The quickest of blogging updates

I seem to be as busy as ever so this is the quickest of blogging updates; normal service should resume soon! Quite a few things have been demanding my time over the last couple of weeks.  All pretty positive but have all combined to distract me away from the keyboard.  Broadly, they are:

Family

Last weekend I visited my Mother and since then she’s come to stay with us for a few days.  My visit to her was the first since I retired and I happily did a little DIY job for her (she’s had a new boiler installed and the unsightly pipework needed boxing in).

Becky, my eldest daughter, is back from her South African adventures and before she dashes off on Christian Union activities it seemed a good opportunity to have my Mother come to spend some time with her.  There’s currently much thought on bridesmaid dresses for her wedding next year (one proud Dad!) and which modules she’ll take in her final year at university.

In addition we have started renovating parts of my Mother-in-Law’s house.  While she has a very good part time gardener, the garden needs more attention than it gets even though it has been designed as a low maintenance garden.  The window frames is where we are starting as these have been bothering us for some time.  Three-quarters of the house has modern double glazing, the front of the house has very individual wooden frames (see photo above).  These are believed to be over 200 years old and are in extraordinarily good condition, although the last painter we hired was dreadful.  Some of the glass is very thin, with imperfections and some of the glass is cracked.  This will be an on-going task but at least we have made a start.

Health

I haven’t blogged about my health for a while now, thinking the ins and outs of living with a catheter doesn’t lend itself to entertaining reading.  This is all connected to needing an operation on my prostate; apparently this is quite a common condition but normally for slightly older men.

I have been waiting far too long for the operation.  While I was ushered into hospital quickly back in April, since then I have been on the waiting list.  Earlier this month I was called for the volume assessment (certainly confirming the prostate enlargement) and this immediately triggered some further scans of a different nature. So now I await the outcome of these.  Altogether I will have had eight hospital appointments connected to this issue by the end of August.

As a result of all of this prostate issue, the knock-on effect is that I haven’t been able to cycle (it’s agony) and running has proved too difficult with a catheter.  I have therefore had to pull out of the St Albans half marathon and the Ridgeway Run, both lovely races where I’ve performed reasonably well in before.  I miss running and I am afraid my weight my creep up.  With this in mind I’ve been taking every opportunity for walking and the splendid weather has made this even more enjoyable.

Thoughts have also been given to the wider picture and whether there are grounds for a negligence claim against my Doctor; but that’s another story.

Blogging

While I haven’t blogged much lately, quite a bit is happening behind the scenes…..

I like keeping lists and this includes a list of future blog posts.  Every time something catches my eye, or something which crops up in conversation where I think it could lead to a good blog post, I make a note of it.  Some I’m going to enjoy working my way through these once the summer holidays are over.

I have been to the St Albans WordPress Meet Ups a few times and this has been very informative.  They’re a nice bunch of folk there, right from amateurs like myself through to professional web developers.  I stand to gain so much from them and I can’t help but wonder how I can somehow contribute to the group.

There are some (hopefully) nice posts in the pipeline.  I have been chatting to our friend Ian who has faithfully looked after our cars since the last century and this is leading to a post about cost-effective motoring.

Also I’ve had a long chat with our friend Beryl.  Beryl is a retired nurse and is incredibly sprightly and I have been picking her brains about maintaining good health through retirement.  She suggested a number of unexpected points and these will be in a blog posts about being healthy and having the right attitude and outlook.

Top 20 Retirement blogs – you might have noticed I have a shiny new badge over the the right and this is the link that takes you through to their site, please be encouraged to take a look.  As you can see, I have found my way on to being listed in the Top 20 Retirement blogs here in the UK.  That’s a nice way of having regular updates land in my inbox and being able to connect with others who have early retirement in common with me, although it seems everyone else is far ahead of me!  Having said that I’m enjoying the experience of having it all unfold on a daily basis, there’s no rush.

While my other blog about cycling still has a healthy number of visitors (in spite of being fairly dormant) this blog has an erratic number of page views, so I’m looking forward to some natural growth once I really get going.  Being part of the top 20 Retirement blogs listing certainly helps the traffic and there is plenty of potential there.  I hope to raise it to the point of getting plenty of interaction with readers which I have enjoyed so much before.  My other cycling blog has included all kinds of offers for ghost writing, clothing and food reviews which have been good fun.

Actually being retired

I still keep pinching myself – I’m actually retired – about a month now!  I still have difficulty in believing this.  The first few weeks seemed just like being on holiday with thoughts of returning to work.  That has now faded and my mindset is shifting nicely; I’m enjoying it!

Frugal living

Rachel is quite amused at the way in which I have switched into frugal living.  To be honest Rachel was a little apprehensive, worried I was going to have a spending spree.  While I was working I had quite a decent salary and we lived accordingly (but still with an eye on FIRE).  Far from it, we need to manage our money well with some investment decisions and risk profiling still to be resolved, although there’s no immediate rush.

We are eating well but fairly economically through buying some bulk frozen foods.  Additionally we have enjoyed picking blackberries growing in hedgerows and at my Mother-in-Laws there has been a bumper crop of figs.  Many have already been picked, some made into jam, the majority are frozen.  Plenty more to come!

We also plan to embark on some clutter clearing in due course, more to come on that some other time.