We dived straight in to packing this morning and managed to get quite a bit done before the first customers arrived. They were a lot easier than yesterday’s crowd, the emails and telephone calls were all easier too and by 3pm everything was done and the desks were clear. launched into it, saw a few customers and ended up at 3pm with a clean slate. It was nice to have a change of pace. There will be a few things to sort out tomorrow when the owner returns but most things are up to date.
I now have nine months before I retire. In that time I could have a baby, so it’s surely time to sort out the decluttering. We will see . . . Julia is not convinced.
Last night, as part of the retirement process, I looked into my state pension arrangements. It is not riveting stuff and only an accountant would enjoy a blog post on the subject, so I will skirt round the subject. I will get a letter in seven months time and I have to decide whether to claim my pension or defer it. You can get extra pension by deferring it, but the figures suggest that I am better just taking it as soon as possible. That, to be honest, is my view on all these matters. Being sensible and putting things off for a little long term benefit is grand if you are forty and fit. I’m sixty five and I’m fraying round the edges so priorities change.
I may defer my retirement for a few months (the extra pay will be welcome) but I will claim the pension as soon as it becomes due.
Having braved the terrors of the pensions website last night, I am going to apply for a passport and a blue badge over the next few months. Next year I will also apply for a free bus pass. If I’m going to be old I may as well embrace it. I’ve just been looking at the bus timetables – just over three hours from Peterborough to Norwich. I can take sandwiches, stare out of the window, maybe stop off at Wisbech or Swaffham, and fully embrace my role as an elderly eccentric. If I’d known it was going to be this good I would have retired years ago.
Simon Wilson, Elderly Eccentric
Embrace the club
I can’t avoid it so I may as well enjoy it. 🙂
Elderly eccentric has a great ring to it.
It is a whole new career, though a good portion of the beard is likely to meet with a pair of scissors soon – soup eating is becoming hazardous.
I bet! Our son-in-law has a beard like that.
Your daughter is clearly a lucky woman. I believe that it is generally felt that men with beards like this are a bit of a catch. 🙂
Absolutely!
🙂
The elder years are indeed an adventure, almost a reincarnation into a new life. Embrace all the benefits that come your way, and enjoy the time with Julia. We all come stamped with an expiration date not readable by the normal human, and then we are through the gate to whatever comes next. Be creative, be happy, in that allotted time, whatever it may be.
I bought a bunch of roses on the way home yesterday, which, added to your thoughts, leads me on to this-
They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.
A good choice! That is a beautiful poem. I remembered the phrase and looked up the poem and poet. “Vitae Summa Brevis” by Ernest Dowson. He was a tragic figure who died young.
I bet Julia loved the roses. Also a good choice!
I had to go to the cash machine to get money for our roof repairs and realised that I hadn’t bought flowers since the spring. This is the first time I have been in a supermarket since lockdown.
Such an elderly eccentric I have never seen before! That photograph may end up being posted on billboards everywhere.
It’s the one I use when I have to submit an author’s autobiography. It seemed like a good idea, but when you use Google to search for similar photographs, as I once did in an effort to improve my procrastination technique, the ones that come up are all perverts and criminals, or both.
As my old father used to say:- Oh Dear. What a shame. Never mind.
I could shave and wear a suit, but then I would appear amongst accountants and lawyers. Swings and roundabouts, as they say. 🙂
You seem to be getting things very well organised in your mind which is more than half the battle.
I know that thinking and planning works, it’s just that it’s easier to drift through life. I have been drifting for so long that I have actually become quite good at it . . .