General Chat

My husband died nearly eight years ago we were very happily married for thirty eight years. I have continued to work full time in an extremely busy and demanding job. Work, and the support of my family and friends have helped me to move forward and now I have a new partner and I love my life. I have recently retired, but still hold a consultancy role so I can work as and when/if I want to. All of my days are filled, but also I enjoy having the time and space to do nothing what bliss!. I continue with my Yoga classes and go to keep-fit and swimming every week. I spend Tuesday mornings at a local junior school as a volunteer reading mentor and I LOVE it. The children are a delight to be with and I always come away smiling. I am a lady who lunches and anyone who knows me will agree that I was just born to shop. My OH and I like to go on holidays as much as we can, and he will use the offer of redundancy to take early retirement in the new year. I have lists of things I /we want to do. However, I never now take anything for granted. Life has been good to me I have no complaints and few regrets. Carpe Diem. <3

All i can say is you ain't doin' it right Jean,you are supposed to realise after a couple of weeks ,that you have more jobs to do than you ever had while working :-D that's me anyway ,not enough hours in a day :-P Fred.

I am not retired but I am not out at work any more which is pretty attractive.

Because I am awake and ready to get downstairs if a gnat farts up the garden I do tend to sleep in the morning if OH has a late start which suits me fine.

As we get to around sixty there is a group of us who seem to be gravitating toward each other and we are turning into a bit of a gang.(Think Monty Python's Hell's Grannies!).

Our local old people's club has run down to little more than a few ladies meeting to knit in the church hall now and we are thinking of invading that,make it into a sort of gang HQ.Breathe a bit of life back into it,like it used to be.

I wish I could retire!
At 42, I thought, good only 12 years to go.
Then they raised the age..........
I'm one of those who learnt a few years ago that we could work an extra 6 years. In the meantime, through 'regrading' I lost £1000 a year from a p*ss poor wage anyway, and have been on a pay freeze for 3 years. and 5 of us are meant to do the work of 10...

I would (financially, and mentally) be better off retired.

i am glad so many people are enjoying retirement. i was a widow at 49, i continued working. i always had a plan that i would not work untill i was 60. the reason being, that my dad, brother, sister and my dear hubby never lived long enough to retire. i worked long hours in nursing for 34yrs. earlys, lates, nights. plus looking after the house and a big garden. i was worn out, and the amount of tax i was paying was a joke. knew i could retire aged 56, and thats what i did. it took me a while to slow down...i was so used to doing the housework, garden and shopping on my days off. i never had a day to myself. now every week i have what i call a pampers day...soak in the bath, do my nails, hair and make up, get dressed up. i may go to the shops, stay in or potter about in the garden. i still meet with a few true valued work pals, and my cousins who i found whilst doing my tree. i would say to all thinking about retirment, do it sooner rather than later. you will get by and manage, and have freedom to do as you please...enjoy.

I love being retired I left work when I was 58 so too young to collect my pension my husband retired at 63 but sadly he died last year aged 67 so like AnnCardiff retirement isn't quite as I had thought it would be. We did enjoy nearly four years of pure happiness doing things together and separately and now I am trying to rebuild my life and go out with friends.

Like others I love getting up when I wake up and not when the alarm clock says so. I eat when I want and don't bother to cook full meals. I go out when I want and watch what I like on tv. Nothing will compare with retirement shared with my husband and it involves doing different things on my own to doing things with him but generally speaking its so laid back that I sometimes have to check the calendar to know what day it is!!

Bob I suspect that is why many men put off retirement. The boss at work is nothing like as fearsome and task orientated as the boss at home :-( ;-)

Not speaking personally - a friend told me ;-)

All you lucky people.All my working life i was waiting to retire when i was 60.Working since the day i turned 15.I have taken off 3 months work with all of my children.I have never been out of work and i do think i have been lucky there.That never happened as the goverment put the age limit up.I still have another 2 years and really ready now.I have loads of hobbies and loads of grandkids so i could use these extra hours doing things i want to do.I seem to be always rushing around,grabbing a quick chat here and there.Some days i dont even get the time to take the dog out.Bring on the retirement my dog will be very happy lol

I retired 21 years ago having worked for the same Company (with mergers and takeovers) for 45 years.
It is nice to be able to do what I want to do rather than be told what to do by my Boss!!

We love it.
Must admit I retired first and hubby was still working shifts. I hated being in the house alone when he was at work. The novelty soon wore off after I retired and i got very apathetic in the house whilst he was sleeping upstairs and i knew he needed getting up and dinner cooked etc so he could go to work.

Was only for 9 months tho and then OH retired too.

We have both been at home now since Dec 1998 and have slipped into a very comfortable routine. I am up quiet early so have my coffee fixes and feed the cat and we have our down time when she is on my lap whilst I watch Judge Judy etc. OH surfaces around 10am and does his ablutions . I am not bothered when I get showered and we go with the flow! depending if we have appointments or going shopping.

