What do you enjoy/hate about retirement

home_alone

Waking up in the morning
and reading the notes my wife has left me detailing all the household chores I have to do before she gets back.
Finding out that the money I saved for my new car is going to the kids for their new cars.
Being told that I can no longer afford to take golfing days out because I,m not working now.
Hearing her say day after day "twice the man for half the money" in reference to me being around the house.
Making big decisions on what is worth buying as I will not be around long enough to enjoy them.

Growing old and retirement what a joy.

gary - just joking really

margaretclare

It's a great life, not having to defrost the car to get to work, not to have to do uncongenial things just to get money at the end of the month.

Money arrives without my having to do anything about it. It's great being able to sit here on cold mornings, checking my online accounts and doing internet banking, looking out at people struggling out to get money from the post office. Ours arrives without any effort at all, and bills get paid automatically, again with no effort at all.

This week we've had to be up early because our roofing team have been arriving on the dot of 8 am - we're having the roof completely replaced because it was 75-year old asbestos tiles which were slipping and cracking and there'd have been leaks if we left it much longer.

Most mornings, though, DH makes tea and we sit chatting for ages. We talk about anything and everything under the sun! We enjoy each other's company, and just going up to the woods with a picnic is a simple little treat and a pleasure. Or we watch the birds splashing in the wildlife pond at the back - there's always something to watch.

'Regrets, I've had a few....' oh yes, have I ever! Wrong choices, wrong directions, wrong decisions. But then, I made a couple of good decisions way way back - one was to pay full NI contributions when most women didn't. I'm now in the 30% of retired women who gets full SRP in my own right.

I have one huge regret, and it's that DH and I didn't meet until so late in life. We were 'on the same wavelength' from the word go, nearly 9 years ago now. If we'd met 50 years ago or so, what a team we'd have made and what an interesting, successful and exciting life we could have had. He wouldn't have had to have 2 expensive divorces for a start! when he went off to Rome all on his own on his motor-bike I could have hopped on the back...

But what we do now is - we live for each other and we make the most of the time we have left. We enjoy each day as it comes along. No looking back - what's the point. We laugh and we have fun together. We enjoy making plans for places to go, things to do, people to meet.

We're in the happy position of being neither rich nor poor. A heck of a long way from either, in fact. This is the first year that neither of us will have any tax to pay and given that we've got over a century in the workplace between us, that's not bad. We're not like the retired people who whinge about their tranquillisers being stopped or their council tax going up, nor are we like the people whose only worry is IHT and whether their house will be sold to pay for their care. We don't have to worry about any of those things. Really, we don't have a care in the world!

Margaret Clare

janb5

margaretclare................just to be nosy. I have read some of your other posts and I`d love to know how you met your husband. Did he just turn up on your doorstep one day? As a sad divorcee, this would inspire me!

margaretclare

janb5 wrote:

margaretclare................just to be nosy. I have read some of your other posts and I`d love to know how you met your husband. Did he just turn up on your doorstep one day? As a sad divorcee, this would inspire me!

Hi janb5

Well, although I've often told how he turned up on my doorstep one wet November night with all his worldly goods packed into and on top of his rusty old car, there was a little bit more to it than that.

Here's the story, since you ask:

In October 1997 I was a lonely widow, I'd been widowed and made redundant in March 1992, I still had a mortgage and was struggling, at age 62, trying to keep the roof above my head and not seeing any prospect of being able to 'retire', having to continue doing menial work for old people and not earning enough. So, for a few years, just bare survival was all I thought about.

Occasionally I would go out for a drink with different guys from ads in the local paper. Usually they would start the conversation with 'my wife died 5 years ago and I've had to learn to cook, in 35 years of marriage I never so much as made a cup of tea'. And they'd look at me hopefully. So it wasn't like going on 'dates' when we were younger, and whatever I saw my future as being, it wasn't going to be as a replacement cook/housekeeper!

