It’s been a very strange summer so far, and certainly nothing
like the summer I was expecting. To start with 2026 is set to break all records
for high temperatures, with five heatwaves so far, and a distinct lack of rain.
The heat hasn’t been good for working outside, although the combination of high
temperatures and lack of rainfall has meant very little, if anything, is
growing in the garden. I’d more or less given up on it anyway, as the ritual of
nightly watering was becoming a losing battle.
We’ve had some welcome rain over the past two days, but it’s
nowhere near enough to bring the garden back to life, although with a holiday
looming in two weeks’ time, the garden will have to look after itself, anyway.
Climate considerations aside there’s major life decision looming up on the
horizon and it’s one that I’m starting to embrace, and indeed welcome with open
arms. I’m almost halfway through my 72nd year and I’m
really starting to feel it, so there’s one area of my life that I really need
to let go of. I’m talking here about retirement and abandoning my career as
a scientist-safety professional. 
I’d been thinking about letting go of my ties with the world
of work, and had already taken the first tentative steps of exploring the
financial options open to me, once that all important monthly pay cheque stops
coming in. Something happened though, along the way to prompt me to speed up
the process of letting go, and it wasn’t so much the feeling tired and lacking
in energy, but rather a chain of random events that appeared out of the blue,
which have been sufficient to persuade me that it’s time to go.
I’m not going to go into too much detail, primarily because
it wouldn’t mean much to those unaffected anyway, so without giving too
much away there have been a few changes in the structure and set-up of the
company I have worked for over the past 20 years that have suddenly changed it
from being a nice place to work, to one where the opposite is now the case. People talk about dynamics in society, and on a much more
local level, dynamics within the workplace, and a few recent changes that have
taken place have completely altered those carefully constructed building
blocks, that hold the whole thing together. I’m talking here about the glue,
that connects the various strands that make an organisation function in a
certain way, and that ultimately make it successful and also a decent place
to be employed at.
The changes I’m referring to seem at odds to what I’ve been talking
about above, but basically the company is losing two key people who I both
respect and admire to the extent that I can call them friends. The crazy thing
is that one of them, like me, was navigating the same pension maze necessary to
provide that vital income, to see him into retirement, and through the other
side. The other person is younger, but no longer wishes to work for a company, where the carefully constructed dynamic, that held a key part of the
organisation together, has been shattered.
I’m not particularly looking forward to my return from my holiday, especially as those two key colleagues won’t be there, and this is why I’m speeding up the wheels that
I’d already set in motion for a tidy and ordered retirement. But onwards and upwards, and with an eye to the future, I’ve accrued a reasonable “pension pot”
over the years, and will be looking at Pension Drawdown, to supplement my State Pension.
This is because despite my early introduction to the world of work, lucrative Final Salary Pension Schemes were being withdrawn, even then, as companies and other organisations just couldn’t afford to maintain them. So, that’s where I am, as we head into the final week of August,
and is why you find me in a contemplative and reflective mood. On the plus
side, it’s raining quite heavily, at the moment, which is further good news
following on from some early showers, and long may it continue – at least for a
while. As for my impending retirement, I shall keep you informed as to how
things are progressing.
