Dear LPG, 

I think that most pensioners who have already reached the milestone I want to talk about today will have never thought about it unless, for them, it is now a lot closer than ‘somewhere way over there on the horizon’, if it has not already passed them by.  

I wonder if anyone else is experiencing a ’69th year mini life-crisis’?  When I found myself getting to the age of 60, that had a sobering effect on my emotional state of mind but there was not really time for all that because I was still working and, although I was looking for retirement in the eye so to speak, I was much too busy to worry about all that stuff.  A couple of years later, when I was nearly there, I found that there were mixed emotions.  

I don’t think that I am only talking about myself when I suggest that, at that point in our lives, we are most probably so busy with work that there is little time to worry about the future while the few moments that we do find ourselves looking ahead, are spent either looking forward to all the stress-free days to come or worrying about how we’re going to manage financially.

That is traumatic enough but having survived all that, I found that the next ten years have flown by.   I think that I am as busy as I ever was but, for the drivers among us, it is that letter which notifies that you need to complete a government form in order to keep your driver’s license that brings you down to earth a bit.

We are all living a lot longer these days, and according to the internet, when we get to the ripe old age of 69 we have at least another 11 years on average before we really need to worry about what comes next, although the bible’s Psalm 90 v. 10 can also get you thinking a bit. 

I have decided that the retirement end of life is a bit like a pregnancy (no matter if you are a lady or a gentleman).  Most people have now heard about the 3 trimesters.  There is the first bit where for the mother, everything changes, the second bit where she is just getting used to it and then comes the really hard part.  

In retirement I think that we also get three trimesters so to speak.  If you, like me, are looking septuagenaries in the eye at the moment with a degree of trepidation, approach it as that 2nd retirement trimester; the bit in the middle where you are well and truly used to being retired and enjoying it! 

OK, Hither Green.