If you have visited our house you will be familiar with the sight of corks from bottles of fizz in big glass jars which act as bookends on the shelves in the back room. In recent years, the corks have spilt out on to the shelves themselves. Every cork celebrates a special occasion - birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, New Years, new jobs, exams passed and so on are recorded for posterity before each new cork joins the others that have been piling up for more than 30 years. No wonder we are running out of space!
Today, another cork is ready for inscription before going on the shelves. It's from the bottle of champagne we drank tonight to mark my "retirement"....or to be more accurate, the start of the next phase of our lives together, unhindered by work programmes and availability commitments.
No gentle wind down - instead a big effort right to the end. Despite working flat out on Friday, the last report wasn't finished by the time we left for a get together in the Cotswolds with the people I trained with back in January 2002, plus partners and one small child who delighted everyone! It was a great short break - good food, excellent company, fine weather and a good walk on Saturday to burn off the excesses of the night before. As usual, people were surprised and delighted to see Steve looking so well! It was quite emotional saying goodbye to everyone at the end of it, but I'm sure we'll keep in contact after everything we've been through together.
Back to reality when we returned home on Sunday, but the report was finally finished on Sunday evening, checked, proof read and submitted this morning leaving the rest of the day to complete the last bits of paperwork, disconnect and pack up the IT equipment, and put documents into boxes ready to be collected tomorrow and returned to the office. We can hardly get to the front door now for the mass of boxes in the hall.
We had planned to go out for a celebratory meal this evening, but fortunately decided to put it on hold - by the time the packing was finished it was too late and we were too tired to hit the town. But that's OK, because we can turn this into an extended celebration instead!
No alarm tomorrow. City Link won't come until 2 pm at the earliest, so we can enjoy a lie in on the first day (if we want to) of the the rest of our lives. Oh yes!
Today, another cork is ready for inscription before going on the shelves. It's from the bottle of champagne we drank tonight to mark my "retirement"....or to be more accurate, the start of the next phase of our lives together, unhindered by work programmes and availability commitments.
No gentle wind down - instead a big effort right to the end. Despite working flat out on Friday, the last report wasn't finished by the time we left for a get together in the Cotswolds with the people I trained with back in January 2002, plus partners and one small child who delighted everyone! It was a great short break - good food, excellent company, fine weather and a good walk on Saturday to burn off the excesses of the night before. As usual, people were surprised and delighted to see Steve looking so well! It was quite emotional saying goodbye to everyone at the end of it, but I'm sure we'll keep in contact after everything we've been through together.
Back to reality when we returned home on Sunday, but the report was finally finished on Sunday evening, checked, proof read and submitted this morning leaving the rest of the day to complete the last bits of paperwork, disconnect and pack up the IT equipment, and put documents into boxes ready to be collected tomorrow and returned to the office. We can hardly get to the front door now for the mass of boxes in the hall.
We had planned to go out for a celebratory meal this evening, but fortunately decided to put it on hold - by the time the packing was finished it was too late and we were too tired to hit the town. But that's OK, because we can turn this into an extended celebration instead!
No alarm tomorrow. City Link won't come until 2 pm at the earliest, so we can enjoy a lie in on the first day (if we want to) of the the rest of our lives. Oh yes!
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