Yesterday as I drove to
work I charged my phone from my car. I arrived at work with a full charge, and
by mid-afternoon the thing was at zero per cent charge. In a similar length of
time overnight it only used eighteen per cent of its battery power. I’m blaming
working two floors beneath ground level, even if I am getting warnings that the
McAfee security is making unnatural demands of the phone.
I didn’t sleep well; over
brekkie I watched another episode of “Nightflyers” in which pretty much nothing at all happened,
then I had a quick look at the Internet. My cousin is on holiday in Cornwall
and had posted up some photos. Being a nosey person, I wish more people would
do that sort of thing. Someone else had posted a link to a rather interesting article which probably explains why the world is
such a sad place. I replied with a link from the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
As I drove to work the
pundits on the radio must have been short of news. They were interviewing the
general public to find their opinions about current affairs. Perhaps they were
rather subjective in the interviews they chose to broadcast, or perhaps they
really did only interview half-wits. But there were no shortage of people ready
to demonstrate their ignorance on national radio. One chap was saying that we
should go for that really easy Brexit that he voted for, not this one with the
backdoor (Irish
backstop?) that isn’t working.
Another one was banging on about how Parliament is full of traitors but was
utterly unable to explain what he meant by that.
You have to admire
stupidity.
And so to work.. I say “work”. I was at a pre-retirement seminar today.
It was rather good. Fifteen of us sat down and a chap lead us through all sorts
of things that we didn’t know about retirement and hadn’t even thought about;
all with the caveat that what he told us was correct today, but anything might
happen in the future.
We started off with that
always unpopular thing they always do in these training sessions of being
divided into small groups to discuss stuff. What would we miss about working?
What would we do to fill the time when we used to work? What worries did we
have?
We were then presented with
some factual information about the state pension. It was at this point that the
first idiot chirped up. He wasn’t happy that the state pension age had gone up.
To be fair, neither was I, but no one had told this idiot that the bloke
presenting the session wasn’t the government minister who made the rules. This
idiot was not at all happy when the speaker told him “these are the rules; I
didn’t make them”.
We eventually got back on
topic; I didn’t realise that you can defer your state pension. Did you know
that you don’t have to take your pension at retirement age? If you work another
year you get five point eight per cent more state pension if you take it that
year later. Mind you having lost out on the first year’s pension you then have
to live seventeen years to make a net profit.
The nice man then spoke about the NHS pension. For
me this was the bit I wanted to know about. He’s given me some web sites to
check, and I need to speak to the boss on Monday, but my provisional plan now
is to take semi-retirement in four and a half years’ time. (I’ve added a countdown timer to my blog. Four and a half
years sounds rather more manageable that one thousand six hundred and seven
days).
By now our heads were spinning. We adjourned for
lunch. After lunch we had a rather depressing talk about wills and lasting
powers of attorney (a job for "My Boy TM"
should I go doolally)
and funding long-term care should it be needed.
It
was at this point that another idiot got angry…
The
session had been very good. The speaker asked people to comment and ask
questions as we went along. Most people did (I certainly did); most
people’s questions were sensible and relevant, but there were a couple of
half-wits in the group. I must admit I agreed with one of the half-wits that if
you need long-term nursing care then it sucks that you have to pay for it. I
also agreed that I would rather leave my house to the fruits of my loin rather
than sell it to pay for massively overpriced nursing homes. But that is an
argument to have elsewhere. The nice chap at the front could only tell us what
was happening now; he had no power to change the rules.
We
then spoke about inflation and savings and tax… and at this point my brain
overloaded. Fortunately I think the nice man presenting the session realised
this would happen as this was the end of his presentation. He’s given us some
websites to review and will phone us on Monday to answer any questions.
Perhaps
I should have gone in to work for the last hour, but I was down to be on the
course all day, and to be honest my mind wouldn’t have been on the job. I had a
*lot* to ponder. Seeing the glorious sunshine I thought I might ponder
whilst walking the dogs round the park.
We
got half-way round the park when the heavens opened.
We came
home and dried off. I did have a vague plan to go to the geo-meet that was
taking place this evening, but by the time "er indoors TM"
had been shopping, it was all a little late. So following on from today’s
seminar I tried to access my on-line pension statement. It only took an hour to
do.
We
had a rather good bit of fish and chips, then I looked at the monthly accounts…
Bearing in mind I’ve had a serious fix to the water heating, a major car
service, new varifocal specs and an epic vet bill all in the last month I’m
rather pleased that I’ve actually got some money left.
After
all, what is money for, if not to squander foolishly?
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