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Iam sorry I think the Legal & General by doing this are buying into the whole story they say they want to change.

retirement has changed so lets get lots of pictures of old people doing wildly different things that we can be amazed by or goggle at so that there are all those freaky old people doing peculiar things.

Its like the quote Retirement has changed, no longer the dolling out of carriage clocks and twilight walks on the beach That too was a myth promulgated by people to lazy to know better. Yes, of course it applied to some people, but certainly not the majority. Looking at my parents, born during WW1 and my grandparents, born in the 1880s, not one was given a carriage clock and while one lived by the sea, they were usually too busy to walk there as much as they would have liked to. In previous generations many retired people were living in poverty, barely managing on a state pension.

What I want is not to appear different but to appear normal, part of the whole of society. Adverts, whether for food, make-up, clothes or cars that show people of all ages together, not just young people with children where appropriate. Many older people are still working into their 70s and 80s - and not just as assistants in B&Q. Lawyers, accountants, engineers may not be working full time but they are still working. Some in senior positions.

Other countries have succeeded in incorporating older people into main stream advertising. I picked up a brochure about telecommuniations services in France ayear or two back. The booklet showed single people, young families and older people. The older people were shown as people who bought smart phones and wanted the best service and knew how to use it. None of this elderly carpet slippers old man having how to use a phone being carefully explained to him by a son and grandson, which is how it is always portrayed in the UK.

So next time you advertise insurance products, show people discussing things in an office where the expert is in his 70s and fit and well, show older people running for trains, going away on business trips and, generally doing what everyone else does.

Excellent post Monica. I fully agree.

I feel patronised by so many organisations depicting older people as doddering, gentle, smiley types, befuddled by modern living and needing stair lifts. Many of us were the generation to first use computers, and in turn, mobile phones. I had both before my children and used technology in my workplace.

Tonight I have been, with friends, eating with authentic Syrian food with refugees. Yesterday I completed two chapters of the book I am writing, and tomorrow I shall be walking in the Peak District with old friends, all of us have 'ailments' but we try not to give in to them. We appreciate our mobility and the use-it-or-lose it philosophy. I first abseiled in this area in my 40s.

In retirement I am enjoying having very few plans from day to day - it's good to be able to do very little now and
then, but in September I have lined up several day courses I'll attend and I am going to join a choir and a reading group. I am going on a retreat later this year and if my health allows I shall join a yoga class. I have also taken up lino-cutting/printing and get engrossed in that every now and again.

I still feel the same inside as I did in my 20s, but now have the wisdom that ageing brings and I feel more confident in my own skin. Retirement is a good time for most. I am not wealthy but I get by. I know some pensioners really feel the pinch. I also have friends with health and mobility problems and life is more limited for them. Others are learning to go it alone after the death of a spouse.

It is a time of many transitions, but we shouldn't be written off or patronised. In many ways we are re-writing what it is to be 'senior citizens' and how we approach the inevitable problems ageing can bring.

Good post from silverlining48. I worked for Age UK for 9 years as a home support worker. When I first started I found the job rewarding. I left last year because I was no longer finding it rewarding. Staff in the office would regularly ring me on my day off, and also when I was driving to the next client. I would go to a 70 year old man who looked more like 80. He would just drop amongst other things sandwich bags just where he sat and I had to pick them up before I could start vacuuming. One day I thought to myself what am I doing? I am worth more than this. I felt that the staff in the office weren't bothered about us. The only time they rang about what a client had said was about a complaint but I know I did a good job so that's all that matters to me.

PS Silverlining48 post was about volunteering for Age UK

Well, L&G may consider putting some of their resources into supporting Alzheimers research. Just a thought - and yes I am diagnosed with this so I do have an agenda here.

Plans for retirement, we had many and varied.
Experience of retirement, plans dashed by major health and disability issues.

No one solution for all. But please giveaway from the tech ignorant and confused elderly person who needs to be supported by younger ones.

Spellchecker moment.
Get away. NOT giveaway !

