Hello, and thank you for arriving here!
I am an artist, Mother and Grandmother who lives in south west Scotland. I have just qualified for my state pension after having to work unexpectedly for an extra 6 years. This blog is about how I have approached this event and I hope to be able to give others some practical solutions, ideas and even some possibilities to those of you with similar life dilemmas!
I love going to new and different places to discover life, culture and people, and have gathered many friends all over the world.
My supposed retirement
When I was almost on the verge of retiring, I realised that my government had moved the goal posts, and that where I had imagined I would be able to retire at 60, like other women in my country up until that point, at some time in the last 20 years, the retirement age had been raised to 66 without anyone bothering to let us all know.
No Pension Pot!
So faced with a career that had not given me a nice pension pot to rely on in this case, mainly because I had been self-employed, or employed on short contracts, a single parent with no work, or an independent seeker going my own way; I was going to have to keep going until the Government pension became available to me.
Qualifications and Life Moves
It was not that I was without qualifications, I have two undergraduate degrees, art and design and digital media and two post-graduate degrees in useful subjects, teaching post 16 and tertiary education, but the employment systems never opened up to anything remotely like a permanent position, and the one permanent position I did ever have became so stressful that I left it to move my whole family to Scotland from London.
What can I do to improve my retirement time?
So as a result of my long life, following all sorts of leads, I am now at retirement age, finally! As I have become very adept at finding meaning in the most unexpected places, I thought this blog might give others not only hope, but some practical possibilities, ideas and even some solutions to similar life dilemmas!