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Grand Massif
When I retire I will spend as much time as I can exploring European cities. Just wandering. Getting off the beaten track to discover interesting nooks and crannies. Losing myself in the city lapping up its feel atmosphere culture. Having a coffee , sitting in a park, reading a book in the sunshine, watching people, strolling with no purpose or timeframe. Taking in the sounds and smells and totally relaxing
You are bill Bryson and I claim my £5....
I love how people are so different. Bill's ( and indeed your) idea of a perfect city day sounds like hell to me. It's so cool that different people like different things. Give everyone a bit more space.
I was lucky enough to retire at 52, to be honest it had nothing to do with luck, I planned it. I moved to SW France. I live a very simple life. I have no regrets. I am typing from a small isolated cottage, wood burner is burning chunks of home grown oak and my lovely Cocker curled by my feet. Life is good.
I spend very little money, which suits me. if you think you can afford retirement you almost certainly can.
Taking in the sounds and smells
Motor vehicles and diesel fumes most everywhere except Amsterdam and the main noise there is tourists. Rome is a place I will never return to.
Fact is you'll spend most of your retirement at home so make sure you live somewhere you are happy.
How so mr generalist :).
Sorry to hear you're having such a rough time Globalti. I don't know what age you are but if you really are so unhappy with your current situation could you not discuss getting out of it with your wife and getting back to something smaller/more simple. Surely it's better to cut yiur losses rather than making yourself so unhappy and ill?
I'm currently on a year out from work after 15 years of running my small gardening business and we're living in a motorhome and travelling Europe. I've day dreamed about buying a cheap place somewhere warm and moving here once parents aren't around to consider but being so far from home with no friends, family or work to occupy me has made me think twice about this dream and perhaps we'll just spend chunks of time in our favourite places in Europe until we're too old to travel.
As i am self employed I think i will maybe just keep reducing my hours down as i get older so i still have a sense of purpose and get to interact with people weekly and don't stagnate. Especially important as we don't have children to occupy/look out for us as we age. Hopefully I'll never fully retire just pop my clogs one day after some overly strenuous hedge trimming 😂
@globalti I hope things improve for you. CV has thrown a spanner in the works for lots of people and truly awful timing in your case.
If you can stick with it, I'm sure that when you finish the house you will either fall in love with it or have a valuable asset you can sell and find the perfect place. Retirement is a huge change. Though I love it now, it took me a year or so to properly adjust to it and there were some feelings of guilt at not working, missing the status and social contact and wondering if I'd done the right thing. I had, it gets better. Best of luck.
Thanks for the kind words above. It all looks so attractive until you're lying awake all night frantic with worry that you've made a series of bad decisions.
And yes if CV hadn't happened we would have moved in by now.
Bit of time until I can retire but we plan to release a lump of our pensions if possible and buy a canal boat. Rent our house out for a few years then sell the boat once we’ve travelled the network. The other alternative is to buy a nearly new camper van and tour Europe, then sell it. Mrs Inbred has an insatiable need for travel. Neither of us are really attached to an area or property. Although I suspect grandchildren will play a part in our plans in due time.
@globalti I really sympathize about the mice, is there any way you can move out if you can't get all the holes blocked and get pest control round to **do stuff** (lay poison probably) in the attic?
I bet if they were sorted you could get better sleep and things would start to look brighter.
That was my experience fwiw (I had a triple whammy some years ago of an injury which stopped me doing enjoyable experience, mice, and finding our holiday accommodation had bedbugs (so were were paranoid they'd come back with us...) and I ended up really a little cracked TBH, not a happy time at all).
There's a reason sleep deprivation is classed as torture!
Luckily we got the pest control guys a couple of weeks ago and they laid poison bait. One or several mice died under the bedroom floor and stank the room out for ten days, it's almost gone now. But yes, lying awake all night is torture especially when the room stinks of dead mice and a horrible airfreshener.
I had bedbugs in a hotel in Abidjan, you can bring them home especially if you put your suitcase on the bed and some get inside the nooks and crannies.
especially when the room stinks of dead mice and a horrible airfreshener.
We had a rats nest in the ceiling cavity a few years back. I got rid of the rats and their way in but it was thick with poo and wee. Cleaned it out and put several air fresheners up there and some special stuff for owners of incontinent dogs. It really stank for a while (of pee and freshener) but it has now long since passed and you'd never know they were ever there. I think the smell of the air fresheners lingered longer.
After this weekend I think I need to spend a bit more time thinking about what I do on days when I can't (or rather choose not to) get outdoors. I'm not some sugar coated shirker who's scared of a bit of rain, but when it's relentless for a couple of days my enthusiasm wanes and I realised that I don't have many interests that keep me occupied indoors. In my younger days I'd be happy to sit and read a book but I've become more of a do-er, so perhaps need to work on that before pulling the plug on work.
We had mice in the roof space courtesy of ivy up the house ( looks nice but bad idea) - our pest control man used a bait that mummified the mice with no smell and basically they turn to dust after a period of time.
