Are you "keeping busy?"

It is just a nice way of asking ‘what are you doing now you are not working? I do not see a problem with it.

I think it is a question to make conversation. Unless you tell them something, they don’t know what to talk to you about, especially if they are former work colleagues and work was the thing you had in common. Just tell them you are enjoying more time to read, or garden, or have taken up a new hobby or whatever……they don’t really want to know if you are keeping busy. Just give them something else to talk about, to get them off the amount of free time you may or may not have.

The question I hate is about holidays, “Are you going somewhere nice?” I know it is just a starter question, but to me it infers that some places( exotic ones?) are worth going to but others are not.

Nobody I know asks me that, they know it is a stupid question to ask me.

It’s been asked a few times the answer I give is I have no timetable and I love it!

What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?
Apparently not even when you are retired.

If asked, I would be tempted to say "Bot if I can possibly avoid it".

‘As busy as I want to be, thanks,’ would be my reply. After a very busy weekend I had a lovely lazy day yesterday - I enjoy plenty of those now.

One thing I never thought when approaching retirement, over 10 years ago now, was, ‘Oh, good - I’ll have plenty of time for all the cleaning I don’t usually do!’

I’ve always had a bit of an anti-thing for those people who tell you they haven’t sat down all day, as if it was some sort of virtue. I particularly remember one such (a SAHP!) who invariably met me at the door with a duster or damp cloth in her hand, for the endless wiping of surfaces, and a sigh of martyr-ish exhaustion.

Oopsadaisy, I have to say the 'lucky' comments really grate on me. Like many others on these boards, working all the hours both in the home and out of it. Scrimping and scraping, then, just when you think your life may ease a little....well the last two years and now war, shortages. Lucky does not immediately spring to mind. I would not like to be young now though, got to be honest.

Too busy, I feel as though I need to cut back on activities. This is the life, loving every minute …We are the lucky ones.

I retired at 60 from teaching. No-one has ever asked if I'm keeping busy over the last four years. I do keep myself busy by various projects but can be incredibly lazy when I want. I've earned that right as I worked hard when teaching and brought up two children.

As an older person, I do think of the currently retired as lucky. Mainly because, due to the raising of the pension age, that I'll be lucky if I'm ever able to retire.

I appreciate retirees have paid into the system, but so have I and will do for many more years than current retirees.

Of course, none of that is the fault of the elderly. It's the result of the government who want to work us until we die. But when I think of my bloke who retired at my age, while I still have at least 10 more years of work ahead, it is a little galling. I don't begrudge him, but I'd love to have what he has.

Its' funny isn't it? The harder we work the 'luckier' we get!

I always have so much to do I often wonder how I ever found time to go to work. ?

Yes and the ‘ it’s alright for you, you’re retired’ well I am now, but for years I worked and looked after the children whilst MrOops worked away from home, so I think we’ve earned it and we’ve earned our State Pension as well as we’ve paid in a vast amount between us over the 53 years that we’ve both worked.
I don’t ever remember thinking of Pensioners as ‘lucky’ when I was younger, do you?

I've had a lot of remarks about how lucky I am to be retired, all from people under retirement age, some the age of my grown up children.
I have worked full time since I left school, with a gap when my children were small, then working the twighlight shift in a supermarket.
I retired at 67. Perhaps I look so much younger than that now I'm so carefree!

I always say, I am doing exactly what I want to do, when I want to do it.

I take it these people who ask this do not know you very well? That makes them much easier to ignore.