Brian Jones Diary at 60

Grim January ends at last. Every day much the same but at least I got few big jobs done and the world feels a better place thanks to the #vaccine, #Brexit and #Biden. #RetirementTransition #RetirementJourney #Retirement #Retiredlife

What a perfect time it was to give up my retirement transition year blogging.  After my daily diary entries of 2020 finished on January 1st nothing much has happened. There would have been so little to write about, good job I’m scaling my blogging to once a month.  I can’t even motivate myself to get too worked up about the latest set of Covid restrictions that has left us all locked down and…

It's finally over 2020 and my year of blogging. Not at all what I planned but it's given me insight I might otherwise not have had. #Happy New Year! Have a wonderful #2021. #Retirement #RetirementGoals #RetirementJourney #RetirementTransition

366 days of blogging and here it is, my final post.  The end of the year in a life of a 60 years-old man transitioning into retirement.   And what a year it’s been and how different to the one I planned.  Our last day of 2020 was spent enjoying the simple pleasures that Covid has forced upon us.  A walk into town, a home cooked meal and a night watching TV.  Quite a contrast to the first day,…

Today I achieved my goal of running #1000kms, that’s 621 miles in old money, in a year. More than from Land’s End to John O’Groats. What next for 2021? #Runningchallenge #5k #MensHealth #Retirement #RetirementJourney #RetirementTransition #RetiredLife

Today I achieved my goal of running 1,000 kms – that’s 621 miles in old money – in a year.  More than from Land’s End to John O’Groats or indeed the other way which, at least, is downhill!  I completed the last 5k this morning just as the snow began to fall.  Mrs Jones acted as pacemaker and motivator, I needed her there to drag me over the line Brownlee brother style if I collapsed with a 100…

A #Christmasmessage. After this awful year, a near perfect #ChristmasDay doing all the things with family you want to do to make Christmas special. Then a timely reminder to savour it all. #Retirement #RetiredLife #Soul #Disney #RetirementJourney

Just another day Christmas Day isn’t it? Well it is and it isn’t. After all that’s happened this year, there was no better reminder that family is pretty much all that matters. Thankfully, unlike so many others, we were able to spend it with ours. How strange it is we need food, drink and presents to oil the wheels. Cooking a Christmas dinner for six – the first time we’ve done it for years –…

#ChristmasDay 2020 is here at last. The big day is here - after weeks of present buying, hours of wrapping, all is opened in minutes! I feel blessed to be spending this special day with special people. #Retirement #RetirementJourney #RetirementTransition

By 8.35am we’d opened all our presents.  It takes weeks to buy them, hours to wrap them and minutes to open them. I’ve been a very lucky boy – great pressies from Mrs Jones including some new trainers and a new running cap.  It’s a beautiful bright sunny day and there was more than a part of me that wanted to go for a run imagining myself gliding through my 5k in record time thanks to my new…

It's beginning to feel a lot like #Christmas. I so love the #NORAD #SantaTracker which confirms Father Christmas is already on his way. #HappyChristmas #SantaClaus #Retirement #RetirementJourney #RetirementTransition #MerryChristmas #ChristmasEve

I’ve had my final advent calendar chocolate, there are presents everywhere – some to open, some to wrap – and elderly relatives to visit.   It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. I’ve just checked and the wonderful NORAD Santa Tracker and for some people on our planet the big man is already on his way.   Even at the age of 60 I struggle to get my head round the fact that for some Christmas…

Tears in the tiers. Christmas always gets me. I'll never forget how I felt about the #Lockerbie disaster at this time of year. Today's sad stories about the tiers keeping people apart brought me to tears. #Retirement #RetiredLife #RetirementJourney

There’s something about Christmas that always makes me feel more emotional. Sad things that happen this time of year have extra poignancy.  I’ll never forget how I felt about the Lockerbie disaster in 1988.  The plane carrying, amongst its 259 passengers, a local couple on what seemed then a very exotic weekend in New York, came down on December 21st.  I can still bring the image, from more…

I'm thinking that #gaming might help me through the bleak mid-winter of more #Covid restrictions. From #CandyCrush to #Civilisation, here are some recommendations. #SonicTheHedgehog #Retirement #RetiredLife #RetirementTransition #RetirementJourney

What to do in the winter now that the mutant strain is here.  Before kids arrived in my life I spent a couple of months happily gaming – playing Sonic the Hedgehog on a Sega Megadrive. For those few weeks in the early nineties I spent what felt like most waking hours coaxing my new prickly blue animated friend through the various zones and collecting all the rings.  For a while it was the last…

I'm hoping this the #longestnight of this, the longest year, heralds a change. With the #StarOfBethlehem shining for the first time since the middle ages I could be in luck! #Retirement #RetirementTransition #RetiredLife #RetirementJourney #60YearsOld