But not to be replaced by grinning, teeth whitened 'seniors' doing bungee jumps

MrA and I have spent 5 years of our retirement exploring the eastern United States in our boat mv Carina. We travelled 6000 miles doing America’s Great Loop, starting in Florida, travelling up the east coast through Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey up to New York.
Then we travelled up the Hudson River and the Erie Canal to Lake Ontario.
Through the Trent Severn Waterway to Lake Huron, Lake Michigan to Chicago, the Illinois River, Mississippi & Ohio Rivers, the Kentucky Lakes, the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway to Mobile, Alabama and through the Intracoastal Waterway back to Florida.
Full details of our adventures and disasters on my blog
www.talesfromtheamericanwaterways.com

We now go anywhere we want to, no worries about when we have to be home again and the world is our oyster ( or lobster, as Arthur Daley used to say on Minder.)
Mr Lemongrove quite fancies the idea of kayaking along the coast of Ireland, and I like the idea of snorkelling off the Maldives, possibly we can do both, but not at the same time.

janeainsworth I have just had a look at your blog.
Oh my.... what a wonderful experience. I've read most of the May 19 blog but will soon start at the beginning in 2014.
Bookmarked and ready.
Congratulations on a wonderful retirement.

And we haven't even mentioned the joy grandchildren bring. In between our snorkelling and kayaking we enjoy being with children we can give back after looking after them for a while.

It's amazing how we completely remember what to do with little ones when our own are fully grown up. Another revelation is the capacity of the heart to fully adore a little person who comes into our life long after our child rearing days are over. Life is enriched in many ways once we retire and take our foot off the work pedal.

As I write I remember that we don't all have the same joys and same luck. Many older people face family problems and health difficulties, frailty, financial difficulties, etc. Ageing can make us feel vulnerable too..

Retirement is definitely a time to gather those rosebuds while we can. I feel I must enjoy myself while I can, while the opportunities are there, and while I am able to participate in the life available to me.

Thanks Coolgran
It was MrA’s thing really, I was merely the galley slave, laundress, photographer and chronicler
But we met the most amazing people and learned such a lot along the way.

I emigrated. That was different.

janeainsworth
Is the boat a Grandbanks?
If so, we've just brought one to the uk from the med through France to a marina in Essex.
Beautiful boats. My favourite cruiser.

Petra wow respect! I’ve just read Shane Spall’s account of taking her & Tim’s boat through the Thames Estuary. It was nerve wracking but then they started off with only a road map
Grand Banks are lovely boats. Carina is a 1979 Marine Trader. Sadly she’s now for sale ?

Petra I’ve just told MrA about your trip. His eyes lit up. He wanted to know how you managed the bridges on the French river system. Did you have enough headroom or what?

Jane I've had a quick look at your wonderful blog - just to say I'm extremely envious!

Is your voyage completed or will you continue?

Thank you Riverwalk
Yes we’ve finished the Loop and if we sell Carina then that will be the end of boating in America for us.
Having said that, it was quite tempting to keep her and do it all again, and some people do just that! There is so much to see and inevitably there’s lots that you miss the first time around.
We’ll still visit America because DS and DiL and 3 DGCs are there, but having the boat there costs money, and although it was an amazing thing to do, it’s meant that we haven’t been anywhere else during that time.
So we’ll see. If no one wants to buy her, maybe there’ll be a sequel

I assume there are no other Loops to tempt you? I can see there's something special about completing a loop, rather than going somewhere and coming back.

You must have mixed feelings about whether she sells or not!

I do indeed Riverwalk. There’s lots more we could do.
Spend time in Chesapeake Bay which is nearest to the family, or go further north to upstate New York & Canada. And of course there are many waterways in Britain and the rest of Europe too.

Jane
The bridges on the rivers are not too bad but some of the canal bridges can leave you holding your breath.
Also, the boat had lost its flying bridge.
We also still had our Carte guides from when we did the trip in 96 in our own boat. But that time we took a year through France.
Yes the estuary can be scary ( especially for idiots) but I've been sailing the estuary since I was a teenager.
This is me and my close friend on a Thames barge sailing regatta.

Why didn't the photo post ?
Never mind ?

janeainsworth wow, what a story!

I have read your interesting, nay, amazing blog and am speechless, not least at the planning that was involved.

We have done a fair few road-trips through the States and Canada, reaching some of the back-woods places that you visited but we were always in a conventional four-wheeled vehicle.

Your photographs really bring your adventure to life and they are so necessary (and impressively, all annotated) lest one harbour looks like another after a year or two!

I am overawed by your 'get-up-and-go' which has spurred me out of my lethargy.

I shall also forward your blog to friends who have a boat moored in Europe and are wondering what to do next.....

Thank you for sharing it with us and... it's one in the eye for Legal and General's idea of us old 'uns sitting knitting by a one-bar fire!