In September 1997 I went on a languages holiday to France. And there, I met a man who treated me as a woman, for the first time in 5 years. And it changed my perspective. He was young enough to be my son, was already in a relationship, but it opened my eyes. When I came home I looked on a computer forum - don't think it exists any more because it was with Compuserve which was taken over by somebody - AOL? Anyway, on one particular forum I found a message headed 'Older Guy'. And this man was writing, and somehow it went straight to my heart. He was my age, 62, described himself as being divorced from his first wife after bringing up a family, in what he called a 'stormy' second marriage. Although a Londoner by birth he'd been living in the Midlands since the 1970s, had been in good jobs including being MD of his own company and then back down again to unemployment (these were the years when British manufacturing industry was going down the pan, and he was an engineer who'd been in sales and management). We emailed back and forth a few times, and from the start we seemed to be on the same wavelength, although, when I got to know more about him, we were from completely different backgrounds - different in almost every respect. But we hit it off so well! Soul-mates - and we still are, even though we don't agree on everything, but we respect each other's viewpoints.

Anyway, one evening he phoned me. He'd had to wait until wifey was out. And his first words were 'How was your day?'

Now, hearing those particular words in that attractive gentle masculine voice made my heart turn over. Why? Well, with the exception of my daughter (the one who died) every time the phone rang it was someone wanting me to do something for them. I was a part-time Sister in a nursing home by then, and I was constantly getting calls to alter my shift, come in early, do an extra. One guy I'd been for a drink with used to phone me and say things like 'I've just bought a cabbage, what do I do with it?' Yes, really.

The point was, it was rare indeed for anyone to phone me and ask 'how was your day?' Most people who phoned my number didn't give a good goddamn whether my day had been good, bad, indifferent or bl***y awful. Even when my husband died, I couldn't stand having his little dogs around me - it was just one more thing making demands on me, no one ever wanted to know 'How was your day?'

Well, he phoned again, we emailed, we got to know quite a lot about each other. And he told me about his situation - married to this woman who was unstable, had violent mood-swings, would hit him, knock his glasses off and make his face bleed, he never hit her back although he came close to it! but he'd been an athletic young guy, rowing, rugby etc and although 62 he was still strong, and as he said, if he'd hit her he'd have put her into ITU or worse. Also, she was unable or unwilling to take account of what he called their 'fragile financial situation' when he had repeated redundancies. She was doing a 2-year floristry course which lasted 4 years and although free, it did involve buying a lot of floristry materials. He couldn't even sleep in the second bedroom because it was full of her materials, books, you name it.

Anyway, one evening he was phoning me from the city centre, and every time we got talking a queue would form up outside, and he'd have to run off to the next phone box. He was talking about how unbearable things were, he couldn't stand much more, and I heard myself saying 'If it gets really unbearable you could always move in with me'.

I couldn't believe I'd said that! As I heard myself saying it, I thought 'This isn't what a respectable 62-year old widow says - this is what the youngsters say!' And we hadn't even met then, and up to then, I'd never invited a guy home for even a cup of coffee - I'd always worried a bit that if one got in I'd never get him out.

Anyway, we arranged to meet. He was at the end of yet another short-term contract and had no money. I fancied a romantic weekend away by Eurostar - no chance! I booked a 24-hour stay in a Travelodge on the M1 and I paid for it on my credit card.

We said that if we didn't hit it off, didn't want to take it any further, then we'd part with no hard feelings. We met in the car park of the Travelodge, we had lunch together, we went into that room at the Travelodge at 3 pm....
We could have 'parted with no hard feelings' the following morning - only by that time it would have been difficult. I was in love with him. I think I fell in love with him when I heard that gentle voice asking 'How was your day?'

Anyway, to cut a very long story short, he made his mind up to leave wifey. He'd already decided that, even if it meant finding a rented bedsit somewhere. I wanted to go and tell her, face-to-face He couldn't stand doing that - he'd had years of her tempers and violent tantrums and said to me 'you don't know what she's like'. His explanation for 24 hours away was that he had a job interview down this way and it meant an overnight stay because the interview was early morning. She accepted that, but she gave him a row when he got back about 'why didn't you phone me?' He said 'well, you've said many times you don't want me around, don't want to talk to me, so why should I phone you?' One of the things that hurt him most was the fact that she had gone really 'frigid' - like there was a barrier down the middle of their bed (like Tristan and Isolde only it wasn't a drawn sword!) She was so frigid she wouldn't even hold his hand, and this, holding hands, means an awful lot to him. Even now, at night he takes my hand, holds it againt his chest, gives a little sigh and settles off to sleep, just like a child.

Anyway, he came down here once, a day when she was off on a coach trip somewhere. 3 weeks after we first made contact he took wifey to college at lunch-time, turned around, packed up his car with his precious tool-kit (an engineer doesn't move without his tools!!), his clothes in bin-bags, his obsolute computer with his desk and chair(in bits!), and very little else, and headed off on to the M1/M11/M25/A127.

