Many years ago I was branch secretary of a union, despite the usual ideas of unions, my interest was in care of others and this often lead me into the lives of members who were ill or recently retired.  Many were fairly well off and could afford not to work but all of those I met continued.  When they did finally have to retire they rarely lived for more than a year leaving considerable amounts of money, which, on some rare occasions only served for the remaining family to argue over.

I remember like as it were yesterday the anger and the sorrow and, at times, the tears I shed.  Almost thirty years ago I promised myself I would not follow the same path.  Ten years ago when I was made redundant at the age of 48 I started working part time.  Around now I had planned to fully  retire and that should happen in the next 12 - 18 months.

I am lucky enough to have married someone who is not only my wife but also my best friend.  The hours I have gained by not working full time has allowed me to do my part as a house husband which means we can spend time being together and doing what we want to do.  I value every minute spent with her.

Do I have regrets - sure.  Would I change things - sure, but I can honestly say at every point and every turn I have always done what I felt was right at the time.  Time has shown I was often wrong but I can still look into the eyes at the face in the mirror   and smile.

Does any of this make me clever - no, it just means I have been lucky although I like to think my guardian angel has worked hard for me over the years.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.