How do you occupy your time when you are retired?

It's very interesting reading what others get up to. For myself I retired a year ago and the hobbies and sports I was doing before have expanded to fill my days. Gardening is the main thing, I love being outside and seeing things grow. I got an allotment prior to retiring and that has needed a lot of work to become productive. I have always grown fruit and veg since I was a young man, now in retirement I am switching to more flowers for cutting. There is much to do to make it look tidy, for instance I have plans to make wooden compost containers rather than the horrible current plastic dalek things and to edge the various areas with old scaffold boards so it is easier to strim and mow. During lockdown the allotment as been a god-send keeping us supplied with produce.

At home I have built paths and retaining walls in my veg patch out of old paving slabs, so it is much safer and neater. There are a few old concrete fence posts that used to divide my garden, I will take them out one by one and re-use them. The garden is on a hillside so old building materials get recycled to build terraces, I will build a raised bed to help screen the busy road at the end of the garden next winter.

The other main thing I like doing is DIY, I have a lockdown project of building a new garage. I turned my old garage into living space a few years ago. I have nearly finished building this new one, I lay bricks plus roofing, drainage and paving plus all the interior stuff like plastering and painting. It takes me much longer than a professional but I enjoy doing it. If anything is beyond me I hire a contractor for a day or so, such as to fit the main steel beam which needed four men to lift into place. The garage is now weather proof and only needs a couple of snags sorting before the council sign it off. Next thing will be filling it, I'm going to get a classic car, which one I don't know. I have had them before as restoration projects but I don't fancy that again so will get something road-worthy. I have made a workshop area which I started using for the first time a couple of weeks ago to restore the old wrought iron gates for the path leading to our front door.

I had to give up 5-a-side football as team sports were banned during lockdown and when that was eased I felt I'm too old to take part any more, this is the biggest thing I will miss but I kept picking up injuries that were taking longer and longer to shake off. I only do badminton now, which I have always played since my school days, it's good to do something aerobic.

I hardly watch the telly, maybe some Football or the News otherwise I'm reading or like a lot of others on here doing family history research. Last winter I scanned nearly 2,000 old family photos, it took me several months, dating, identifying the location and name tagging, covering the period from 1880 to 1960s. I created a website to share within our family. A cousin is also interested and traced back some parts of our family to the 1300s, using tithe records. They were all sheep farmers in North Yorkshire. My particular focus since I was a lad has been what my family did during the wars, and was given military artefacts by the older generations, things like army cap badges and medals. I discovered four Gt Uncles fought at Passchendaele in WW1 and two were killed, their bodies lie in unmarked graves. I hope to identify them one day, I am convinced I know where one is buried but don't yet have sufficient evidence to prove to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission that his plot should have a proper headstone with his name. I will get back to that next winter.

Next week I am going to Portsmouth Library as they have recently opened up again after lockdown, I have requested a few documents and photos of a distant relative taken around 1890. As each year goes by more and more information is being digitized and made available online, particularly immigration records. I recently found a new series of records published by the Canadians and I found my Grandfather making several crossings between Canada and the USA. These events confirmed the stories he used to tell about being a hobo and traveling the west coast as a young man prior to WW1. I have plans to visit Kew and some regional regimental museums to do more research when allowed, we will make mini-holidays out of these as we enjoy visiting different parts of the UK and are avid AirBnB fans.

Since the New Year I have helping my 99 year old cousin to publish his life story, this is something completely new to me so I have had to learn new skills such as how to design a book cover. Once that is done I intend to use my experience to publish a family history book, it will be of limited interest to our family only so it won't ever be a best seller.

I used to volunteer at a hospice one day a week and had been doing so whilst still working. I did maintenance stuff, fixing things that went wrong or painting or various health and safety checks or mowing lawns. That has been on hold as only employed staff were allowed at the hospice. I hope to go back or maybe get another role elsewhere. I volunteered briefly to be a driver for covid vaccine supplies but that also went on hold as we are shielding due to a family illness.

The only other thing I can think of is us providing childcare to our grandchildren, this is mainly Mrs JWK but I can now tag along and see much more of them than ever I did with our own children. We do stuff like picking up from school and one day a week look after a two year old for the whole day which keeps us on our toes.

 

Seems a great idea.

If you don't intend to sell it to the public you won't need to have an ISBN number . That will save money and you won't need to register it with the British Library.

 

Thank you, I forgot you had published books, picking your brains would have helped me get started. I have support from a couple of cousins who have published books so I am kind of up to speed now.

The Kindle self publishing route is very straightforward, they now offer print on demand for paperbacks and throw in the ISBN and library copies for free. I won't actually use that service as it is part of the Amazon empire and Jeff Bezos already has enough money. I found a similar online service based in the UK that appears more ethical.

 

no, but we have an English friend in Norway of that's any good.

 

We have a Norwegian Blue Parrot, it doesn't do much but has beautiful plumage.

 

Neeps are Turnips so I always thought.

 

I think the name neeps for swede comes from the Latin name for swede which is (a Rutabaga in American terms ) of the Brassica napus group. Turnip is Brassica rapa but also of the napus species. So I expect this is now perfectly clear - well, clear as mud .

The origin of the name turnip is said to come from the name napus and 'turn' meaning round, which distinguished it from the swede which was less round.

Sorry about all that but it goes back to my days of writing quizzes

The Scottish dish of Neeps and Tatties (can't have Burns Night without it) is swede and potato.