Thursday and I wake up groggy. Just occasionally my meds give me a less than a good night. I find getting up and getting going is the best thing to do although I tend to be pretty antisocial for a while till I come round. I have breakfast with no idea what I am going to do today. I check my messages and emails, responding where appropriate and then turn my attention to money. Since re-retiring I am adjusting to a limited income and so I am keeping track more closely on how I am spending it. Of course there is all the regular stuff but then there are the fripperies of life that are the little treats and indulgences that get summed up by “because I am worth it”. Of course this moment is not good as I feel as if I am about to be sucked into the Game of Thrones.

In the middle of another extreme heat warning and threats of a hose pipe ban, not to mention emptying reservoirs and the idiosyncratic shortages brought about by Brexit, the war in Ukraine and the positively rude glee of BP share holders one cannot help to wonder just what this winter is going to be like. Although whatever it is going to be, it’s going to be bloody expensive. Cancel Christmas is high my list of remedial actions. Suddenly Scrooge seems a more appealing character. As soon as I can figure out how to give up food and grow a fleece the better. I have a feeling reading by candle light might come back into fashion, or sleeping all the hours of darkness and confining activity to daylight hours might become the fashion. Anyway having completed the mildly depressing sums and attendant reflections its time to wander down to the chemist to pick my monthly meds. My partner and I collect fruit and a paper, which has risen in price by 10p. Based on 5 days a week that’s and additional £26 a year on top of the already total of £208, that’s £234 a year for a newspaper Monday to Friday. I can get the quick cross word on line for free and a book of 300 Picturewits puzzles for £9.99, its all I buy the paper for! So by ditching a daily paper I will save over £224 a year. Right, it looks like Christmas might be back on. Any way my partner and I return home and eat lunch on the patio. I do the puzzles in the paper that I will no longer be getting and then think about what to do in terms of training for the day. Its hot so in typical fashion I decide to row for an hour in the garage. As a concession to the heat I dig out my old Midlands Masters athletics vest and wear it to train in. I set the resistance to my lower level and set off. To my surprise it goes well with me managing to get over 14 kilometers and burn over 900 calories.

So being extremely hot I get out of my kit and wrap myself in a towel and go to put my washing in the machine to find myself face to face with the garden guy who had come early today. So I end up paying him and discussing next weeks work with him while hoping my towel does not abandon me. Eventually I am free to slip into something more hot weather friendly and less likely to embarrass me. I start to draft the blog, which goes well for a while until my laptop goes dead on me. I switch it off and go and hang my washing out in the mistaken belief that all will be well when I switch it back on again. Not a chance it is clearly ill so I continue on my back up laptop. So here we are heading into the evening, pasta ahead and then I suspect I am going to be knee deep in laptop guts and the mysteries of dodgy software and faulty hardware. So no shortage of things to keep me occupied. So this is re-retirement. It is exactly 8 weeks since I re-retired, it is time to take time to reflect on my first two months of idleness. Perhaps I will share the results of my reflections.