31st December 2012

Some people embrace retirement, some have retirement thrust upon them.

I retired twice.

My first retirement happened in 2007. I actually finished work in 2006 and following a period of re-adjustment and numerous unsuccessful job applications decided to retire and draw down my occupational pension.

This, combined with some self employment, generated sufficient funds for me to pay the mortgage and eat.

But it was a worrying three years.

My second retirement happened three years later in 2010 when I turned sixty five and qualified for my State Pension.

As 2013 dawns on the morning of January 1st I will have been without gainful employment for six years.

They have been mixed years.

My leaving work was not anticipated and the level of anxiety about the future and how I would manage both emotionally and financially was high, but we did manage, somehow!

During this period I found myself wondering not only about the events leading to my finishing work, but to the ugliness of the word used to describe my situation, redundant.

It is a horrible word describing a person as no longer being useful in any way.

I was also aware that I had worked in what was meant to be a caring profession, as a minister in the Church of England, and yet, whilst my pension arrangements were dealt with in a highly professional manner, nobody, from my previous Bishop to the Bishop of the Diocese in which I 'retired' or any of their staff bothered to pick up the 'phone to ask, 'how are you doing?'

Perhaps they were afraid of the answer I would give, afraid that they would somehow become responsible?

During the six years opportunities have opened up and one of these opportunities has meant that as a retired clergyman I am from time to time offered a Locum Duty in the Diocese of Europe.

Basically I get somewhere for the indoor critic and I to live and in exchange I spend some time assisting the local church to fulfill it's calling, to break bread and to look after the church building.

I have worked in both Italy and Spain.

Now it might be the Mediterranean diet of Olives and Tomato's, it might be the Seafood or the Menu del Dias in Spain or the Caffe Corretto in Italy, but it seems to me that old age and retirement offer something different in those countries.

In Italy retirement translates roughly as pensione, so Olive Oil etc notwithstanding,a pensioner in the UK would be a pensione in Italy, with an added 'r'.

Perhaps with a little more respect shown, after all Berlusconi is a pensione, it must be the Olive Oil after all, or the Tomato's?

But in Spain there is another word altogether, Jubilacion!

In our local town, amongst the various shops and bars opening and closing and changing hands, a clothing shop is closing down.

Above the door is a sign saying that they are closing due to 'Jubilacion'.

In other words the owner is retiring.

Soon he will be spending his days on the corner by his house, sitting in the january sun chatting with friends or playing dominos in his local bar.

After a lifetime of work; Jubilacion!

2013 promises to be a good year.

I am hoping that my sixth year of retirement will be a year of and for Jubilacion.