According to Geraldine...........

Go on. Sorry.

There are some good comments under the article. Like how ridiculous it is to compare the Pope' s 'job' with things like teaching or shelf stacking in a supermarket. And how people like Alex Ferguson only o n with their jobs because they would miss the limelight if they retired.

People who are employed have no understanding of what it is like to be retired. They seem to think we sit and watch daytime TV all day!

There may be many reasons for carrying on working after pension age but there are also many good reasons for retiring even if you have always loved your job. Retirement gives you opportunitities you will never have had before so if you can afford to retire why not do so and go out and have fun?

If you have skills that require technique, knowledge and thought rather than strength and stamina, fine. It really does depend on the job as well on your health. I know a number of teachers at various levels, craftspeople, people running their own businesses who will go on until they drop. But as Ariadne says, if your job requires target hassle and macho breakfast meetings and boring travel, what is the attraction? I know people who, while still fully able to carry on teaching or doctoring or whatever have lost heart and enthusiasm to the point where they go off and do their own thing.

And the DGC, of course, take up time willingly given! DS1 and family down on Monday, so that's next week sorted.

I am way too busy to take a job. I have agreed to babysit GD 15 months old four days a week for the next 18 months. This GD is into everything, she pushes the dining chairs out and climbs on them to get up on the table, climbs up onto her brother's bunk bed (the ladder is now removed). If she can she will climb the ladder up onto her brother's cubby house which is on stilts. Today she was trying to climb onto her brother's desk so she could get up on his bed. She stands on chairs then starts rocking them until they are swaying back and forth. Runs through the sprinkler then runs off squealing with laughter when you try to catch her. Today she was attempting to climb out of her high chair. She dropped her father's mobile in the toilet, he doesn't leave his things lying around anymore.

Nellie Moved Oh I do agree! I feel very involved and engaged, and know that I am using all my professional skills to good effect, in the community in which I live and further afield, without charging for them - preparing a training PPT now (apart from the fact that I stopped to visit GN!)

AND I can say "No!" if I don't want to do something. That is a very important factor.

I would not like to be bound by timetables, reports, meetings, motorways and sheer exhaustion again. Up at 5.15? Perish the thought.

I'm on my third career.

I'm with you Nellie. Why would I want to go back to all that. When I get time I'll start a new thread about all the things which are good about being retired. Too busy now

"^Extended retirement isn't affordable and it isn't terribly good for us. All the research on healthy longer lives shows that the more engaged and involved we feel, the better we age, physically and mentally. Assuming that people will bow out of being useful because they have hit a numerical age – 65 isn't very old these days – is a waste of their capabilities.^"

Don't assume that! We can be useful without being employed. I feel 'engaged and involved' why does anyone assume you have to be emplyed to be those? Presumably the 'employed' have no understanding of what it is like to be retired.

I am with you there Nellie.

My new career is not being a wage slave any more. I have no desire to work ever again.

On about my fifth I think. Lost count.

I'm still on the first career – I can't think about a second one at the moment.

Saw the comment where someone said the article was too 'fluffy' for a serious topic. Not like Gransnet then

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