Retirement and more!

I haven’t been too active on my blog recently, but I have been busy in other areas. One thing that I have been up to  is retiring from work :-) This is one of those life events that you know will happen eventually. When it arrives, you think - wow, I’m a free man, I don’t have to go into work anymore and I can follow my dreams. I can also wax lyrical on my blog if I want to. So now that I have got time to paint and write and keep fit I have decided to go to New Zealand and then Australia. Well you would wouldn’t you! The trip starts on 16 March when I head off to Auckland. I will stay in NZ till the end of April and I’m planning to do as much cycling as possible. Although the trip is nearly on me, I haven’t got a very well worked out plan of where I will go and what gear I will need. Don’t get me wrong, I have been reading about NZ and looking up cycling information on the web, but it was only this week end that I thought I would see if it is possible to take my bike with me in a bike box. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before, because I took the bike to India a couple of years ago without any problems. This time I got some inspiration from the web-site Barry and Margaret Williamson who cycled a 4,641 mile circuit around NZ in five months a few years ago. Have a look at their web-site, its pretty impressive. http://http://www.magbaztravels.com/


I haven’t left everything till the last minute, I have tickets arranged and travel insurance and some NZ dollars ordered. Between now and 16 March, there are quite a few things to do, starting with checking about taking my bike… I will keep you posted!

Painting and drawing has taken a back seat recently, but this is something I hope to put right as I travel around NZ. But I did manage a sketch, when I was waiting for a flight from Belfast International airport at the week end.

A 'light-bulb' moment

I had one of those ‘light bulb’ moments today. It was a chance meeting which told me that a major life decision I have made is the right one!


Some former work colleagues are fun to bump into. They tend to be the people who I got on well with when I worked with them. It’s probably something to do with a shared sense of humour and a certain way of looking at the world. Catching up with the gossip on people we worked with and what has happened to them is can be great fun. So it was great to bump into Betty at the GP surgery where I was waiting for my flu-jag. I have know Betty ever since I moved to Scotland in 1978. She helped introduce me to Scottish social work. Indeed it was her job that I came up here to take over. She had decided to take a sideways move into district management and I became the social worker attached to a psychiatric day unit in Musselburgh. Betty is now 80 and still looks great. She gets out and about and is playing golf regularly. Luckily, we both had a bit of time on our hands, so we were able to reminisce about the old times to our hearts content. I overcame my reluctance to live in the past and thoroughly enjoyed the chin wag about former times. Just as the nurse came to take me through for my jag, Betty mentioned that her daughter is working in social work in East Lothian.

“Oh yeh, what’s her name then?” I asked

“Chris …., she’s working with adults and enjoying it immensely,” said Betty.

That was when the penny dropped. I am now working with the daughter of a former colleague on more or less the level as I was working with her mother.

Time for retirement… oh yes. I put my notice in on Monday and with leave to take, my last day at work is 24 February. Somehow, it just feels like the right time to go!