OUR POST-“RETIREMENT” POST-COVID TEN R’S JOURNEY!

Having always assumed that Retirement meant Rest and Relaxation, now, a few years later, we look back on a challenging and exciting journey, which included quite a number of other R’s, namely: Renovating, Repairing, Refreshing, Restoring, Rejuvenating, Repurposing, Replacing, Refurbishing, Recycling and Rescuing.

This is how this recent Ten R’s journey unfolded through the Covid period and beyond: With my husband, Ernie, having spent more than 40 years in tourism marketing, development and education, and with us having had the privilege to travel extensively, both local and abroad, we decided to return to and finally settle down in our home province, the Eastern Cape, for our post-retirement journey in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Rather than opting for a retirement home that was in top notch condition, we bravely went for a home that had some major challenges, but also had some great features. These included the fact that the home had been architecturally designed in the late Fifties; had solid Birchwood floors throughout the entire home; is located a few hundred metres from the beach; and has a lovely little park across the road, which is a paradise for our two Labradors!

Despite these positive features, the entire home and large garden were in dire need of some intensive tender loving care in all spheres, ranging from the garden to the exterior of the home to every internal nook and cranny of the home – this certainly was quite a daunting challenge!

When we committed to this Ten R’s journey, we initially articulated our shared vision and the critical success factors to have fun while embarking on this journey! Among others, we decided to, wherever possible, adopt a sustainable DIY and longer-term step-by-step approach. This entailed progressively improving and enhancing the garden and exterior of the home bit by bit; re-doing the entire inside of the home – also bit by bit; and on bad-weather days refreshing and rejuvenating our old oak and imbuia furniture, which in some instances also needed urgent tender loving care.

Although we undertook most of the above Ten R’s ourselves, we needed to outsource some of the elements, such as some plumbing and some electrical tasks, etc.
Interestingly, during this entire DIY journey, wherever possible, we stuck to the brands that we have used during previous renovations and that have served us well over many years, such as Plascon, Woodoc, JoJo tanks, etc.

One of our priorities with this journey was to become as self-sufficient as possible regarding water provision, with a view to growing a variety of our favourite organic vegetables and fruit. One of our first key initiatives in this regard was to install five JoJo tanks with a storage capacity of more than 20 000L, and in so doing to harvest as much rainwater as possible. This has enabled us to grow a variety of organic fruits and vegetables, mainly in pots and containers.

What was also particularly rewarding during this journey was the opportunity to repurpose most of the materials that we removed during the renovation process (e.g. an old metal bath became a garden bench, old wooden pelmets became a picket fence and old burglar bars became a rose tree arch and ranking trellises for granadillas/green beans, etc. (See WENBRIEF: Herwin meer! on page 6 of Tuis Magazine dated April 2022).

Looking back, this has truly turned out to be an exciting and rewarding journey – of course with a whole spectrum of expected and unexpected challenges and surprises along the way! However, as the saying goes: “Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other!”