Back Story

I am 63 and retired, very active for my age and pretty healthy, or so I thought.  I had spent the last 30 years or so of my working life in moderately stressful management roles within a major multinational corporation.  Generally the kind of stress was the sort of thing that business gurus say is "healthy", that is it encourages good performance and creativity.  With one exception I can recall, my bosses were good people to work for, by which I mean they were kind and generally showed trust in me and let me alone to do my job.  Many were also effective coaches and mentors, even before these terms became popular in management circles.  One was a bully and he happened to coincide with a bad point in my personal life; it was the only time that I found the stress of work unacceptable.  

When I stopped work in July 2013, I had a list of things I wanted to do and objectives for my retirement, a consequence of the pre-retirement planning process provided by my employer.  I was pretty good at strategising and planning at work but, I suspect like many people, I had let my private life pretty much take care of itself.  That is probably why I ended up separated from the mother of my children at the age of 48.  

My then-wife initiated the process.  The separation and divorce were conducted in a civilised manner but it was emotionally wrenching and left me in pieces and feeling worthless.  Eventually, with the help of counselling, I learnt to value myself, to be much more positive about life and to balance work and leisure in my life.  I also came to realise that it was for the best for both of us, and probably for the children who would have otherwise grown up with two bitter and angry parents.  I moved on, remarried, am delightfully in love with my wife Helen and still have three good looking sons that I love and that I can be proud of; Julian, Oliver and Tony.  Now that they have now grown up we are closer than we ever have been. I hope they will agree that we now get on well. In any event, I think this illness of mine came as much as a shock to them as to me and they have shown immense kindness and concern.  I dare to believe that they love me too.  So not much stress now in family life.

As for being active, I have been a runner for the last 15 years or so, since the divorce.  I also swam occasionally, and cycled energetically to and from work in the last few years before I retired.  Cycling in London is not however something done for pleasure so this has largely stopped.  Now I run and go to the gym to keep fit. Maintaining or improving fitness was one of the key goals I set in my retirement plan and that has been moderately successful; 2 or 3 10k races and a half marathon each year unless I was injured.  Unfortunately that happened all too often, usually because I over-trained, and to rectify this last year I decided to work with a running coach, a nice guy called Shaun who has been helping me run faster than I ever thought I could.  Until now of course.

Running also brought my wife Helen and I together, or more strictly Hashing. If you don't already know, it is social activity that involves a degree of exercise, sometimes in beautiful countryside, occasionally in exotic settings around the world, and never competitive.  This is usually followed by undoing all the benefits of the exercise by drinking beer.  Some hashers put a lot of emphasis on the alcohol, indeed the club is sometimes known as "a drinking club with a running problem".  But most of that is bravado.  While beer, cider or perhaps wine is important, the real attraction is a huge group of acquaintances and friends for whom your status and wealth, or lack of them, are unimportant. Hashers never judge you; they accept people for what they are, an exception being made of violent or anti-social behaviour towards other people, which is generally not tolerated.  Somehow the atmosphere at events is invariably such that such behaviour is very rare; has hers just want to have fun, in an in-PC but respectful way).  If you really need to find out more, check out "Hash HouseHarriers" on the web (or my hash home page CH3).

Apart from exercise, I have been learning Russian for 15 years (and still cannot speak it fluently!), have aspirations to draw and paint well, have become a bit of an oenophile and have obtained a minor qualification in the subject.  Anyway I enjoy drinking the stuff.  Helen and I also go to the theatre, art galleries and shows, occasionally buying painting.  We also get out and walk.  We have done some travelling (China in 2014 and we hoped Latin America this year but that is now looking unlikely). 

This self-gratification is all very well but I have recently felt that I should be doing something more to justify my existence.  I have since 2013 had a voluntary role as a Lay (external) Trustee of King's College London Students' Union (KCLSU), and have recently been asked to become treasurer of a small charity called Arts for Dementia (A4D).  I will also probably become more involved in local politics.  The 2015 general election gave plenty of opportunity but the outcome was not great for the Liberal Democrats, to which I belong.

That’s enough about who I am.  Time to start the journal.