Is three years enough to be properly retired?

My last day at work was Christmas Eve 2020. In the months before I left, I spoke to a number of people who were already retired and a common theme was that it takes years to learn how to be properly retired. When I was at work I was very used to change. It was one of the things I was particularly good at and so I doubted their words. For me, it would take maybe three months. Certainly no longer…

It will not surprise you to hear that they were right and I was wrong. That is not to say that it was not immediately enjoyable. The first few months in retrospect I treated like being at work. I had lists of jobs to do and an urgency that was just like work. I got a lot done and it was fun. I was a total irritant to my wife because I wanted to organise everything.

After that, the first year was more like a very long holiday. We had the narrowboat and were off on our first long trip, across the north of England. I wanted to make the most of every day and despite best intentions I still had a tendency to rush at everything. I did not like “days off”. If we did stop in a location I would find five or six things that absolutely needed doing and would take up my time.

The second year was better. I still had a pretty detailed plan of how we would spend the year – where we should get to by when. But I was a bit more chilled about plans changing and relaxing into each day. It was the first year after the pandemic and we made the most of it to see old friends as we boated around the south of England.

This third year has been the best yet. We have still travelled a long way, from Chester to Bristol and back. We have had real adventures and Mandy, the dogs and I have made a great team. But I have also enjoyed the days when we did not travel. I still find it hard just to read a book or do a jigsaw, and I have tended to go off and find a stately home or a new town to see. But I am getting there.

For next year’s narrowboat trip we have so far just planned the first canal – Liverpool to Leeds. It makes me uncomfortable not to have more of a plan, but I am trying to learn to be a better retiree.

When I first left work I was determined to have something to aim towards, not just to stop. I had seen too many people stop work, do nothing and get ill. And I think in that I have succeeded. We are so lucky to be able to do what we do, whether on the boat, or on our trips away. It is a wonderful life.

And after three years I feel like I am still only beginning to make the most of that life. After three years I am probably still not properly retired. But I am getting better at it!

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Choosing a house is stressful but oh so interesting

We have been staying in West Lancashire this week, looking for a house to buy. Over the past 40 years, we have lived in twelve different houses, usually moving for my job. Now we are retired it is time for my wife Mandy to come first and she has always wanted to live near her friends and family in Lancashire. She was born in Burnley and has a red rose in her heart.

The key criteria for choosing has been within an hour of Burnley. But that still gives a great deal of choice, especially since we are looking at a range of prices because we can choose to swap some pension assets for property if that makes sense. At the start of the week we had a long list of 54 houses on Rightmove.

We narrowed that list down eventually to about 16, and then by “drive by” to about 8. We have spent most of the past few days, visiting those 8. And boy have we seen some fascinating things. There was a beautiful farmhouse near Barnoldswick, dating back to about 1500. There was a house in the middle of Lytham St Annes that had a room full of snakes – yes really! And most interesting of all, we went to see an old cottage, near Blackpool airport, which turned out to be a witch’s house. Everything was painted black, and the cottage was filled with spiders, skulls and black cats. It even had a coffin shaped mirror in the bedroom.

We feel a little guilty about delving into other people’s lives, but we were genuinely looking for our new home, and by Wednesday night we had narrowed our search down to two properties. The first is a stunning stone built house in a village to the east of Preston. It has three stories, with a beautiful lounge on the first floor, overlooking woodland and a brook, and a wonderful kitchen diner on the ground floor, with stone flagstones and underfloor heating,

The second house is a new build on a small estate near Freckleton. The builder has gone bust, which meant the price front the administrator was excellent, and it has really spacious bedrooms, overlooking fields across the Fylde peninsular.

After two days of deliberating we have put in an offer on the second house and are waiting to see if it accepted. As a new house it provides a blank canvas for us. I wonder if Mandy will be looking for a pointed hat and a broomstick?

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Is 60 too old for a school reunion?

Last Saturday I attended a school reunion for my year at Ernest Bailey Grammar School in Matlock, Derbyshire. We left school in 1982, 41 years ago, and are now 59 or 60 years old. I was really not sure about whether to attend.

