Time

"Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day,
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way."

 

 

We recently returned from our second scouting trip to Portugal but have yet to get together and discuss our thoughts and feelings in detail about moving there. And before we do that we need to talk about time, or more precisely what we plan to do with all of our free time once we retire. The last thing we need is to pick up our entire household and haul it nearly halfway across the world only to find ourselves sitting mostly idle and bored in our new home because we did not properly plan how we would fill the bulk of our hours each day and make sure that we could actually do the things we enjoy.

A good place to start is reviewing what each of us currently does to pass the time.

Elayne works part time and so for two and a half days each week she is occupied with her career. She spends most of her free time with our horses: riding them, doing ground work with them, feeding them and cleaning up after them. She enjoys just about every facet of horse ownership which is why we are placing such an emphasis on her being able to continue to do so wherever we decide to live. She also enjoys hiking just for the sake of getting out and moving. She is seldom bored.

I work full time which leaves me with only the weekends and evenings as free time. My favorite hobbies are sailing and warm water scuba diving -- the first is only practical in a very limited fashion on a couple of central Oregon lakes and only then for a few months out of the year, and the second is not possible at all where we live. I do spend some time cleaning the horses and feeding them (especially when Elayne is away) and I do all of the maintenance and repair work around our ranch -- I do not enjoy these activities. I ride with Elayne once or twice a month if the weather is nice (which limits me to maybe nine months a year). I enjoy hiking if the scenery is interesting and we're not repeating the same trails or similar environment over and over again. I spend a lot of my precious free time bored out of my skull and find myself working extra hours just to keep my brain occupied.

We both enjoy some amount of travel with me probably enjoying more frequent and further distant trips than Elayne. Having easy access to a major airport or rail hub would greatly increase the frequency of our travel without requiring extra hops in the itinerary that add potential delays, missed flights, too much time in airports, and a general feeling of exhaustion with the process of getting from point A to point B and back again.

We also enjoy socializing with friends, but this seldom happens here in central Oregon probably because we live so remotely. In Portland we entertained and visited friends much more frequently than here. Elayne is able to do more socializing on the endurance rides when she meets up with fellow riders, but I am pretty much SOL.

So what can we take away from this review?

If Elayne has easy and regular access to horses and riding trails she is going to be fine. Not surprising and this is why it is one of our firm requirements.

Leonard is well and truly fucked and is completely unprepared for retirement, although it is obvious that living in a remote location is only going to exacerbate the situation.  With a better climate I can ride more with Elayne (I can imagine easily once per week), but I won't want to spend as much time on or around horses as Elayne. Being in a city with amenities such as continuing education plus social  (expat), diving and sailing groups will make a huge difference. Having easy access to regular short trips (hiking Hadrian's Wall, exploring Roman ruins across Europe, climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, diving) is also something I can look forward to.

Portugal can work for us, but there will be some challenges especially early on. In particular we will spend our first nine to ten months without our horses. This means we need to find a short term solution for Elayne to be around and ride horses during this time.

In the next post I will review what we discovered during our last trip to Portugal, what were our favorite places to live, and thinking outside the box to make it work.


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