Planning Your Retirement

What are your interests outside work?
I bought myself a greenhouse , it was great for growing seedlings etc , but it was also a place to relax and hide from housework lol

Travel----before you're not able to.

Haha! I don't need much encouragement to hide from housework!

I found creating a bucket list helped although achieving some of the goals does need a steady source of income. The other advice I was given was to start early (hobbies etc.), the way you mean to go on. Otherwise you can end up feeling as if you have fallen off the edge of a cliff, once the euphoria of having so much free time wears off.

I left work on an early retirement scheme that included a 'retraining grant', so I went back to university for a year. As I retired in August I just had a few weeks at home and then was away. We also moved house. The house we bought was large, old and run down with a garden to match. Oh and my mother and aunt both died.

Somehow the first two years of my retirement disappeared in a haze of relentless activity!

After that I was fortunate that I had a number of long-term interests where I was able to step up my involvement.Then commitments just grew like Topsy from then on. 25 years on I am still waiting for the free time and the falling off the edge of a cliff feeling

Talk to your partner, make sure you are both aware of your expectation of retirement. People can have widely differing ideas of what they want to do.
Take your time, you don't have to rush into making commitments, enjoy not having to live to a schedule. Above all enjoy a more relaxed life style.