We did have one other reunion, after 20 years, and while it was nice to see old school friends, there was something a little too competitive about the conversations. – who could claim to have achieved more with their lives.

This time it was so much more chilled. 54 ex-students came, along with 7 ex-teachers. We are all at or reaching retirement and the conversations were comfortable, reflecting on happy memories from school, and chatting about all our different directions in life. I do not find it easy to mix in social occasions like this but I really made an effort to circulate. I remembered few faces but we had name tags and the names brought back so many more memories than I expected.

No doubt there were people who did enjoy it, but in general students at our school had a really rewarding experience, and that was reflected in our conversations. I do feel sorry for children that these days have so much more pressure for exam results and from social media. School should be a time for study, learning how to get on with others, for play and for mischief – not necessarily in that order.

So thankyou so much to Helen and Sarah for organising the event. 60 is clearly not too old for a school reunion. Happy days.

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How is the narrowboat?

I’m back at the narrowboat tonight. Over the past few weeks it has been taken out of the water and blacked (bitumen painted on the hull to protect it), It has new sacrificial anodes (zinc plates under the water to prevent electrolysis pitting the steel). It has had the roof stripped back to metal and repainted with 7 or 8 layers of primer, undercoat and top coat (the sun and my poor repairs had made the roof flaky). The engine has been fully serviced and the coolant system pressure checked after we overheated last summer. They have investigated a leak in the central heating system and dampness by the water pump.

Last time the boat was out of the water

So my job this weekend is to check the work, and to make sure that everything else still works, especially the heating now that cold weather is coming. I am looking forward to being back, even if it is just for a couple of days.

We are currently looking at moving house from Scotland to Lancashire, and as part of that we may have to live on the boat before Spring, which we have not done before, so it is fairly critical that it is warm. We can heat the boat in one of three ways. We can use the webasto boiler, we can use our “bubble stove” diesel fire, or we can run the engine. The last of these is not really an option while we are in a marina overwinter, but the other two techniques should be OK. Often people assume that narrowboats are cold in winter because they just have a single skin of metal, but in fact they have such a small airspace that they warm up very quickly. The only challenge is first thing in the morning, when I need to run from my warm bed to press the button on the webasto controller, before returning to bed for 30 minutes while it warms up.

Hopefully everything will be fine. And then there is just the bill to pay to the boatyard for their work. The saying is that “boat” stands for “bung on another thousand” and it is not far wrong! It is worth it though.

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Eight reasons to love the Outer Hebrides

We are coming to the end of our month long visit to North Uist in the Outer Hebrides and it seems to have gone so fast. I would very happily stay for another month or even longer. In some ways I do not want to encourage more tourists because the island might become spoilt in the same way that Skye and the North Coast 500 routes have, where locals are squeezed out and the tiny roads become blocked with queues of camper vans. Nevertheless, it is such a great place that I really want to share eight short reasons that I love these islands.

1. It is so peaceful. Particularly in North Uist, the population density is tiny, with a few little villages, and most people living in crofts, situated in small landholdings.

2. It is so beautiful. I have previously shared beach photographs. The beaches are simply amazing. But the moorland, lochlets (baby lochs) and mountains are equally stunning. Awesome views await around every corner.

3. The history is incredible. Not quite as jaw dropping as Orkney, but there are still multiple standing stones, chambered cairns, and ruined cottages. I have been particularly moved by so much evidence of the clearances between 1750 and 1860, when thousands of crafters were thrown off their land by largely English landlords, who wanted the islands for hunting and shooting.

4. There is no-one here. In the summer no doubt the islands are busier, but at this time of year there are very few tourists, and most days we find a space with no-one around. Maybe a deserted beach. Maybe a walk in the woods. Maybe at the end of one of the windy single track roads.

5. The food is very good. Although many of the restaurants are closed for the season, we have had some really delicious food. I recommend Langass Lodge, where we had a wonderful Halloween themed evening; the Hebridean Smokehouse, which makes unbelievably tasty smoked salmon and smoked scallops; and Kallin Seafood café, hidden at the back of a chandlery for trawlermen, next to where the fishing boats come in. We had the most perfect lobster one lunchtime, fresh from the sea, served with chips and a Marie Rose sauce.

