One Year On

Retirement

The beginning of this week was the anniversary of giving up work, so a time to reflect on how my first year of retirement has gone. I think it's fair to say it hasn't gone quite as planned!

I had a convivial leaving do in my last week and, on my last day of work I was presented with generous gifts, including some gin and an amazing crossword compiled for me specially, now sat in its frame on display in the living room. I enjoyed solving it - this was the completed grid. I also enjoyed the walking book (The Old Ways) a lot and found the book about botanicals (The Drunken Botanist) helpful as I set out on a journey to create a perfect gin (q.v.). Solving my puzzle, l was inspired to consider another new hobby too...

My celebratory walk on my first day of not working was inauspicious and it wasn't long before COVID-19 impacted my plans.  As if it's the 90s turned out to be William's last school concert as his Upper Sixth year was abruptly curtailed and he left school, and the Thorpe Morieux walk I led for Joyce's Walking group turned out to be the last group walk for some time. So many things I had planned on doing were CANCELLED. But that gave me time for my two new hobbies...

Crosswords

I was still doing my regular TimesforTheTimes crossword blogs and started doing the Financial Times, Independent and Guardian crosswords too, which are blogged on the Fifteensquared site. So sometimes I was doing quite a few in a day - like this and this.  Incidentally, I finished that book of 200 crosswords just before the end of the year. 

I decided to try my hand at compiling crosswords. My first attempt (and its answers) were published just here. But then I decided to provide a Weekend Quick Cryptic crossword for the readers of the TimesforTheTimes Quick Cryptic crossword blogs, as people had been complaining that The Times doesn't publish one on a Saturday. My Lockdown Diversion crossword was well received so I was encouraged to do more and now, alternating with a fellow crossword enthusiast, Phil Jordan, I publish a new one every fortnight via my fornightly Friday QC blogging slot. We are now up to number 19 with the next one, the 20th - entitled "Blooming Lovely" due for publication shortly. You can find an index to all the Weekend Quick Cryptic crosswords, here. They seem to be quite popular.

As for solving, with all the practice I've been getting, my solving times have improved quite a bit, with a new Personal Best of 5 minutes 58 seconds in May. I'm not likely to beat that any time soon! I enter all the Times competition crosswords and have been rewarded with prizes on the Sunday Times crossword in September and the Monthly Club Special in November. I won £100 for the latter (not to be sneezed at) and £125 worth of Cross pens for the former. Mind you they didn't arrive until last month, but they were worth the wait. You can see them here.

The annual  Sloggers & Betters Weekend and Times Crossword Championships were also both victims of the COVID-19 restrictions. The Times did try to run an online competition but, as I predicted, their technology wasn't up to it and it was a dismal failure. Oh well. Meeting up in person is much more fun.

Distilling

And so to my other new hobby, On A  Mission to Create a Perfect Gin. I started by getting to know my botanicals via infusion but then ordered myself this small still. It arrived the day after my birthday (Let the Adventure Begin) but I needed to get some power adapters for the continental plugs on my water pump and hotplate. Before trying to distil some gin, after a first use with water and cleaning run with water and vinegar, I tried making some Apple Brandy by distilling cider. I didn't get much yield but it was rather nice, especially after I gave it a bit oak ageing (see here). Since then I've made 3 more batches of Apple Brandy, most of which is packed away in the garage. 

Gin, though, is more complicated as there are so many variables - the recipe and quantities of each botanical, whether to infuse before distilling and for how long, whether to use a column or just the alembic hood and what fractions of the distillate to use. Have I got there yet? Well I (and Dawn) prefer mine to commercial blends, but there is still scope for more experimentation to make different variants. After  a final experimental infusion, I was ready to try distilling some. So far over the last 10 months I've made 9 batches. You can see how my recipe has evolved here: Gin#1, Gin#2, Gin#3, Gin#4, Gin#5, Gin#6, Gin#7, Gin#8 and Gin#9.

A final use of the still has been some Whisky. I got a kit for Christmas. It was quite time-consuming, but this was the final result. Not bad, but I don't think I'll be doing that again.

Beer

Of course I have still been making beer, and I've now got a stack of boxes of bottles in my garage. Brews in the last year include: a Wheat Tripel, an Oatmeal Stout, an Imperial Stout, a Christmas Ale, a New England IPA an American Pale Ale and a Berlin Raspberry Wheat Beer. The Imperial Stout, American Pale Ale and Raspberry Wheat beer are tasting particularly good.

