A couple of times recently, people have asked me if I had any plans for retirement.
Perhaps I looked a bit worn out, or down at heel, or just plain old and infirm (or a mixture of all three?) but it did refocus my mind on what is going to happen in the next decade.
Not so long ago I reckoned there would be a natural pathway that would open up and stretch gently away into the sunset, where I would while away my afternoons doing whatever it is that retired folk do. But as time has motored on, I’m less certain that I could achieve much of a level of contentment by stopping this farming life.
There are several factors at play here: one is farming, another involves the differences between the sexes, and mostly it comes down to everyone’s own personality. What makes you happy?
A big part of the problem for me is that farming has been my ambition, my working life, my leisure time, and all my hobbies rolled into one.
I wanted to farm from four years old, and this was to the detriment of education, sport, and meant the sacrifice of any potential pastimes.
School was viewed simply as something that got in the way of helping my father in any way I could, and similarly hobbies merely detracted from the intense pleasure of doing anything agricultural.
The potential to play rugby after school was an easier decision to make because a violent and psychopathic games master had already hammered the joy of team sport out of me.
Education
Greenmount was different, and for the first time in my life I realised that learning about something could be both educational and enjoyable. For me, that was one of the biggest eye openers I’ve ever had.
For all the lofty aspirations that grammar schools pertained to, no one thought of telling them to make it interesting for those daydreamers at the back of the class. I have a son who teaches maths up to A level, and Sam is horrified at some of my tales concerning methods of learning back in the day.
Busy life
I’m not sure how to say this in our current world of oversensitive political correctness but I wonder are women, on average, a whole lot better at the retirement game? Susan stopped work two years ago and like several other ladies in our social circle, has a busier life than ever.
There are the obligatory classes for yoga and Pilates (it appears most females of our species cannot go through life without these sessions).
There are also short trips away with ‘the girls’ to, perhaps, London, Dublin, or Croatia, although these trips are then balanced out by her having to put up with a grumpy, frustrated farmer for a week somewhere, when he spends half his time worrying about what is going wrong back at home.
Garden
Gardening is another time-consuming exercise for her, and despite thousands of hairy looking specimens poking out of pots, regular trips to garden centres always result in a few more appearing.
Rowing for the local Coastal Rowing club is another regular activity, topped up with voluntary work for a children’s charity, and the icing on the cake in recent times has been the building of a polytunnel.
My wife can spend days in there, beavering away frantically before emerging months later, bearing armfuls of fresh produce. Her daily calendar is now so full that I have to make an appointment for her to give me a hand with the cattle and sheep.
Desire
The point here, of course, is that I don’t think I could ever fill my time with anything other than farming.
When someone mentions golf, or woodworking, or more holidays, I just don’t have any desire to do those things.
And considering that no one can make up my mind for me, I’ll have to settle for doing what feels right for me.
At this point in time, my best plan is to farm away for as long as possible, albeit on a descending scale of workload to suit the advancing years.
In addition, having family close by for the past year means that careful planning can mean a bit of willing help from Sam or Tom (my daughter Jenny’s partner) during longer evenings or occasionally at weekends.
Mood
Perhaps this plan is mostly due to a bit of mood fluctuation, since the current spell of perfect autumn weather means that livestock are still outside and looking happy and contented.
Field conditions have improved again after a wet spell during October, and grass is subsequently lasting a bit longer as we head into November.
I suppose if I wrote the same piece during horribly wet weather after Christmas then retirement might seem like a much more attractive proposition.