6. The skies are so clear. I don’t mean they are cloudless. As well as sunshine, we have had days of sideways rain. But we are so far north that the skies have a lightness about them, the same light through the day that in most places you just see at dawn or dusk. When it is sunny, the skies are a deep blue directly above, and fade to almost white at the horizons.

7. Nights in the cottage are cosy. There is no light pollution here so it gets very dark. We have an excellent multi fuel stove. So most nights we have hunkered down with the warmth of the stove, and watched a film on Netflix or Disney Plus. Despite the remoteness, mobile broadband means that we have surprisingly good internet here.

8. Being here has been so good for my mental health. I don’t know whether it is the peace, the light, the quietness, but it has calmed everything down in my head, and tomorrow I will be returning to the mainland feeling properly refreshed.

It’s such a great place to be.

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Are these the most beautiful beaches in the world?

We are nearly half way on our Outer Hebrides adventure. Two weeks in and two weeks to go. We have already seen all weathers, from torrential rain, to bright sunshine; from gale force winds to total stillness. I have been out every day and have been astounded by so many brilliant beaches, most of them completely empty.

I think the sun being so low in the sky helps, giving a dawn/dusk light throughout the day, and giving the seas a lovely turquoise colour. I love the peace. All you can hear are the waves, and an occasional bird. It feels as if being here is just perfect.

West beach on the island of Benbeluca is so perfect that a photograph was once used in a Thailand tourist brochure. It is a little colder here though!

I wonder what new vistas are in store for us in the second fortnight. I love these islands.

Near Lochmaddy
West beach, Berneray
Hougharry
The isle of Vallay (only accessible at low tide)
Barry Airport runway (yes, really!)
Vatersay
Askernish
Eriskay, where the AM Politician was sunk in 1941., inspiring Whisky Galore
Creagorry
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Why is my dog on a lead?

We are staying in North Uist for a month. North Uist is possibly the most beautiful of all the Outer Hebrides islands. It is nearly 50% water, with lochs and rivers. It has moorland and hills, and many many really stunning beaches, with white sand and blue sea. There are few other tourists at this time of year and very often we are the only people on a walk. It is an ideal place to have dogs. So why is one of our dogs on a lead?

On Monday, I took the dogs for a run on Crachan Sands, a really lovely quiet beach. They are usually off lead on a beach because Lulu and Ziggy love to play in the sand, pouncing and rolling each other over. So I had no hesitation in letting them go. In woodland I am more careful because Lulu likes to chase rabbits and squirrels. What I had not realised was that the dunes we had just crossed were one massive rabbit warren, and as soon as I let Lulu off, she rushed across the beach and into the long grass and bushes.

The dogs are Cairn terriers and while Ziggy will always come to call, hoping for a treat, Lulu is a typical terrier and has a huge prey drive. Over the next three hours I occasionally heard an excited yelp but I could not find or recall Lulu. Ziggy was also very upset as she helped me search, and cried for her sister. I began to panic that Lulu was stuck down a rabbit hole.

Eventually, three rabbits dashed across a field and I saw and heard Lulu following. Ziggy was on her in a flash, telling her off, and I managed to catch her. She was subdued because she knew she had been naughty, but I was just so relieved and delighted to have her back.

But since then, while we have walked many many beautiful beaches, Lulu has stayed on her lead. Understandable.

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Should I take a Scottish Ferry in a storm?

As I write this, storm Babet is arriving in Scotland where I live. It is forecast to bring unprecedented levels of rain, falling onto already saturated ground. When the last storm came, two weeks ago, it broke through part of our roof and through the kitchen ceiling. That has not been fixed yet and so we have buckets at the ready. This time, we are on the edge of an amber warning for rain and wind, and just a few miles away is a red warning, meaning likely loss of life. It would be tempting to hunker down and wait, but on Saturday morning we are planning to drive up to the Isle of Skye to get a ferry across to the Outer Hebrides where we will be living for the next month.

