles to work on my...
I spent my first afternoon at the allotment yesterday and it surprised me, in ways that I didn’t expect. I expected a patch of bare earth, in the midst of lots of other patches to be perhaps the definition of unsurprising, but I was wrong. It proved to be really...
I’ve always loved eating animal products, although when I found out about the inhumane conditions in which some of them were raised I immediately switched to free range eggs and more recently organic diary. For meat though for many years the best I could afford was the RSPCA’s Freedom Food,...
I’ve been writing a daily diary for about sixth months now, and it’s been an interesting experiment. For want of a better location for it I published it on my blog, but made it slightly less visible than a typical blog post, the entries appeared in searches and if you...
I’ve suffered from Adult Onset Still’s disease and secondary Fibromyalgia for close to 15 years, that means daily pain and fatigue and lots of pain killers to help me through the day. When I retired 6 months ago I decided that one of my first challenges would be to find...
I grew up in a Christian culture and most of my family and friends consider themselves to be Christians, but I’ve never been comfortable with religion and even less so with religious organisations, the lust for power that often develops within them, and the divisiveness that develops between them. Over...
As I mentioned yesterday in my review of last year, I’m a big fan of new year’s resolutions. I like the yearly opportunity to sit down and assess my year on New Year’s Eve and then tweak my lifestyle plan on New Year’s Day, even if I failed with every...
New year’s resolutions seem to be going out of fashion, too many times they are neglected before any progress has been made, but I like them. I print them out and stick them on my desk wall and read them every month or so. They provide a good way for...