I am a member of CAMRA and was intending to volunteer to help at the East Anglian Beer Festival, but that got cancelled, along with all the others I might have gone to. But instead I've been attending the Beer52 Cyberfests. The first one was quite a disaster (see here), but they have got better. The next is a St Patrick's Day celebration, and my beers for that have arrived already.

Walking

It was rather disappointing that none of the walking festivals I was going to attend happened, but I still did plenty of walking, although a lot on my own, with just one or two other people or small groups. I created quite a few of my own walks, often joining up with previous walks. One day I must map the paths in Suffolk I have used. I still had much enjoyment. Despite it being cancelled, I still did the 3 walks I was going to lead in the Suffolk Walking Festival on the appointed days in May - The The Bluebell Walk, The Princess, the Bombers and the Ponies and The Source of Two Rivers. Highlights of the year included Joyce's Mini-Walking Festival in October, with groups restricted to 6, and doing the LDWA Flower of Suffolk walk with a small group in August. My favourite, I think, was the Shingle Street walk I did with Ann in November. My full list of walks from 2020 can be found on my John's Walks 2020 page. So far this year the weather hasn't been so good and no group walks are allowed, but I've done a few, mostly from home. Which reminds me - time to create my John's Walks 2021 page.

Music

This has probably been the most affected area of interest by the pandemic. No concert in Cambridge performing Orff's Carmina Burana and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms and no Saint Michael's Singers/Tudor Singers reunion together for a week's singing in Southwell as planned, like we did in 2018. I never expected the Art Themen at the Hunter Club in March to be my last live concert of 2020. But there has been some lovely streamed music - the Lockdown St. John's Passion, the Headhunters Live concerts from Chris Ingham's living room, particularly the one with his resident Hunters Club Trio, a concert from Hannah Turner, daughter of close friends from University days, Sara Dowling singing from her living room, and watching the Leonard Bernstein Unanswered Question lectures again.

Home Produce

We continue to grow chillis, but this year Dawn started growing other things too and I branched out into other pickling. Starting with Pickled onions in April, I tried my hand at Pickled Beetroot, Pickled Cucumbers, Mixed Pickles and a much admired Piccalilli, as well as the usual Pickled Chillis and Chilli Sauces. I've also been making regular use of my bread machine and make home-made pizza most weeks. And I've made my first Sloe Gin. The plan, as usual, was to give a selection  of the produce along with some beers and (new this year) gin and apple brandy to family members for Christmas, but only Jonny and Natalie are close enough for us to have been able to deliver any. I have a big box of jars and boxes of bottles waiting to be distributed!

Family

Having mentioned family... well we've all been affected. Laura got locked out of her lab from March to September so was unable to do her experiments for her PhD. William left school in March and has had only one term in residence at York University, studying at home this term. Although she had to study from home for the Summer Term of her second year, Sarah's year out in industry from her Maths Degree course in York, working for the ONS at the Ministry of Justice in Leeds has been less affected but she has also been restricted in activities and travel. Dawn continues to teach but entirely online so far this term, spending most of her time in the study. For the first time we had Easter without Laura, but at least we had a family get together in September for Sarah's 21st birthday and were all able to get together on Christmas Day. We even had our traditional Christmas Eve Felixstowe walk.

Other family get togethers have been limited to video calls and Zoom meetings. Dawn's side of the family instigated a weekly Family Zoom Quiz, which is good fun, but we have only won it twice. I know nothing about popular TV, Celebrities, Films or Pop Music so I often can't help.

The Coming Year

So what of the coming year? I've had my first vaccination and Dawn should get hers soon. There will be no Mallorca or Suffolk Walking Festivals again, but maybe Marbella will be on in October. We should be back to walking in small groups by the end of the month and Joyce is planning a Spring Walking Mini-Festival. The Orwell Challenge will be the first big group walk - I'm looking forward to doing that again. Maybe we'll get to complete the Norfolk Coast Path too. It will be good to meet up with walking friends again.

No May East Anglian Beer Festival, but there are plans for one in September and the St Michael Singers/Tudor Singers are having a postponed week in residence at Southwell cathedral in July.

It will also be good to have the annual  Slogger & Betters Weekend and Times Crossword Championships happening again and, I hope, Phil and I will be able to keep up the Weekend Quick CrypticCrossword compiling.

More beer brewing, more gin making and plenty more produce to come, I think - Dawn had planted an ominous number of seeds, currently germinating in the greenhouse.

But most of all, it will be good to be able to meet up with family and friends again. Maybe we will have another trip to Melrose like our last traveling away in February last year. I'm looking forward to the easing of restrictions and getting my retired life back as I had planned.