I have never understood people who take down their Christmas decorations on Boxing Day or even New Year’s Day. I keep mine up for as long as possible, but Twelfth Night comes all too soon. All the cheese has been eaten and the last of the Quality Street wrappers lie forlorn in the wastepaper basket. The twinkling lights must come down, the Christmas tree go to create an empty space and the greenery and cards removed, leaving the house looking shabby and bare. Suddenly, I see cobwebs and dusty skirting boards, and marks on the walls. Perhaps this is the origin of spring cleaning. In our seasonal aisle where I work the Christmas decorations and food have been replaced by a range of cleaning products, so it’s not just me who feels the need to clean – the supermarkets are encouraging it too. But I might just delay that too, at least until the sunshine comes out and shows up the dust even more!

But there is one thing we might do early. My husband is looking at retirement. Should he retire now? He’s sixty-five this year – the time everyone used to retire when we were growing up, but now it’s sixty-seven. By the time my daughters retire, it will be seventy.

Most of his friends have retired and urge him to do likewise, but they are all in more comfortable financial circumstances than we are. They have also seen their children through university; we still have our youngest to support for another two years – more if she decides to do a Masters, which I am encouraging her to do. If he retires now, we will need to dig into savings to get her through and things will be tight.

But more and more, I am thinking that, if the sums work out, he should retire. He finds his job boring and rarely looks forward to going back to work on a Monday. Instead, he looks forward to taking up some new hobbies once he has more time, or spending more time on his existing hobbies, like sailing and gardening.

I met Tony last week, as I was checking the dates on the bacon. Tony’s wife died three weeks ago, and he just wanted someone to talk to. I needed to carry on checking the bacon, but customer service sometimes means listening to lonely people. “We had so many plans for retirement,” said Tony, “and now we will never do them together. We thought we had until we were seventy or even eighty, and she’s gone at sixty-five.”

Tomorrow is not given. We don’t know how much time we have left. What do you think about retirement? Should one go for it as soon as possible, even if it means money is short, or should one carry on until one can retire comfortably?

(And I absolutely don’t want to retire. I love my job and want to carry on for as long as I can!)

Mary

A Moodscope member