One-Liner Wednesday: Forever Young

“I’m an old-age pensioner, not a reincarnation”  – – – – – – – I wish I’d said that. However, British readers may be surprised to know that it was actually Ann Widdecombe (on The Chase Celebrity Special, to be exact). Non-British readers, of course, couldn’t care less. One-Liner Wednesday 3 January 2018  

Leaving Dos…and Don’ts

Does it not strike you as odd that the expression ‘He’d be late for his own funeral’ is used as a criticism of somebody’s timekeeping? It mean, it’s hardly fair to criticise the stiff in question, since presumably by that stage all matters relating to punctuality will be out of their own hands and down…

Giz a job

‘The Job Interview’ was a ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary series that aired recently on British TV. It was excruciating, but I watched it because I do like a bit of schadenfreude. Nothing has made me happier about being retired than the thought that I’ll never again have to go through the toe-curling experience of interviewing for a…

10 Things I’ve Learnt In The Last 1,000 Days

Today, 24th June, is the 1,000th day since I retired from working life. I know this because I have an App that counted down the months and weeks towards my retirement date and then forgot to stop. 1,000 days. That’s about 33 months. 143 weeks. 24,000 hours. You can slice and dice it as finely…

Same old, same old

And so we finally drag ourselves across the finishing line, with the last of WordPress’ ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ – the end of a journey my enthusiasm for which, I have to admit, has fallen off somewhat over the past couple of months, as evidenced by the recent scarcity of related posts. Which you…

Everyone’s a winner…

You’ve probably never played Belote. Until two years ago, neither had we. It’s a card game, little played elsewhere but in certain parts of France – like here – almost a way of life. We first encountered it when we were persuaded along to a meeting of the local commune’s ‘Club d’Amitie’, a fortnightly social get-together for retired people. I admit…

Retirement is the new work

It’s all perfectly logical, I suppose. Sixty is the new forty, orange is the new black (although I have no idea what that actually means). Everything is the new something*. At this point you’re probably thinking – assuming you haven’t already clicked away in your restless search for that new cat video – ‘What the hell…

Simon Schama’s Swampy Suck

Oh, hi there. I thought that might get your attention… Today’s instalment of ‘365 Days of Writing Prompts’ is: “Origin story. Why did you start your blog? Is that why you still blog, or has your site gone in a different direction than you’d planned?” It’s coming up for two years since I started this…