Retirement: an olive bough but not a bed of roses

Retirement, I had been led to believe, was a period of life in which one rested a while and recovered from the exhaustion of working life.

That, it seems, is not so. It’s just the opportunity to replace one form of work by another. Or, in my case, numerous others.

To be honest, and I think it’s probably best to be reasonably honest since I’m not leader of the Conservative Party (a role so much in the stratospheric elite that such bourgeois considerations as truthfulness simply don’t apply), to be honest, as I say, some of these tasks should soon come to an end. They involve such chores as submitting requests for pensions, which in turn require documents to be hunted down, copied, occasionally authenticated by a lawyer, and posted and all sorts of other exciting and life-enhancing bureaucratic tasks.

Picking olives in November

Others, however, are only just starting. One such was, it appears, the harvesting of olives. Not that we have an olive tree or anything. But Danielle and I went out walking the woods a couple of weeks ago and came across a rather sad and lonely olive tree which clearly didn’t belong to anyone, so we picked the olives.

It was an eye-opening experience for me. I tried one of the olives I picked, since I like olives, only to discover that it was horribly inedible. It seems it takes weeks of processing to turn them into the kind of delicious appetiser that I enjoy so much. Off the tree, they are neither delicious or appetising.

You may have already known that but I didn’t. Among other things, retirement seems to be turning into quite a steep apprenticeship in things I never previously realised I needed to know.

This all happened on 9 November. And one of the more attractive aspects of the experience is that we could be out there in light clothes. In fact, I was in shirt sleeves, Danielle in even shorter sleeves. Just this weekend we were out on the beach. Not actually swimming, you understand, although there were some swimmers there – one of them claimed to keep swimming right through the winter, so I dismiss his judgement of the temperature as having any kind of rational basis at all – but we did paddle a little. And it certainly felt warm.

November beach walk

So it’s been a bit of a shock to discover in the time since then that the temperature in Valencia really can fall. It can even become wintry. That’s particularly clear if you’ve mistimed overdue work on your radiators.

The radiators in question needed work because they had been removed from the walls when the painters were in this summer. They’d put them back up but radiators apparently need various technical things done to them, involving things like air (which I believe needs to be removed) and pressure (which needs to be raised). Clearly, this is something that, as a retired person, I should now be learning to do myself, but I’m glad to say Danielle was sensible enough to book an appointment for a plumber to come and see to it.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t be there until this morning, and this morning, when I took the dogs out, there was actually frost on the grass. Yes. Really. Proper frost.

Central heating is just one of those things most of us take for granted these days. Well, I can assure you that nothing teaches you not to take it for granted quite so much as not having any when the conditions turn frosty. Why, yesterday we had to go so far as to open the windows to let in some warm air.

It’s good to have central heating again. I promise not to take it for granted again. I truly appreciate what a blessing it really is.

In fact – it’s time for me to get rid of this jumper and be back in shirtsleeves. As though ready to go olive picking again.

Central heating dialogue

Our central heating system isn’t as young as it was, and is turning a little cranky.

It’s equipped with a sophisticated regulatory system, with sensors as well as a timer, so it can work out what the temperature is and compare it with what we reckon it ought to be for the time of day, and the day of the week. Sadly, it often seems to go through that highly intelligent process and then decide, “screw that for a game of soldiers, I feel like heating right now,” or, alternatively, “you think I should be pumping out heat? Hey, give me a break – it’s cold out there – imagine what you’re demanding of me.” So we have to open the windows in summer just to let the central heating out, and freeze in winter when it obstinately pretends that it’s time for the heating to idle a while.

This morning I woke up at a stupid time. I was downstairs making coffee at 4:30, and shivering in the frosty temperature. However, at first I hesitated to turn up the heating – it seemed somehow inappropriate, as though it was discourteous to demand that the heating get going so much earlier than its usual time of 6:00. Just because I couldn’t sleep, did I have a right to interrupting an ageing heating system’s much-needed rest?