My younger brother had mice in his loft. I offered to post this little one for the weekend but he found a less bloody way of dealing with them:
Hope things start looking brighter for you soon @globalti
In my younger days I’d be happy to sit and read a book
The weather of the last few days has made me think a bit too. But my 'books to read' pile reaches the ceiling so I think it will keep me going for a while. I'm also getting to know Zwift, and I'm finding it OK - so in bad weather Zwifting while listening to podcasts or music will keep me active, I think.
Oh, and @globalti,
- hang in there!
Luckily the only murine corpse that made much of a smell was under the utility room floor - which we'd just had fixed, so we were buggered if we were just going to have it up again!
@globati - sounds to me like you have an anxiety disorder which is just been triggered by various stressors in your life, rather than you having made any bad decisions / changes.
Thank you footflaps, yes I have generalised anxiety disorder so I stress about almost everything. Combined with boredom and general depression it's absolutely horrible.
I really am a different person to who I was two years ago when we started this project and now I'm regretting my recklessness.
Thank you footflaps, yes I have generalised anxiety disorder so I stress about almost everything. Combined with boredom and general depression it’s absolutely horrible.
Have you thought about treatment eg SSRIs?
Yes I've tried Sertraline and Fluoxetine and both had a nasty effect on my brain so I gave up on both after a few days. Just waiting to chat with my GP now and going to ask what she thinks of St John's Wort as a less nasty alternative.
The sleepless nights are pretty grim and mornings ghastly, then the mood improves towards evening. My wife is rightfully sick of it and wants me to get sorted out.
I take Citalopram everyday for anxiety, works for me, but everyone is different and there's a lot of trial and error with SSRIs.
The sleepless nights are pretty grim and mornings ghastly
Yep, I can remember those, I could barely make a cup of tea in the mornings.
If I asked Madame to live 30 miles from anywhere in Scotland she wouldn't be impressed. If I insisisted I'm pretty sure her answer would be divorce papers. 😉
I've added a smiley but I can't help wonderering how your lady spends her days. I'm absoutely certain mine would be unhappy and that would rub off on me. People need people.
You assume it wasn't his wife's idea?
I don't assume anything, I'm just adding a coment that may or not be appropriate or of use with a smiley because the first part was in jest. The second part wasn't in jest, I genuinely wonder how Ms G relly feels about all this because she's "sick of it" and any solution needs to be one that makes her happy if ever Mr G is to be happy.
I did think of adding more but this is for M. and Ms. G to work out with what M. G no doubt expects to be well-intentioned and sometimes light-hearted replies on STW. That's what I've done, nothing sinister Mr Stealth Moderator Scotsroutes.
on current predictions, my pension at sixty will be twice the council tax bill.
says as much about my pension as the council tax
Globalti - I really feel for your situation but please hang in there. Things will get better I am sure of it. There will be brighter days and the sun will shine again. Just knock off small goals and tasks each day, little by little the ship will start to turn. It has to.
Take care.
Thanks. To stick with the theme of the thread, anybody contemplating retirement and a move ought to carry out a thorough and honest review of their own mental health and ability to handle the events.
Gti, would you get anywhere near your money back if you cut your losses and sold it now, as it is?
That would finish my wife off. It could take months to sell especially unfinished, so we have to finish it and move in.
Globalti- I found mirtazapine to be fantastic. I slept immediately the first time I took it and did so every night for the year or so I took it. It takes time to come off but I cut tablets in half and had no issues.
Good luck. Funnily enough it was a house project that took me over the edge. It was way harder and more stressful than I expected. But getting sleep really helped me turn things around
Good luck Globalti.
ive been up since 3am. A frankly ridiculous sales meeting happened yesterday within which several people fettling in my accounts, being told to close deals brought into my numbers whose contracts don’t end until 2021, yet more legal and company disruption to challenge the ability to do that and other ignorant practises were bestowed upon me.
Ive never felt less like going to work in the last 20 years than I do this morning. For sure wfh, isolation and “2020” etc is likely affecting me also, but I’d really like to be somewhere else right now.
in a poxy little bungalow with mice in the attic.
That's a good description of where I live except it's rats in the outhouse. Madame went through a wanting to live in the country phase before junior came along. She took me to view a place and I said "I don't want to spend a weekend here let alone the rest of my life". Now junior has gone we don't need to live near good schools etc. and before long Madame won't need to live within walking distance of her job, but I like my poxy urban bungalow and if ever I move out I hope it's in a herse.
She's been looking again recently as she's got back into horses, however, she fell off a couple of weeks back which has reduced the pressure. I'm happy riding but allergic to them along with lots of other things that make living in the countryside unpleasant. I'll resist.
Having got as far as you have I think I'd finish the house and try the lifestyle it offers. It's only a part of the problem, the other one being adapting to retirement.
Good luck. Funnily enough it was a house project that took me over the edge. It was way harder and more stressful than I expected. But getting sleep really helped me turn things around.
This might not be a lighthearted thread but I actually thought you'd written
But getting sheep really helped me turn things around.
and pictured globalti wandering around his estate with a collie..