This has been a week when it feels definite progress has been made here as the Quirky Museum increasingly feels like ‘home’. Plus almost a day in John Lewis (!), a finance catch-up, a Parkrun and a very rare face-to-face meeting.
The next room to be tackled is the dining room, see above plan. This is the biggest room in the house and, as we intend to use it for entertaining, we need to get it right. However, before I tell you about that, allow me to say how chuffed we are with our bedroom – we now have a carpet! I know it seems a silly thing to say but we have been tip-toeing on bare floorboards for almost six weeks. We are pleased and ‘thank you’ to Jeff for fitting it.
We are also very pleased that we have bought some bedroom furniture which should be arriving early next week. We already have a new vanity unit sitting in the garage ready for Chris the plumber to install next week. So it is coming together – I feel as if I have been living out of odd bags of clothes for over a year, with things dotted around different places upstairs and even in the garage. Same too for Rachel. So we have an increasing sense of being settled.
With the dining room, we found that John Lewis offer a free room-design service (but naturally they hope you might buy some of their recommendations). When we arrived at the John Lewis store in Milton Keynes, we were introduced to our Home Design Stylist. She was very polite in acknowledging we had given her quite a challenge – we both have completely different tastes with design and colour schemes (although we always meet well in the middle). We also have a long dining room and want to retain the architectural details but want it to be stylish, welcoming and a nice place to be, all within a modest budget.
We spent hours looking at different colour schemes, fabrics, carpets, light fittings and furniture. How much actually comes from John Lewis remains to be seen but they are making sense so far.
Financial catch up
On Thursday we went to see our Independent Financial Advisors. In spite of being their poorest clients, they made a parking space available for us, just under a window with an electric car charging cable dangling down for the adjacent car.
We were even provided with real coffee and chocolate Hobnobs as we got down to talking money. I think we must be their only clients who need to worry about topping our National Insurance contributions up and whether we are as tax-efficient as possible. We are. They still treat us well. We are reassured that we are still on track – still a modest retirement and yet I’m feeling incredibly blessed and fortunate.
As we left, I thanked them, almost to the point of embarrassment. I wanted them to know how we could not have retired so early without their help over the years. In terms of our well being, health and happiness, retirement has been a wonderful blessing.
That face to face meeting
I am involved with a local charity. As trustees we decided to get together in person this last week, first time in 18 months (oh the joys of Zoom!). It seemed so strange walking in to our meeting room, plonking my notebook on the table and taking out a pen. Such a basic thing and yet I’d almost forgotten. I needed to remind myself about the nuances of meetings, the etiquette and subtleties which are different on Zoom.
We were talking strategically. We were talking in an ambitious and upbeat way. We were talking business risks, adapting to changing landscapes and bringing different perspectives together. It went well and as I left I reminded myself that perhaps I hadn’t “lost it” in spite of having been away from this world for over three years. You see, I had been concerned the edge I had on things might have been slipping; perhaps it has but not by much (he says in an ever-optimistic way!).
Talking of losing it
Well I can tell you, Rachel probably did think I’d completely lost it this morning. This morning being Saturday Parkrun Day and she quickly snapped the above photo as I said “Bye, I’m just off for my Parkrun” without realising that I still had my slippers on – I wouldn’t have got very far running in those!
Dave, Rosie and I met at the nice flat Parkrun as usual and came back here for breakfast in the garden. With summer fading away fast, this might be the last time we do this for now. In addition to the usual Doug Blend coffee and toast, Rachel magically provided a cooked breakfast which was super scrummy. After all, we had burned a good 500 calories which needed replacing!
All in all, quite a good week.