Its all very relaxed . I do my thing on the PC and he listens to his music. No pressure its GREAT

One thing we do try and do is to go out at least one day a week together, this may be to the shops for a wander then lunch out or, in warmer months to NT places, gardens, somewhere different, even a different garden centre. And even if home we try and pop out for a coffee as we find that when we are sitting drinking a coffee in a garden centre or somewhere we tend to chat to each other rather than fleeting conversation as we go about doing things around the house. We also chat in the mornings before we get up on non golf days. (well we chat once I have put my hearing aids in :-D Otherwise he chats and I say 'pardon?' Luckily we both have a sense of humour and after 52 years are tolerant of each others foibles. :-D

I've been retired since I was 50, and have never regretted it. Husband retired early a year ago, so it's great to have him around the place. We are snowed under with DIY projects and family commitments, but make sure we have time to ourselves.
You can have impromptu days out, and take holidays at less expensive times, or even last minute.

My husband is my best friend,too. Long live retirement and the health to enjoy it!

For those on this thread who helped me to leave my work and retire I want to say THANK YOU!!
I had worked in nursing from the age of 18 and felt so guilty about leaving colleagues but some on here helped me to realise that if I didn't leave I may have become very Ill,

It took me a year to improve my health and now I wonder why I stayed so long....I simply love being able to do what I want more or less most of the time. I have a great relationship with my husband not only as his wife but also as my best friend.

Time flies by and each day I think " where did the day go". If I had a life again I most certainly would not stay working any longer than I had to.

I am free to read, sew, embroider, cook, look after our garden, make special cakes ( not as many as I used to) and suddenly it is the evening.

Bridget in Spain :-) :-D

I love being retired!! Changes and red tape at work meant the job I loved turned into a nightmare of paperwork, stretching staff to do more work with no financial rewards and being the one in the firing line when the proverbial hit the fan.

I do look after my little granddaughter now her mum has gone back to work, and taking her to toddler groups and play parks mean I meet different people.

The days I don't have her my garden, decorating (I am certainly dragging that out lol) and hobbies keep me busy.

I love to meet friends for coffee and lunch and after almost 3 years of not working have not got bored yet!! :-D

OH and I are retired. He took early retirement when his employers were hoping to reduce staffing levels and it was great for him not to have the daily commute to London, which meant we used to get up around 5 a.m.

We find some weeks are really busy, especially if we have to go to Hampshire to support his parents, who are in their 90s. A couple of years ago we did alot of heavy decorating, room clearance, painting etc prior to them having a new carpet laid and we did say to ourselves that it was a case of Call in the pensioners. His Mum still refers to us as 'You young people', which although good for the ego, is far from the truth !
We are lucky to have our health and he is now a 'proper' pensioner, so we count ourselves lucky to be able to choose what we do and when.

Gwyn

Really enjoy my retirement although as others have said I miss the company of my work mates.I love being able to just as we like,( health permitting) go where we like,(funds permitting) and generally enjoy things at our leisure.We are so lucky really. :-D :-D :-D

I have been fortunate to have had six years of retirement and I count my blessings for every year. Things could change at any time.
I had over 40 years in a career which took precisely 8hrs of sleep after my retirement party to forget about. At no other time in my life have I had the freedom which I now enjoy, sometimes I can't believe it. The word duty comes to mind, whether that was to parents,teachers, family or colleagues. With duty comes restriction, with retirement for me so far, comes a life I have never experienced. I get up when I want, do housework when I want and I go to bed when I want. The days aren't long enough. I know these halcyon days may not last but to anyone uncertain of retirement, embrace it .-jl

For different reasons, both OH and I are effectively retired, although not of pensionable age. I gave up work a couple of years before him.

We both think that it was great for the first 2 years, when we were able to tackle the list of hobby projects, but now? It’s all too easy to slip into the ‘too bored to do anything’ syndrome. We have to be careful with finances to make sure the savings last until we are able to draw the OAP. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t have to watch every penny; we just have to avoid the extravagances.

Neither of us are ‘joiners’. If it weren’t for the occasional casual work we do, we wouldn’t have any outside contact with others.

I have enjoyed every minute of my retirement so far. Unlike Ann we have been fortunate and so far had 12 years of retirement together. My OH took early retirement so retired before me and had an established routine until I retired and messed it up :-D He got used to doing housework and ironing while I was still at work so I haven't tried to change that :-D :-D. He has played golf three days during the week but is slowly cutting it down to two (he is 74), so we get time apart doing our own thing. I have plenty of hobbies and am rarely bored.

I love not having to get up in the mornings, although am usually up earlier on golf days as he plays at 0745.

I did and do miss the company and banter and,at first, had trouble knowing 'who I was', having been used to having a certain (if minor) status at work. I worked with the military so missed knowing what was going on in their world too. But I got used to that. I have not got many friends in this area as my friends were at work ever since we moved here 20 years ago and they were mostly all military connected. So they have moved away when the RAF camp became an Army camp. But I am happy in my own skin so not too bothered, and I have friends on here too.

But, yes I/we love being retired, not being tied to a routine of having to be in work at a certain time, not having to be told what to do/not to do. Military regime is/was quite autocratic.

We are lucky in that we have been mostly healthy and not too badly off, I do realise that and give thanks for it. I am hoping for many more years to come. :-)

glad in one way that I don't have to go to work any more but I do miss the company, the daily banter and the laughs - I was so looking forward to retirement and then a year in my lovely OH developed a rare incurable untreatable lung condition and within another year he was gone - so really we only had one great year together before things went pear shaped - sorry to bring doom on here :-)

However, it's been just over ten years now and I am enjoing being very lazy - have great friends to keep me company and we do things together