The end of the year is the traditional time to review events of the previous twelve months, and plans for the next twelve. Normally this would be a review of our wargame activities, but this year it has been a review of our life style.
Jan and I are fortunate to share both of our main activities, which are Wargaming and walking. For the past eight years we have run two walking groups for our local U3A. Monday is a 5-6 hour mountain walk and Thursday a more moderate 3 hour valley walk.
Blogging has also become a major part of my weekly routine. Each week I publish four blogs. One for each walk, an update for my 1813 campaign and this one. I also have a Facebook for each of our walking groups, and post an update each week
During the past year I have found that it has all become quite a chore, rather than something I really enjoy. Jan had an accident early in the year, which stopped her doing the more strenuous Monday walks. We had both already found the harder walks more challenging, and without her company I enjoyed them even less. I also felt quite guilty leaving her at home each Monday.
This commitment has grown up over many years, and has done so because we enjoyed it and welcomed each new activity. Obviously I enjoyed all of the administration; otherwise I would not have done it. It filled the long hours of retirement, and we made many hundreds of friends through the two U3A groups. They also became the centre of our social life. But as you get older you have less enthusiasm and energy, and what was great fun can become a challenge.
So in late November I decided to review our activities and to rearrange them to suit our current circumstances. Our weekly routine would be designed to suit what we wanted to do now, rather than what we had committed to over the years.
Our wargame activities had changed greatly since we started our 1813 campaign in 2009. It had always been a vehicle to provide us with an endless supply of battles to wargame. But it has grown from a solo campaign for the two of us to a PBEM campaign with ten players from around the world, and then back to a solo campaign again. As a PBEM campaign we completed at least one, and often two, wargames a week, and kept it going 365 days a year. More recently a wargame lasts 10 to 14 days. We still enjoy it and it still remains a major part of our life style. But gone is the hectic programme to keep up with updating ten players each week and Wargaming the resulting battles.
We decided that the major adjustment would be to our walking groups. We started the first group in 2015 to share our love of hill walking. We had a great response, but kept our weekly walks to a maximum of 16 on each walk. We soon found that we had more people wanting to walk and rather than disappoint we started a second group. Covid brought all of this to an end. Here in Spain restrictions were very severe, including being unable to leave the house except to shop or medical appointments. As the restrictions were relaxed we started the Monday walk with just 6, then 10 then 16 members. Eventually we restarted the Thursday group, but with valley walks in place of the hill walks.
Now that Jan could no longer to the Monday walks, we have cancelled the weekly hill walks and will concentrate on the weekly valley walks. This will remove half of the administration and give us more time for more sedate activities – such as sitting in the local square to enjoy a cold drink in the warm sunshine, even at this time of year.
About the same time that we started the reorganisation, we began watching the very enjoyable Netflix series The Crown. Last week we watched the final episode, when Queen Elizabeth is asked to review the plans for “London Bridge”, the code name for her ceremonial funeral. She was asked to do so because she was 79 and approaching 80 and the programme explored her reaction to accepting old age as a relatively fit and active person.
My 80th birthday is in June 2024.
Thistlebarrow,
ReplyDeleteI hope that you enjoyed your time in the UK and didn’t find the rotten weather too much to bear.
I’m also having a rethink about what I want to concentrate on in the future. Sue and I want to continue to cruise as often as we can whilst we are fit enough to do so. We want to have a bank of memories to metaphorically keep us warm in our old age.
We need to downsize and move house to somewhere where we don’t have steep stairs to cope with. I’m looking seriously at my numerous collections, and I’m hoping to hone them down considerably as the year progresses. I also intend to concentrate on my Belle Epoque project which is one that I can use in several different ways as well as my new model railway. I’m hoping to be able to combine the two … but that’s very much a hope rather than a definite plan.
I’m hoping that my health situation will at least stabilise this year and won’t continue to get slowly worse. At present I’m waiting to find out how successful the radiotherapy has been and whether I will need to remain taking daily doses of chemotherapy drugs. When you add in ongoing sleep apnoea and the need to use a C-PAP machine and my feeble attempts to lose weight - even though I am managing to exercise more than I used to - I sometimes feel as if I’m becoming a physical wreck … and then I look around and realise that there are many other people who are in a far worse situation than me.
I’ll be 74 next month, and looking back I don’t think I’ve had a bad life … and I’m hoping for many more years to come!
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob
DeleteMy son lives north of Newcastle, so normally has the worse of the winter weather. However this year the storms were all in the south, so our weather was better than expected. We even managed one or two days with a little sun. But very glad to get back to our Spanish winter, where it was 20c when we landed at Alicante.
I have been following your medical problems on your blog, and think you are doing the right thing to make the best of the moment and work on that bank of memories. It is sometimes hard to keep positive, but the alternative is too depressing to consider. As you say there is always some worse off than you. But that is easier said than done when you are fighting a major illness and having to cope with all of the depressing side effects - sleep, weight, energy levels etc.
I have pretty well given up on trying to downsize my wargame armies, scenery and books. I thought that it would be relatively easy to sell off my 15mm AB armies, given that they are such a popular manufacturer and the figures hardly used. But after a lot of work preparing them I had no interest at all. And trying to sell them from Spain made postage a real problem. So I have just given up on that idea, and they can bury them with me.
I am sure it will be even harder for you to downsize. You have such a wide range of wargame interests, and always seem to be finding new ones. I fear that when you dispose of one you may well replace them with two more.
I think we are both very lucky to have such absorbing hobbies in wargaming and blogging. Both require a degree of concentration and a considerable amount of planning and thought. What better way to keep mentally active and distract us from more depressing thoughts.
It is a shame that you are not more mobile. I find walking, and particularly in a group, to be essential for mental and physical health. You don't have to climb mountains to get the benefit, it is more about the companionship and regular physical exercise. When I had my prostate problems my local GP recommended a local "walk for health" group. They only walked around our local park, and very slowly, but the discipline of meeting regularly and having some gently exercise helped me a lot.