Last Tuesday I made myself a fresh coffee, settled into my work chair, grabbed my planner and began my usual routine of daily organisation. There was a 'ping' from my phone and a calendar reminder came up - 'Hedges by 1st March'. My schedule for the week suddenly went out the window.
I had completely forgotten that our boundary hedges had to be cut before the cut-off date of 1st March so we don't disrupt the nesting activity of the birds. It's in our deeds to do the hedges so the farmer can get his combine harvester into the field to cut the crops in the autumn. A hasty Zoom call to my boss and I managed to secure Wednesday and Thursday off work to try and get the bulk of the cutting done.
Luckily I didn't have to do as much as I feared. We had cut back some overgrown laurel bushes at the front of the property in October so people could walk on the grass strip and not in the road. Also one side of the smallholding has very little hedge and more trees so that rarely needs anything, just big branches once in a while if they look like they'll catch the combine's cab as it passes. The area I needed to cover was actually only on two sides of the smallholding. All told, I had approx 160m horizontal cutting on the outside and 55m on the inside, and 80 metres of vertical cutting to take down the height. That's a lot of cutting.
Wednesday was horrendous - high winds and 35mph gusts don't work well against with hedge trimmers and chainsaws but I managed to get some done. Cracked on again the next day and by 4pm I had manage to get about 80% of what I needed to do. I finally completed the task on Sunday in just a strappy top as it was so hot in the afternoon! All told, it took me approximately 14 hours.
I had a few dramas along the way. I have a small electric chainsaw, nice and light for a small person like me, but occasionally the chain jumps off so I have to put it back on.
Luckily it's simple to do.
So, over the next few weeks I'll finalise the hedge trimming all over the property, save the big stuff for the fire and the non-thorny stuff for kindling, then the rest goes on the growing pile in the paddock for a nice man with an industrial chipper to come late April to reduce it to a lovely pile of wood chip to rot down.
The cats have loved the sunny weather this weekend. Prior to that the high wind meant they spent a lot of time indoors next to me. Baldrick wants to burrow and prefers to sleep like a toddler under a blanket...
...Missy just wants to snuggle...
And Georgie? He's just being an old cat with dementia, an overactive thyroid and arthritis. We keep him warm, medicated, and well fed and try not to get annoyed when he goes for a head rub and then bites us.
*****
I alluded to some big news in my previous post and now I have my hedging whinge out the way I shall tell you.
Martin will be retiring this year.
Two major things have happened which has accelerated our plans for his retirement two years ahead of schedule.
1) We've found out that Martin can take some of his pension now. I hadn't appreciated that with every change of pension scheme Royal Mail made they dedicated the old fund to specific retirement milestones that can be taken without affecting the other bits. So the Final Salary scheme that closed in 2008 make up his Age 60 benefits while the Defined Contribution pension that ran from 2009 to 2018 make up his age 60 benefits. The current Defined Contribution pension accumulates and is used to pay out his 25% lump sum if he wants it (and we do). My widow's pension if he dies is the same whether we take the lump sum or not so I want to take it now and stash the cash because with COVID who knows what the future holds. So, there's a lump sum payment plus pension income to come from March.
2) One of Martin's aunts has died, leaving a small legacy to him. It amounts to replacement salary and what we would be putting away into pensions over the next two years so Martin could retire at 62.
We rolled around the house in a bit of a daze for a week, before sitting down and coming up with a plan of attack for the next few months. Then we found out that Royal Mail is running another round of early voluntary redundancies in his offer this spring, and if he is able to he will be applying. He has 27 years with Royal Mail and is the exact age that Royal Mail likes to try and 'ease' out 'lifers' of the business in favour of hiring younger, cheaper staff on poor employment contracts. Cue more wandering around in a daze.
I hope he gets it. The thought he could be retired and sitting on the patio by the summer makes me feel so happy for him.
In the meantime, I'm number crunching and budgeting. All the money will be tucked away securely, and there will be very little spare money from our new income for any luxuries because I intend to go hell for leather pumping up my pensions and savings to get me ready to retire. I want to stop work sometime between 55-58 years old, at whatever point I can get the numbers to work out, so Martin and I can go and do some travelling while he is still young enough.
Scary and exhilarating times ahead!
