Are you a planner? A stickler for routine? Or somebody who would revel in no plans at all?
I don’t think you’ll be surprised to hear that I’m a planner. Especially when you remember that old adage “if you want something doing, ask a busy person”. If you’ve been with me a while you’ll know how much life we always manage to cram in at CQHQ, with no sign of any changes to that since I retired in October. I keep telling myself things will settle down soon, but I think it’s time to be proactive and do something to help it along the way.
This week feels like the first week we’ve had in the house on our own since I retired. It isn’t, but it feels like that. But in between the to-ings and fro-ings to pick dad up or drop him off, we’ve obviously had dad here for a good couple of weeks. We’ve had the fabulous Prowsey and his top fiddle of fire and a whole host of friends to join the party and all of the chaos that ensued for that weekend. We’ve had my son here which was fabulous. We’ve had Christmas which was just lovely. And of course there has been all of the getting the house (and ourselves) ready for and tidying up after all of those events, including the many miles of outside lights and other associated Christmas deccies that were required.
So this week, we both have a whole week of not going anywhere further than Campbeltown, and I’m sitting down to think how I really want to organise myself so I have time to do all of the stuff I want to do, while still allowing enough flexibility for the impromptu stuff like wild swimming.
Despite regularly going on about how little time I have to do stuff, I have been able to do some proper exercise almost every day, alternating swimming in the pool (today I did 50 lengths!) and working out in my gym, and I really need to keep that in. I’m not confident enough to do very much actual swimming in the sea, so those sessions are much more about the cold water therapy, but also the therapy that is being at one with nature in such a beautiful environment, with my fabulous swimming tribe. These girls are medicine in themselves. I need to make space for all of this in the schedule.
I’m also still needing at least one physiotherapy/acupuncture/cupping session each week, which takes me in to Campbeltown, so it makes sense to build a swim session around it.
You’ll remember I also recently completed the challenges from the Winter Writing Sanctuary, one of them helping me realise that in not prioritising my writing over recent months, I do feel like I’m missing something significant. THIS is the only thing I had planned for my retirement: to write a book. I know I started it way before I retired, just because the idea was in my head and I had to get it out, but I am very glad that Beth Kempton (whose Writing Sanctuary it was) provided just enough of a nudge to get me back on that road. So I need to include time to write in my schedule.
And then there is that part time job I started as a Member Pioneer at the Co-op last year, ahead of my pending retirement, so I would have a means to get out into the community and do something worthwhile for others. I only need to do 4 hours a week, or more accurately, 16 hours over a 4-week period, but you’d be surprised how hard it is to fit it in, and also, how easy it is to overlook. I *really* need to include half a day, or perhaps two 2-hour slots each week so I don’t fall behind.
AND, and this is exciting news, for me at least: I have just started playing Dungeons & Dragons again after a gap of about 35 years. This was also one of those things I was going to do once I retire, and I’d promised myself that I’d give myself until after Christmas before doing anything about it. Jacob bought me a whole pile of D&D goodies for Christmas, including some beautiful dice, so I was all ready for posting a ‘who wants to play D&D’ thing on our local chat, when ta-dah, somebody else posted exactly the same thing. Brilliant. It took a while to get the logistics sorted, work out who was going to be ready/reliable to get something started, and yesterday, we actually rolled some dice and kicked some ass in earnest. So now, I defo need to include this too.
Which makes my list:
Exercise
Swimming including swimming lesson
Writing my story
Co-op
D&D
And all of this while still allowing time to do some non-serious writing and some very-non-serious but very cold swimming. And the boring bloody housekeeping, and the cooking, and the washing. And of course, leave time for stuff that Mr CQ and I can do together!
Because I’m somebody who likes to get the jobs done so that I have the rest of the day to myself, I will generally try to get up and swim or gym straight off. And I’m trying this with my writing too. I’m building a fire in the log burner on Tuesday so I just have to light it first thing Wednesday morning, and then getting stuck in to a whole morning with my story. This week and the next few more, will be about cementing what that looks like, but I’m thinking this is pretty much how it’ll go. This should give me plenty of time for swimming in the sea or gardening or whatever I can do outdoors when the weather is amenable.
On top of this I will have the irregular stuff like our monthly writing group, visits with my Co-op hat on, or even just catching up on cocktails or writing to you. So that by the time dad is next here, we can add dad’s stuff into the calendar and we’ll all know where we are. He’ll have Camera Club, and hopefully Tai Chi as well as possibly seniors’ badminton to add because dad is also somebody who likes to know what the plan is.
And then as our rewards for all of this, we can add cocktails to that picture for Friday, Saturday and Sunday to be sure that the weekend still feels a little special, and not just any other day of the week.
So if you’re looking forward to when you have nothing in your diary, how does this make you all feel? Have I brought you out in a cold sweat? Or are you thinking your schedule might look a little like this too? I’d genuinely be interested in what your thoughts are, particularly if you are already retired, and your plan is going nothing at all like your expectation. But as long as your plan, is *your* plan, then really, that’s all that matters.
Retirement, or stopping work if that’s what you’re calling it, should be about making the most of your hard work up to that point, and living your best life from that point onwards. Here’s to whatever YOUR best life is!
Cocktail Queen 