I was at work, I'd just done the medicines round at lunch-time in the nursing-home, all I could think about was that something would go wrong, that she'd somehow make it up with him (he'd tried to talk to her numerous times, even given her an ultimatum, but it all fell on deaf ears). I thought he wouldn't do it - I little knew him then! He takes time to come to a decision, but when he does, there's no shifting him. I took a phone call from him in the kitchen among all the other staff, he told me he was packing up and would be on his way, and I just burst into tears, sobbed my heart out on the shoulder of one of the young male care assistants!

Anyway, that evening (5th November 1997) was when he stood on my doorstep like a refugee. He made this little speech about 'I've no home, I've no money, no prospects, I'm not a good-looker, I've debts (i.e. from the marriage), I have a cronk knee and diabetes, I'm 62 - do you really want me?'

I think what I said was something like 'oh, come in you daft ha'porth, you're letting the warmth out and the cold air in, come in and get dry'. And I gave him a new front-door key which I'd just had cut for him.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

We both took a huge, huge risk. But it worked out wonderfully well for both of us. We've had traumas since then - the acrimonious divorce was to follow, we've both had surgery more than once, my daughter's death, a lot. We both went on working until we were 67 and now we're 'comfortable', not rich but a long way from being poor.

Does that answer your question?

Best wishes

Margaret Clare

janb5

Wow,wow and wow again!

Thank you so much for taking the time to repeat your story. Sometimes when life is very bleak there doesnt seem to be any possibility that `the sun will shine again!`

Your story is proof that goodfortune can sometimes rear its beautiful head!

Like you I have lost a child -my beautiful son was killed in a car crash just two years ago and although I am extremely fortunate in having two other sons whom I love dearly, I can empathise with you with the loss of your daughter.

I have always considered myself to be quite tough- not a quitter` but it has taken every fibre of my being to keep on going and to look forward.

I currently work as a Health Visitor in SE London but have recently decided-(in view of all the cuts in the Health Service! ) - to think laterally and to apply for a completely different job. There is currently vacancies for Senior Investigations Officer( who work with the Ombudsman) so I am going to give that my best shot!

janb5

Could someone explain how I write a longer message as the space only allows a few paragraphs?

djohn2002uk

As you keep typing a scroll bar will appear at the side once you have filled the space and you just keep going. To see what I mean just click the "Quote" button on Margarets post and you'll see the scroll bar, then click the back button to get back here without using it.

diddydi

Wow what a lovely story MargaretClare

needmoney

Margaretclare, just read your story again and it brouhgt tears:o it's so nice:j hope you're both well.

margaretclare

needmoney wrote:

Margaretclare, just read your story again and it brought tears:o it's so nice:j hope you're both well.

Thank you to everybody for all the nice comments. We are both very well. In 2 weeks' time we go up to the Midlands - I donate a prize every year to the agricultural college where my daughter was so happy, it's just a few book tokens but it's for the 'most environmentally-committed woman student', in other words, someone like her. The spring after she died we planted an oak tree there in her memory, and that was an emotional occasion, was it ever.

Anyway, we're staying in a farmhouse B&B the Thursday night, going to the college Friday morning, will stay for refreshments in the marquee after the ceremonies and speeches, then we're high-tailing up the road to Derby where DH's son lives. They've recently had a 5-bedroomed house built and they've been wanting us to go and stay in their guest bedroom with en-suite! We were meant to go in January but I'd had the major hip surgery in December and wasn't mobile enough. Saturday we plan to see more of DH's family in the area, then we're going up to Leeds, staying in the Travelodge at Leeds/Bradford airport and I've booked a table at the 'Olive Tree' restaurant. I'm hoping that will be a nice family occasion for us, my daughter, son-in-law, youngest granddaughter and her boyfriend, and I'm not sure about the other 2 grown-up grandchildren, one works shifts and the other is a student who funds his course by working as a chef, they may not make it.

Then Sunday morning we're back down to Nottingham and then to Leicestershire to see some more of DH's family.

We've sat out in the garden this afternoon watching the young sparrows and young starlings - it's like a soap-opera down by the bird-feeders and the pond. Time is precious to us now, but also, we don't rush anything. Sometimes I get up just about dawn and sit outside the back door listening to the dawn chorus starting. I can always go back to bed, no one is going to chase me to get up and do things.

Best wishes

Margaret Clare