Home space and retirement planning

Sometimes I wish we had a bigger apartment.

At 60 sq/m or thereabouts it’s a little on the small side, for a growing family.  I love it, it’s my home, it’s warm and comfortable and well equipped, and I’m very happy here.  But still……it would be nice to have a bit more elbow room.

For a start, the kids will soon need – and want – their own rooms, their own space.  They’re happy enough sharing still, but it’s getting pretty crowded in there, with the bunk beds, one chest of clothes and some book shelves taking up one wall, and a set of tall glass-doored cupboards with drawers, full of toys and puzzles and clothes, taking up the other.  More toys and puzzles are stacked ceiling high on top of them.  There is a desk under the window that Kuba uses for homework and such, and a little coffee table squeezed between the beds and the chest that Ally uses (and that will be too small to be practical for her very soon).  Not a lot of space for anything else – even the window ledge is full  They’re already having the odd space spat, and it will only get worse.

Our room too is very comfortable, with a good range of fitted wardrobes, some shelf space and a big comfy bed.  But when I’m working from home, as now, I add a little garden table that’s just big enough to take my laptop, mouse pad and a couple of books, and a stool to sit on, and that’s half the remaining space gone.  Right now too I have two clothes airers full of drying laundry in here, so it’s like an obstacle course – especially getting to my cupboard for clothes.

Yes, it will soon be time to move……..

If I had more space, I could finally have my study.

It would have one wall devoted to my library.  I have dozens of books, many crammed in the bedroom here on shelves and window ledge, but many more bagged and boxed and stuffed in a cupboard in the storage room in the garage.  It would be lovely to have them all at my fingertips, properly arranged alphabetically and even categorised somehow, like the libraries I used to spend hours browsing in back in England.  The City Library in the Barbican Centre in London was my favourite, about three floors of books.  Many a happy lunch break spent there…..

There would be an Ikea rocking chair (I already have that), and perhaps a small cheap and cheerful sofa, space permitting, and of course a reading lamp.  And a coffee table.  There would be a good sized desk with the computer and cabling to the internet, and the printer (at present this resides on another window ledge, in the living room).  And a comfortable chair to sit on while I work, rather than the uncomfortable stool I’m perched on right now.

Another wall would hold a bloody great World Map, on which I would mark with pins (red for work, pale blue for vacation) all the places I’ve visited over the years.  Maybe a white board to scribble notes and reminders on too.  There would of course be pictures of my kids, all 5 of them.  And my wife.  My dear departed mum and dad, and my sisters too.  It would be somewhere to escape to, to lose myself in my books and my music and my thoughts and dreams.

I could also plan my retirement travel there too.

Now I’m looking ahead a bit, but it’s something most people do at my age, I suppose.

Next week I turn 61.  An age I could never imagine in my misspent youth, when football and birds and beer were my passions.  Retirement was something I never contemplated, like marriage and having a home and family of my own.  Then I got both, not once but twice, in different countries and of course at different times.  I lost my hair (most of it anyway), and replaced it with several kilos of unwanted paunch, both after my 40^th birthday.  I read somewhere that this is very common, a male genetic feature – hit 40 and get fat, gym or no gym – and I see no reason to dispute the proposition.

Around that time, 40 or so, I began to think about retirement, and figured that 55 would be a good time to do it.  Certainly no later than 60.  Fat chance……  Too many bumps and unexpected turns in the career road for that to happen.  Too many changes, forced as well as voluntary, to build the savings and pension pots I would need finance an early retirement.  A variety of circumstances reduced the pots over time, and I’ve been playing catch up most of my working life.  I should have started saving when I was much younger, in my early 20s, not my late forties, but other things got in the way.

So I’m not even looking at 65 as my retirement age, even though legally I will be entitled to do so (unless of course laws change and that is extended).  Fitness and health permitting – and right now they are both keeping up very well – it will be 70 I think.  Not that long really……but hopefully enough time to get some good contracts in and replenish some of those lost savings.  I don’t think it will be a wealthy retirement, again time is not on my side, but I expect it to be a comfortable one.

The kids, my younger two angels, will be in their mid teens by then, 16 and 18, and hopefully responsible enough to be able to leave now and then, because Ania and I want to do some trips of our own, spend some leisure time together.  Before I get to decrepit to enjoy it.

There are places I would like to go to, and things I would like to do.

I want to return to Crete for a start.  We had a good holiday there, and I loved the island’s rugged beauty and the lovely beaches and warm blue sea.  I would like to see more of it.  In particular, I would love to get the ferry across to Gavdos, wherein lies the EU’s southernmost point, closer to Libya than Athens.  It’s a tiny rugged island south of Crete, with a permanent population of around 40 and no tourist industry to speak of.  One small pension in the main town, and a couple of other places that take in paying guests.  A couple of buses and not much else.  Most visitors tend to camp on the various beaches, under the old gnarled olive groves, where they lead a Spartan and bohemian life for a few days or weeks, cooking on camp fires by moonlight and playing guitars and just chilling in a hippy kind of way.  I’d love to give it a try sometime.