From bad to worse.  Christmas cancelled, the new tier 4 lockdown, a mutant virus and now more than 40 countries banning Brits I’m desperate for something positive.  Thankfully I’ve found it in today in an unlikely place, today is the winter solstice, our shortest day and longest night.  I’ve always liked the fact that the year’s lowest point comes so soon in the winter.  From today the only way…

Another #Boris bombshell. Yesterday's announcement of the #Tier4 restrictions for the south and east and the virtual cancellation of #Christmas is the final nail in the coffin for this awful year. #Retirement #RetirementTransition #RetiredLife

I was really hoping not to write about coronavirus ever again. With only another 10 blogs between now and the end of 2020 I thought that was going to be highly possible. Yesterday’s shock announcement changed all that.  With Boris effectively cancelling Christmas for large parts of the south and restricting it to just one day for the rest of us I can’t stop thinking about Covid-19 (or should it…

A downbeat supplement for us #laterlifers led me to discover a new website. Featuring interviews with celebrities and useful information about charities I'm glad I clicked the link. #YourLaterLife #Retirement #RetiredLife #RetirementJourney

A little tabloid supplement entitled ‘Your Later Life’ appeared in my daily paper a few days ago.  It didn’t appeal to me, at first until I noticed they’d bagged the yourlaterlife.co.uk domain which struck me as being a good one to have.  Later life as a term to describe people who are in well, later life, seems to be growing in popularity. It’s interesting how these phrases change over the…

Nearly all the bad times of #2020, of which there were many, came from #coronavirus. I felt upset and outrage so many times about something out of my control. #Retirement #RetiredLife #RetirementTransition #RetirementJourney #60YearsOld #Covid

Yesterday I had a look back at my year.   It turned out that despite all the gloom of the pandemic there was still lots going on, lots to feel blessed about. The good times came from some expected places such as holidays and days out which we still managed to squeeze in.  They also came from people, just being with family and social activities with friends new and old.  There were some highs…

#2020 wasn’t so bad after all! I've been looking back over what has felt like one of the worst years of my life but do you know it wasn't so bad. So many highlights amidst the #Covid gloom. #Retirement #RetirementTransition #RetirementJourney

Putting personal issues – such as health and family – to one side, in many ways I view 2020 has been the worst year of my life.   The impact of Covid and the restrictions that followed have had a significant effect on my well-being leaving me feeling more anxious and suffering from poor sleep, for a large part of the year. And yet despite the reduction in travel – two holidays cancelled and one…

#Mutantstrain keeps us all teetering on #tier3. It feels to me that talk of the #coronavirus variant is being cynically used to make us frightened enough to back the latest #lockdowns and be #jollycareful over Christmas. #Retirement #RetiredLife

Today we teeter on tier 3.  There is the tiniest chance that our rural-ish town could be decoupled from the nearby big bad city that is keeping our pubs and restaurants closed. The infection numbers locally are looking promising and there’s talk in parliament that delinking might be on the cards but I have so little trust in what I’m hearing that I won’t be holding my breath. This morning all…

Zoom is squeezing the over-60s out of work. A lack of proficiency with #digital work tools such as #Zoom has contributed to a steep rise in #redundancies among the #over60s, experts have said. #Retirement #RetiredLife #RetirementJourney #RestLess

A lack of proficiency with digital work tools such as Zoom has contributed to a steep rise in redundancies among the over-60s, experts have said. The number of workers over 60 who were made redundant increased from 8,000 between April and June to 31,000 between July and September – a percentage increase twice that of any other age group, research by Rest Less, an excellent website for those of…

The loss of my last contract last week moves me a step closer to full #retirement. I'm staring into an income-less abyss and am feeling more than a little all at sea. #RetirementTransition #RetirementJourney #RetiredLife #Work

Work, as I’ve always known it, will for me come to an end very soon.  I’ve been letting my business whither on the vine, as a friend once described it, for a couple of years now.  And last week I got the call giving notice on my last remaining contract.  It was disappointing news but felt kind of inevitable at this current time with so many businesses seeking to cut costs.  All good things come…

It's time to torpedo the #Brexit #tradetalks. A year on since the election was going to get this all done the #EU are continuing to make outrageous demands. #GetBrexitDone #EuropeanUnion #BorisJohnson #Retirement #RetirementTransition #RetirementJourney

December 13th – a year to the day since the result of last year’s election was confirmed.   What a Friday, the 13th that turned out to be. An 80-seat majority for Boris Johnson’s Conservatives and three years of democratic dysfunction was at last over and now we were going to “Get Brexit Done”. We were also going to “Level Up”, invest in infrastructure and health, fix care, build more homes and…