Retired (again)

Yesterday was my last day at work and so I am retired again or as my daughter likes to put it for the fifteen millionth time.

I think I have retired five times not fifteen million.

First time I took a redundancy back in 1996 and thought that I would enjoy retirement, we had a new house on some land and I was looking forward to gardening sewing and all those other household chores that seemed to get done in a rush.

 Over the years I had become pretty good at getting things done quickly and so by 9am house work was done. Gardening was hard work and once it was done only required a bit of weeding, didn't even need to water as we had a septic which used the sprinkler system once it had been treated. Although we had two and a half acres we also had a ride on mower. Sewing, well, I was no longer going to work so no need of any more clothes. Basically I was bored. When a course was advertised in the local newspaper to do a secretarial work including touch typing, I was there, as I had always wanted to touch type. A few months into the course  local business wanted a secretary/receptionist for a couple of days a week. Yep, I could do that, I stayed for five years.

Retirement number two as we moved states to be closer to family and a warmer climate .

As house prices had increased we couldn't just sell one house to buy another so started looking for some work. That was difficult so ended up in China teaching English for seven or eight years. Warren decided that he wanted to be at home (Oz) once he turned sixty so we said goodbye to China.

 Retirement number three

A conversation between myself and daughter resulted in me nannying for her, she paid me what she would have paid for childcare plus a fuel allowance to get there and do any ferrying around of the boys that was needed. I did this for two years until Aidan was five. Warren wanted to return to work in China so we went back for one more year. Not sure if this was retirement probably not as I went from one to the other.,

Retirement number four.

Quite happy at home, Warren played tennis twice a week and had taken up archery. I was sewing up a storm for charity, all was good. Daughter rang and asked me about doing some work at her school. One of the teacher aides was taking a five week holiday in term time and they needed some one to fill in. Sure, I could do that. Towards the end of that five weeks, I was asked if I was interested in a casual position of three days a week. I really enjoyed the work so said yes.

A few years ago we had agreed to do a "Big Lap", date was set, caravan bought and so I have retired for the fifth time to do that. My boss said yesterday that she hopes I will come back to do some fill in work every now and then, we shall see what develops.

Thirty days, one month until we leave on the Big lap. We have bought our tickets to the tennis and have booked a caravan site in Melbourne as it will be school holidays as well as the Aussie Open, we haven't booked anywhere else as yet.