Oh heart is full my retirement quilt is done. And I wouldn't have it any different.
Beautifully held as ever by my scoobs, he is the center block in this quilt my very own mariners compass 🥰. He bought me the Italian fabric panels used in the backing, I couldn't get to Florence in 2020 so he got me these for Christmas ❤️
I started this at the retirement retreat Gartmore in May this year.
So many happy memories sewn into this quilt. I love it
Let it never be said that i am a fair weather walker! Retirement has been weird, no two ways about it, not bad but just weird. I didnt envisage settling into retirement in the aftermath of a global pandemic which pretty much shut down the world for almost two years and resulted in me shielding for two years. I cant claim shielding was bad because i felt i was pretty lucky, very understanding husband, lovely chums who couldn't have been nicer and more considerate to me but still it wasnt easy.
I didnt know how i would feel re entering the world, and to be honest it has been strange, the thought of breathing in other peoples air does still freak me out a bit.
So at the start of retirement i did worry that all I would be able to do was walk, and to be fair round here that isnt too shabby!
But i know I need more than this, a lovely chum gave me a picture for retirement, there was a space on he wall which fitted it perfectly:
Yes every dream does begin with a wish and my wish is to settle back into the world as much as i can.
These chaps are lovely but their conversations are a bit lacking!
Pink throne for Jacky and the orange throne for me!
But hey i digress. I strapped my big girl knickers on and got myself an over 50s scotrail card and went on my first train in almost 3 years ....
Jings havent seen this for a long long time ....
And it was fine, a bit nervous but hey i did it!
Went into Edinburgh, pootled about some graveyards then met up with chums for lunch, and it was so so so so good!
Im loving being out again, there were times when i thought it might never happen but i am so glad it has and i am LOVING it!
It wasnt just the work from home office which had become infused with work and work stress, the sewing room had taken a lot of it too plus retirement is a time to reflect and just see exactly how i want to make it work for me now in retirement. SOOOOOOO a long over due renovation started.
Above is how it started! I really wanted to get all the fabric in order so cue much unpacking and re folding, very therapeutic!
Who is the queen of fabric folding? well that would be ME!
this is still a work in progress but it feels so much better now
The past two years have been hard, no one can deny that, I was lucky in a sense because i could work from home for most of the time. I wont say it was easy, work began to seep into the bones of the house. I think it was the same for a lot of people.
This was my WFH office I know I was lucky to have such a room and a fairly good set up, I had a great chair but it was from my sewing room! I had a table which was my mams old kitchen table, that brought a lot of memories with it, working on it all day was sometimes hard especially while i was shielding, I had things in there to cheer me up, presents from chums etc, I hung up some quilts to make it feel cosier and they became a feature of my teams meetings sometimes. This was the house WFH office.
And this was my real office! some scamps wrote on my whiteboard!
To rise up my laptop and get the screen to a decent height i used a shoe box with a brick in it! the brick kept the box from moving about, it worked just fine!
My mams kitchen table! she gave it to me when she got a new one, this table must be nearly 60 years old .... it did the job though!
The silk quilt was hung here because i cant use it as a quilt, it would need specialist cleaning as it is silk, so lets hang it on a wall! This was my prosecco countdown wine rack, one bottle a month to keep me going!
I had these on my office desk for years, my beloved Bud and my floofy pal Rocco so of course they went into the WFH office desk too.
This is it now, transformed into a wee neuk, for breakfast, for a cuppa and just for generally having a chill.
Thank you WFH office but you can stand down now, you have done your job.
Well i have been planning this for months. I was hoping to go this year (2021) but things got in the way and I really didnt feel I could go. But I made the firm decision to go on my 58th birthday 25th May 2022 (update in August 2022, didnt go to plan had to stay for an extra 3 months!)
I even bought my very own bespoke countdown clock 😂 I ordered 12 bottles of pink fizz
I am having one per month over the next 12 months to count down, oh my the first one (in June 2021) tasted ever so sweet, 12 months on I will be drinking my final bottle 😊
I have them in a wine case in my home office, I throw a quilt over them when i am in TEAMs meetings, saves any awkward questions 😂
Other things to help me count down, this wee chap, Daruma. A lovely friend brought him home from a trip to Japan.
you are supposed to colour in the eyes when you undertake a large project. One when you start and the other when you finish.
So the first is coloured in.
Update! As of June 2022 my lovely Daruma is coloured in now 😊
This week (beginning of September) I will have my third bottle, then I will be in single figures 😊
October 2021
Well …. October didnt get off to a great start …. Off sick for 2 days. I got the 3rd primary dose on the 29th sept. It really laid me low.
Fourth bottle of Prosecco drunk, now only 8 more to go. I think I can hang in, only time will tell!
Things that help bring perspective, visits from lovely lovely chums, and this most gorgeous floof.
5th bottle drunk!!😳 blimey, it’s been a shockingly hard few weeks. But the end is in sight.
down to six bottles! it has really not been a good month, health issues mean i reconsider whether to go or not? But yes i will go, I need to go, I need to take my chances here
OK its now August 2022! thats when i go, thats fine, I had to order 3 more bottles of fizz! so well its got to be Kylie hasnt it!
And here we are at April 2022, 11th bottle of Fizz drunk 🥴 blimey so so close now and about time too!
June! Well .... 10 weeks to go so we have a different countdown now.
August 2022
!!!!! We are so nearly there! Last bottle of pink fizz drunk 😳 this weekend with lovely lovely chums!
Coming back here and updating this is very surreal. For so long this was “way in the future” “still months away” and now???? Now it is a matter of weeks!
I have another countdown 😂
There is also my Kaffe notebook 😊
So many lovely presents from chums too, flowers, pencils (natch!) how lovely
There was so much build up and now its here! I am sitting in the living room a retired person 😲
this is going to take a while to sink in a while to bed in, reading back through this i remember why I left. To look after myself, physically, and of course to sew and drink prosecco 😆
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