Yesterday it was coins, today it’s poppies. My life is varied if nothing else.
I spotted these bees in the poppies as I walked to the car yesterday. I did not have a lot of time to spare, and didn’t want the neighbours to think I was mad, so I just took a few shots as the poppies blew in the wind as I passed by on my way to work. As a result, the shots aren’t great, or varied.
Orange Poppies
That’s the story of my life. Rush, rush, rush and never time to stop and get a grip. After a three month holiday I really should be more organised. In fact I should be so organised that everything is perfect. It isn’t, and I will probably look back on this time with deep regret. Not that such thoughts are unusual, as I find I have them more and more. I thought you were supposed to be at your most depressed in your 40s, and that you became more cheerful as you age. It hasn’t worked out like that.
I suspect that like “Life begins at 40” and “60 is the new 40” this is aimed at making old people feel better about themselves. In fact one of the links I followed, whilst saying positive things about old age, also mentioned that hearing loss could be a burden in old age. It mentioned this several times and I wasn’t surprised to find a big button at the end of the article linking it to a site to sell hearing aids. I may be old, and slightly deaf, but I can still spot when someone is blowing smoke.
Last night I started planning for my retirement. It’s less than five years before I can draw my pension and I’m looking at all my options.
A time machine would be good, as I could go back, correct my worst decisions, save more money and look forward to a comfortable retirement, Ditto for winning the lottery. Logic says that I probably have more chance of inventing a time machine than I have of winning the lottery. I have made some plans for that. My theory is that if you buy enough longcase clocks and set them all running at the same time they will, because they are old and unreliable, all start to show marginally different times. When 12 o’clock comes round a few days later the cacophony of clocks striking at slightly different times will set up a temporal vortex and I will step through it. Now I come to think of it, I might have got that from an episode of Doctor Who…
I’ve just been looking at the WEA website (Worker’s Educational Association) looking for things to do in retirement. I hadn’t thought of them for years and now realise that some of their courses might have been useful during lockdown. Unfortunately the ones I want all have waiting lists. I’m sure I will manage to do something along those lines in the next few years.
Bee in Poppy
I had always imagined that retirement would be spent pottering around, but I’m already pottering, so I need another ambition. As I’m already becoming noticeably more curmudgeonly as time goes on I can’t save that for retirement either. It really does seem like I’m becoming old before my time. I should, according to the internet, be out learning how to skateboard, not sitting at home moaning. As I can’t even balance well enough to put my trousers on without introducing a frisson of jeopardy into the proceedings, so I’m certainly not risking a skateboard.
As a retirement project I may write a book about getting old. With any luck I may manage to sell it as a a TV script, so I will ensure that bathing in asses milk, driving sports cars and drinking red wine are prominent in the book so I can travel the world enjoying myself. According to this article I will need to drink 180 bottles of wine a day to get the full benefit. If I ever work out how to function without a liver I may give it a go.
I have been practising being retired for many years and can tell you that it is good fun when you get the hang of it. People sometimes say, “Oh you must be busier now than you ever were at work.” These people must be very idle in their work environment or they must be very stupid. The great thing about being old is that you now have time for everything. Mind you, the bad thing about being old is that years slip by like months used to do, so although you have time for everything, there isn’t half as much time as there used to be.
I am already noticing the way time flows – halfway through the year and it seems like I’ve done nothing. 🙂
Definitely, take up writing. You know how to express the absurd and use timing to create humour.
I’d better start planning… 🙂
You’d better… looking forward to your first publication!
🙂
I think you have a good novel in you, Quercus! 🙂
The problem is getting it out. 🙂
How are you and Julia doing today? I worry about you both in the aftermath of losing your father to corona virus.
We are good thanks – both keeping busy so we don’t have time to dwell on it, and still isolating to cut down on the chances of contracting the virus.
Not sure if I told you, but when things improve we will be interring the ashes of Mum and Dad together in the churchyard of the church where they married (which is next to the school where they first met as ten-year-olds.
That sounds like a good closure to honor their lives.
Yes, it will be. Dad’s brother lives in the village so it will be good for him too.
I LOVE your idea about the clocks and the chiming at different times and the temporal vortex. That’s a good one, Quercus. A basis for a novel? And since you like mysteries, you could add some sort of murder to the story. Just a thought.
Only problem is that I haven’t quite worked out a way of getting back yet. 🙂
That’s the tricky bit.
My hero will probably need a big book full of answers…
😉
🙂
Your usual entertaining self, however, what makes you think your neighbours don’t already think you are mad?
Good point. 🙂