Eventually, though, I decided I could stand it no longer. I whipped over to the thermostat and moved the setting up from 14 to 21. I did it as quickly as possible, so I could get away before the system objected. 

And I was clearly right to expect resentment from it. Because nothing happened. I was standing right by the boiler, and it remained quiet. No pleasant roaring sound indicating that it was getting to work to warm me up. It clearly had absolutely no intention of reacting to my unreasonable demands. Eventually, I became so concerned that I decided there must be something the matter.

“It’s got to be set to hot water only. It Wouldn’t take this long otherwise.”

So I opened the flap that gives access to the dial. It was firmly set to both hot water and central heating. There was no excuse for its lack of action.

You're on, aren't you?
So come on

And I’d barely had time to think that before the heating started up.

It was clearly feeling sullen. It had imagined it could get away with not coming on, that I might not notice. But now, caught out, it was saying, “OK, OK, I’m getting to work. But, hey, what the heck are you doing up at this time of day? You expect me to start at 6:00, which is quite bad enough, and now you want heating at 4:30 too? What is the matter with you?”

I slunk away into the bathroom and ran myself a bath. Now, I like my baths hot. I’d barely finished the first two articles in my Guardian before I decided the water was getting too cool. I turned the hot tap on.

Stone cold water flowed out of it. That was OK: it can take a short while before it starts to come through hot. But time went on and on, and all the tap produced was barely liquid ice. Eventually, I turned it off.

A little sheepishly. Because in the background, I could hear the boiler roaring away merrily. It was seemingly telling me, “you asked for heat. I’m giving you heat – you can hear me, can’t you? Now you want hot water as well. Have you no compassion, no empathy? You can bloody well wait. At least, you know you’ll be getting out of the bath into a pleasantly heated bathroom.”

I didn’t say anything in reply. It seemed more judicious just to accept the system’s view, rather than insist on mine. It wasn’t that tough a hardship.

Besides – arguing with my own central heating system? It and I know it might make sense. Anyone else, however, might think I was going round the bend.

Central heating: great if you know how to use it

It’s pleasant to be home early, even if it’s only to continue working. Just being in your own space and not in an office is good for the mood. Though that’s not helped by grey weather and light fading at an impossibly early hour – barely after 4:00, for Pete’s sake. Sheesh. Call that a civilised arrangement?

The worst though is the cold. You can take it out of doors, but indoors? No. Indoors should be toast-like.

So when I got in this afternoon, I made straight for the thermostat.

Now, I didn’t turn it right up to 21 degrees (Celsius, that is; nearly 70 in that silly system some of you insist on still using). I did that the other day and was sweltering within minutes. Having to open windows and all that.

Instead, I pushed it to 19. That, I felt, should do the job.

It didn’t, though. Half an hour later, I was still freezing. Well, not really freezing, I know. Not like the homeless or anything. Not like being outside on a Russian street. Not like the inside of a Russian leader, for that matter. But for me, subjectively, still unpleasantly cold.

So up went the thermostat to 21, after all. 

Still no good though. A while later I felt as unnecessarily chilly as ever.

Great when it works. Not so good when you can't work it

By then, it was pretty well dark. 

“Ah,” I thought to myself, “psychology has a big role to play in these things. I know. I’ll turn on some cheery lights and draw the curtains. Make it look cosy and it’ll feel cosy.”

For a while I kidded myself that this was working, but as my toes started issuing frostbite alerts, I decided that I could delude myself no longer. However hard I tried to convince myself that I was now warm, all the evidence was against me. I was just as cold as when I came in.

“Just as cold?” A nasty suspicion began to form in my mind. I stalked over to the central heating boiler and opened the inspection flap.

It was as I feared. The house wasn’t cold because the thermostat had cut out the heating. It was cold because my wife, in a prudent and wise economy measure, had turned the boiler over to hot water only. The heating was off.

What’s that you say? I should have checked a radiator? I’d have known at once?

Easy to be wise after the event, my friend. Why weren’t you there offering me that advice this afternoon when I needed it? And sparing me a couple of hours of perishing cold indoors?