Apologies for the lengthy delay, but I’ve just returned from
a 3 week trip to China to visit my daughter who is working in Suzhou – an
amazing experience and one that we hope to repeat next year.
As I mentioned in a previous blog, now that I’ve had the
first couple of weeks honeymoon period of retirement, followed by the China
trip, the real process of actually being properly retired starts now. First up
on the list of retirement activities will be a stab at beer brewing and some
bread making – watch this space for updates, pictures and (maybe!) tasting
notes.
It is now a little over 6 weeks since I handed in my company
ID card. Admittedly my mind has been pretty fully occupied since then with the
immediate post-retirement flurry and then the trip to China, but I can quite
honestly say that it has been considerably less of a wrench to leave work than
I initially thought (and feared) that it would be. Apart from sending an email
yesterday to one of my ex-work colleagues to get an update on a big contract
renewal that I was working on at the time that I retired (it’s all going fine,
by the way), I have had no contact with work and, more importantly, I have not
thought about work at all since the day I walked out of the door. I was always
very careful to compartmentalise work and social/family life (with very little
crossover between the two) and, by pure luck, that seems to have been a
strategy that has made the move into non-employed status that much easier.
I’ve yet to really find a schedule that fits with this new
chapter of my life, but it will come with time and I don’t intend to rush it (and
time is what I’ve got plenty of). We recently met up with some friends who were
camping nearby (Graham and Sheila - both also retired) and, while relaxing in
the sun enjoying a beer and a glass of wine, Sheila mentioned that “this was
all good” – she didn’t just mean that particular moment, but in the wider sense
that we were all fit and well, unencumbered with work, financially OK and able
to take advantage of a sunny day with friends.
