Enjoying Retirement

Another fan of the photos and anecdotes here RDMcG! Will keep an eye out for more.

I also had a reminder - I went into London to meet friends for dinner.

I can't believe I used to do that every single day.

Good pic!...The more remote the better as far as I am concerned. It is very calming. One thing I have always believed is that you can possibly become famous or rich or powerful or whatever your dream is but you cannot get back a single second of your life. I realized that when I was about 15, hence no bucket list. At 15 I did not even think about a car as it was well outside the bounds of possibility but instead did the things I could realistically do and as time went by those possibilities changes of course. I do not like aback at the "good old days"..they were indeed good but I was a different person, seeing things for the first time.

Thus for instance getting a ride in a Facel Vega from an Iranian student who rented nearby was a much bigger thrill for a 9 year old than buying a new Porsche at 75 . As long as you do what is with the bounds of possibility at the the time then it seems to me that life feels fine. The main thing for me was not to waste time on things that were impossible to achieve. I once wanted to do architecture and be the next Frank Lloyd Wright, but of course I realized that I might develop the technical skill but I did not have the imagination and originality to be able to produce great buildings, so life would have been as a dull but competent builder of apartment buildings or factories which would have been a disappointing life for me.

I love the remote roads. I did that 170 miles over 2 days. No water anywhere between the two towns so started with 14l on my bike. Day 1 when I took that pic had everything. Two hours cool calm
overcast in the morning. A couple of hours with a strong tailwind. Half an hour when a storm passed over me and it was so windy I had to stop riding and shelter in a ditch for 20 minutes.

Had the wind been a headwind and persisted all day I wouldn't have been able to do it in 2 days and would have ran out of water. But it's tarmac roads in the USA. I could have got water off a passing car. In fact traffic was so low and the area so remote a couple of drivers stopped unprompted just to check I had enough water.

I love Americans. One time what I thought was a passing car stopped and offered me water on a hot dry climb in California. We chatted and I acepted a bottle of water from him. I then waved for him to go off first ahead of he. He replied he was going back downhill. He had seen me passing from his house and come out in his car just to offer me a drink.

It was a few hundred feet and a few miles further up this road through the coastal range between the coast and central valley in California.

I was reminded of this post by Groat yesterday….not seen him here much since.
Might have just gone PH-detox, & hope he is okay, but some very fine words!
Sunshine, gardening & maybe some beers later today…have a smashing day all!

Thats correct!!!

Doesn’t matter how much you have, but having a few cars and a second home on the IOW certainly seems to help. )

I think this is the key - the extremes are what you want to avoid - no point having the money and not spending it for fear of running out and likewise you don’t want to do all the things you want to and then having nothing left.

I also have a spread sheet to monitor how much we are spending, how the pension is performing and what we have to fritter away on holidays! If it looks like it might run short in the longer term then we have to cut our cloth accordingly for a short while.

So far 6 years in we are doing ok and slightly ahead of my forecast despite spending a fair bit on enjoying traveling.