Retirement was not something that I had considered particularly deeply. We had vaguely discussed retirement but felt slightly too young (and too interested in our professions) to bite the bullet and go the whole hog. So instead we made plans for a long trip to fill up the time between the end of Roger’s ‘official’ retirement and the start of his temporary contract, seeing this as a sort-of test run for the whole retirement ‘thing’.

Would we enjoy being away from home for so long? Would we manage being in each other’s company 24/7 (without killing or maiming each other )? Would I manage to pack light AND not give in to my shoe ‘thing’? Would Roger pack more than 2 pairs of underpants?

All these questions would be answered in a leisurely trip to Italy.

Then Covid hit. The trip was cancelled and both of us agreed that it was pointless me retiring if we couldn’t leave the house, or travel, or do much of anything other than work and spend time with the returning family who hunkered down with us to weather the Covid lock-downs. The can of retirement was kicked firmly into the (slightly longer) grass and we didn’t discuss it. Mostly because we were both insanely busy. And knackered.

(And we had seen rather a lot of each other over the various lock-downs – just sayin’…)

Several years later the commute took its toll, as did the changes to his working environment, and Roger became increasingly tired of his professional commitments. At the same time, I became increasingly disenchanted by over-entitled students, their equally over-entitled parents and an education system running on empty that expected miracles.

Cue retirement.

Roger has eased himself into a temporary contract for one day a week but, as a teacher, I have had to go cold turkey. The summer has been interesting, with him like a dog with two tails extolling the joys of retirement while I have had the standard summer break and not really noticed much difference. However, in the last few days my colleagues’ WhatsApp group started the round of ‘new academic years’ messaging and it dawned on me that I had missed two inset days. Not a bad thing in and of itself (the bingo suggestions for the various presentations have been flying thick and fast) but still, I have felt a real pang of loss. The next phase of life has started – retirement. I am no longer employed and, no longer a teacher.

(Although, I did find myself grinding my teeth over the incorrect use of apostrophes on the UK Insurance website. WHAT IS THEIR PROBLEM? It’s not rocket science!)

Which begs the question – what am I going to do with my time? Roger is going to be gardening (don’t even go there), reading ancient history, learning Spanish and generally pottering. I know I’m supposed to be learning Italian. What else? I suppose I could actually do some housework – maybe?

Well, I’ve decided to put my money where my mouth is/was and blog. Hopefully. With as few grammatical errors as possible (and definitely with correctly used apostrophes), with as much joy and pleasure as possible and, hopefully, with some pictures!

Now I have to conquer the technology!

And write (urgh).

And take pictures.

AND GO ON THE BLOODY TRIP so that I have something vaguely interesting to write about.