The big question is whether we should postpone for a few days till the weather calms down. The Outer Hebrides are off the Northwest coast of Scotland, and while they have some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, they are also famously wild and windy, exposed to the Atlantic Ocean. The crossing is likely to be pretty bumpy.

There are three reasons I think we should go ahead. We are fairly seasoned travellers. A few years ago we took a ferry across the Bay of Biscay in a storm. Pretty much everyone took to their cabins as the ship rocked from side to side, bow to stern. Even many of the staff were feeling unwell. But my son and I stayed up, had a couple of drinks and watched a Fast and Furious film.

Secondly the ferry company Caledonian MacBrayne has not yet issued a warning on this crossing. Many of the ferries on the east coast of Scotland have already been cancelled but so far, the west is looking rough but passable.

And thirdly it will be an adventure. We spent a month in Orkney a couple of years ago, and one of the things I enjoyed most was watching the weather change from sunshine to storm in the blink of an eye. When we finally get to our cottage this Saturday night, we can light a fire, cook something warming and hunker down.

One thing I am nervous about is whether there will be a storm during our return trip towards the end of November. The port of Uig in Skye will be closed at that point, so instead of a two hour ferry, it will be five hours across the open sea to Ullapool. I am hoping for sunshine.

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How to tidy up a boat for winter

I went back to the narrowboat last weekend to get it ready for winter. We have been travelling for over seven months so it was fairly full of bits and pieces. I had a long list of jobs to do. But it was also a wonderful few days to relax and enjoy the boat and the marina for one last time this autumn. We even had a hot air balloon take off a few yards from where we are moored.

So here is my list of jobs:

  • Clean windows inside and out
  • Dust and clean all surfaces and ledges.
  • Wipe down radiators
  • Vacuum throughout
  • Clean mirrors and pictures
  • Clean floor
  • Clean shower grout
  • Demould shower sealant
  • Defrost and clean fridge. Turn off and leave open.
  • Properly clean oven and grill
  • Take home and revarnish wooden boat hook and seat
  • Antitrust and repaint windlass and mooring “nappy” pins
  • Clean out cratch (area at the front of the boat)
  • Put covers on front window, side hatch and back deck
  • Pump out toilet tank
  • Drain water tank
  • Take home crockery and glasses for dishwashing
  • Take home all food except cans
  • Bring home fire stick for use when we go away
  • Take home towels, t towels, bedding, hats, gloves
  • Leave a few windows open for ventilation

And now all that is done I feel the boat is ready. Next step is for the boat to be taken out of the water at end of October to have its bottom blacked, roof stripped and repainted, new batteries, engine serviced, and a couple of faults fixed. Then maybe we will come back for a winter stay in December or January before our next big adventure in 2024.

It is very satisfying.

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Not immune from Covid after all

It is nearly four years since the Covid-19 pandemic began, and I had begun to think I had a magical natural immunity. Despite the variants becoming ever more transmissible and common, I had either not had the disease, or had had it and not noticed. So it came as a bit of a shock at the end of last week when I felt like I had a really bad cold and tested myself with an old kit, to find I was very clearly positive,

I think I must have caught the disease at a pub quiz in Staffordshire, the Sunday before last. When we are on the narrowboat we live much of our lives by ourselves in the boat, or in the open air, so the virus would struggle to attack us. But the pub quiz had quite a lot of people inside in close proximity, so seems quite likely.

I had all the Covid vaccines when they were offered, but this winter I am apparently too young, and will just get a flu vaccine. So having had the disease will instead hopefully offer me good immunity for the rest of the season, Certainly after feeling pretty rubbish earlier this week, I am now full of energy, no doubt with my immune system running at full pelt.

I was watching a pandemic docudrama this week, and it felt like a different world, with empty streets and very strict rule following by almost all of us. Nowadays no-one seems very any more excited about Covid than a normal cold. And it turns out I am no more an immune super hero than anyone else. Ah well.

By the way, Mandy and I did OK in the quiz, but was it worth it? Probably not.

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