Retirement is….
Renee is recently retired and so far she is finding that it is the minutiae of the day, things that have been long neglected or ignored, that are occupying her newly arrived free time.
For example her bed is made every day. In the past it had been left unmade and the duvet dragged back at bedtime. Nowadays, the bed is made perfectly and if she used flat instead of fitted sheets the hospital corners would be as sharp as a pin. Pillows are plumped up and the bedside tables tidied and possibly dusted — all of which had been totally neglected when she was working.
In addition, after every meal the placemats are wiped down and put back in their boxes which are then put back in the dresser drawer. When she was working the placemats stayed on the table for weeks on end — and not very tidily, they were scatted about all higgledy-piggeldy and pulled under a hot plate when needed at mealtimes. Of course with the placemats in boxes in the dresser, the table gets a wipe down every day and is covered with a tablecloth with a centrally placed bowl of fruit or a vase of flowers.
Then there is the dirty washing. These days Renee cannot abide dirty washing left for days in the washing basket. So dirty washing is moved daily from the washing basket to the washing machine where it sits behind a closed door for further dirty washing in subsequent days. This is more satisfying when all of the washing makes up a mixed wash but sometimes when a white or coloureds wash is required some items of washing have to be returned to the washing basket. Renee does not like this and worries until the washing basket can be emptied.
Dishwashing has changed since Renee’s retirement. In those earlier working days the dishwasher was slowly, over a few days, filled with dirty plates and cups. Renee and Ted, her husband, had a big dishwasher and sometimes the washer was in use only once a week.
Of course, after retirement, Renee hated the sight of dirty dishes piling up in the machine. She hated seeing the left-over food harden on the plate and so she started handwashing the dishes, the old fashioned way in the sink with washing up liquid and a sponge. The dishes are then dried and put away. As for the dishwasher itself it is cleaned thoroughly and the door firmly closed until the next time it is used, properly used. This is usually a big family gathering.
Their shopping routine changed. For some time they had had their weekly shop delivered and that was fine when both Renee and Ted were working. But when it was just Renee earning a crust and Ted had no interest at all in taking up the shopping responsibilities when he retired so the deliveries continued – until Renee retired. She found that she couldn’t wait for things to arrive if there was a particular recipe she wanted to try or if she ran out of cleaning products. Renee found that she was shopping more than she ever anticipated as well as having their regular delivery and their shopping bills went through the roof. So the deliveries stopped.
Curtains are opened before bedtime and newspapers and magazines are tidied up at bedtime so the house is ready to welcome Renee and Ted at its very best the next morning.
Renee and Ted have a cleaning lady who has her routines, she knows what to do, and who has worked for them for years. Renee now makes sure the house is spic and span before Eileen arrives for her twice a week cleaning session. It is the same in the garden which Renee tidies up, leaving the heavy duty jobs to their gardener, resulting the gardener having to do less to earn his exorbitant charges.
Ted, her husband, is largely unaware of all this.
Renee smiles and wishes him a good day when he disappears after breakfast to golf or to carpet bowls or to crown green bowls or to walking football. And we must not forget the darts league in the local pub every Thursday night and online chess two afternoons a week in the local library. Ted loves retirement and has done so since day one five years ago.
Birthday presents are now bought and wrapped well in advance of birthdays and are stacked neatly in the study. This is a new venture; for years the children and grandchildren have been given money - which sometime arrived after the actual birthday.
This way of life could not go on forever.
After a few months, Renee was finding that she hated attending to the minutiae. Renee was finding the she resented having to spend so much time on things that really did not need to be done and she was jealous of the fun that Ted seemed to be having in the great outdoors.
Nine months after Renee’s final day at work, and after much thought and consideration, things were different. The table mats were in a mess on the dining table and remained so, the bed remained unmade and the dishwasher was once again in use, albeit only twice weekly.
As for Renee, she volunteers at a local charity shop two mornings a week sorting out donations as well as working on the till. Two afternoons a week were spent at the local primary school helping the schoolchildren to improve their reading. This was Renee’s favourite job; she loved the youngsters and wished she has retired earlier so she could have spent more time with her grandchildren who were now too old to need babysitting or reading help.
She and Ted have a day out together every week. They might go out for a meal, they might go on a bus trip somewhere but the point was that they spent at least one day together. Ted was OK about this as he had worried about the increasingly regimented nature of their housekeeping tasks and didn’t like it one bit. He had felt he couldn’t relax with this new regime. If he moved he was immediately tidied up.
And together, one evening a week, Ted and Renee went to ballroom dancing classes. This was something they both loved because it was how they met all those years ago – at a dance hall. They did rock and roll and the twist in those earlier days but they found that the waltz and the fox trot and the polka were just as much fun, especially as their elderly bodies had lost the athleticism of years gone by.
As for the gardener and cleaner, the former was miffed that he was once again on tidying-up duties such as dead heading the roses and collecting dead leaves as well as the heavy stuff. He was once again earning his crust. The same applied to the cleaner who was delighted that things were back to normal as she had been afraid that she would be let go as her tasks continued to be reduced in number and taken over by her boss.
Also shopping deliveries were restarted – there was so much going on in Renee’s life that there was no time for shopping.
Renee thought about this change in her daily activities. She thought about the change in her attitude towards retirement. She realised that all this free time was not as scary as she once thought. If truth be told she was enjoying life in a way she had never done before. She loved the freedom to choose what she wanted to do instead of meeting the needs of a large organisation in whatever guise her employment demanded. Life was good.
Judith Skilleter is new to writing fiction after a long career in social work and teaching. Her first children's novel The April Rebellion, has recently been published. Judith is a Geordie, who settled in East Yorkshire 45 years ago and is married with 4 grandchildren.
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