Then there is Australia – bit more ambitious than Gavdos, and more expensive too.  But I’d like to watch a test match at the SCG, swim off Bondi Beach, and take a look at the Great Barrier Reef (keeping a close eye out for Great Whites, of course).  Most of all – and this is something I’ve thought about for 40-odd years – I’d love to climb to the top of Ayers Rock and drink a six pack of Fosters while watching the sun go down on New Year’s Eve.  Just me and the beer and the stars and the silence.  It must be magical, and very probably illegal.

There is the Cabo de Gata national park in Almeria, southern Spain.  Again, this would be a return journey, as we’ve stayed along the coast at Roquetas de Mar a couple of times in my second cousin’s apartment, and in both visits we’ve driven out to Cabo in the hire car several days.  We usually use the long sandy beach next to the little fishing village of Cabo de Gata itself and it’s lovely.  We also drove along a few kilometres, over a spur in the rugged coastline to a small secluded beach next to a lighthouse.  The beach doesn’t seem to have a name (or at least one I’ve been able to find), and it has no amenities apart from a small space to park the car, but it’s lovely.  The first time there were only about a dozen people there, most of us naked, and the sea was warm and the sun shone in a cloudless late September sky.  I went again a couple of years later, in August, the peak season, and it was packed – hardly anywhere to park the car, never mind ourselves, so we gave it a miss. 

But I’d like to spend a couple of weeks exploring the park.  I’d rent a place at one of the small fishing villages that scatter the coastline, one fairly centrally located, get a mountain bike from somewhere and ride.  Ideally I would go out of the peak season – late May/early June or late September – when the area is less crowded with less traffic on the roads but it’s still hot and sunny.  I would take the coastal paths and explore the little coves that are hard to reach by car, or head inland a bit and take a look at the harsh semi-desert of the interior.  I would love that.

I’d like to take a long relaxing train ride.  Something ridiculous, like the full length of the Amsterdam – Moscow or Prague sleeper service via Cologne, Berlin, Copenhagen and Warsaw.  I did the Cologne – Warsaw bit on my way home from the UK back in 2010 (my trip to Trinidad was aborted because of the Iceland volcano and European airspace was closed for a week, so it was my only way home), and I’d like another go, but in more comfort – perhaps First Class with a sleeper cabin to myself.  Cost again……but it would be fun.  Alternatively, I read about a new service that runs from Seattle across the Canadian border to Vancouver and on to Whistler in the Rocky Mountains.  The carriages are mostly those glass-domed panorama ones that Canadian Pacific Railways use of the Trans-Canada route, and the scenery must be absolutely stunning with the track running on a strip between the Pacific and the Rockies.

I want to go to Croatia and sail along the coast visiting some of the 1000 plus islands, most of which are uninhabited.  Santorini in Greece – I read a book years ago that identified the island, pre-volcanic explosion that ended the Minoan civilization 4000 years ago, as a likely candidate for mythical Atlantis.  The book captured my imagination and I’ve thought about it a lot over the years, so I’d like to see it for myself one day.  It looks a lovely place for a vacation anyway, whether Atlantis or not.

A safari in Africa would be nice, and achievable too, perhaps.  We made friends with someone in Trinidad who was from Johannesburg, and we keep in touch and often talk about visiting them, but work and schools and cost have made it impossible so far.  But we could do it, with a little luck, and quite soon.

A return to Trini would be good too, to catch up with my mate Phil and his missus Chrissie, whose wedding was a highlight of our time there four years ago (so long!).  Bake ‘n’ shark on Maraccas Beach in the summer sun, with a chill box full of Carib beer has its attractions as well.

I’d like to see more of Italy.  I spent a couple of months in Rome, working in the Vatican, some years ago, but it was winter, wet and cold, so a trip in better climes would be enjoyable.  Then Tuscany, avoiding Tony Blair and assorted wannabe and neverwillbe celebs as much as possible, and a drive down the spine of the country on some of those wonderful roads so beloved of the Top Gear team.

So I have a bit to do, to satisfy that little lot.  No doubt there will be other ideas and plans come along in the fullness of time, but these will do as a starting point.  If I manage even half of them I will be a happy man, and will have stuff to write about on here for years to come.  I’m very conscious that the nature of this blog has changed over the time I’ve been writing it – it’s less a travelogue nowadays and more of an opinion piece.  That’s partly because there has been so much going on in the world that I’ve had an opinion on, and partly because, over the last couple of years anyway, the travel has tailed off a bit. 

But hopefully I’ll have some new destinations coming up over the rest of this year – watch this space.