Coping with Retirement, part 1 – I Build It, and a Girl Comes

The day of my retirement came, in the end, and I have to admit I found it quite traumatic.

For over forty years I’d had the same rhythm to my life: five days a week going to work, followed by the weekend; then the next five days at work, and so on and so on.

Now suddenly there was the weekend, and then nothing.

I’d read about the different ways retirement can affect people, but I hadn’t taken it too seriously. I suppose I was surprised it had arrived, even though it was so utterly predictable. Old age had crept up on me.

It was inevitable that I’d be sixty-five one day, but some part of me thought it would never happen to ME. Inside I still felt quite young. David Whitaker was not old, surely?

I’d been given a lovely retirement do at work, with lots of people saying how we must keep in touch, but I didn’t really think we would. My wife was the sociable one and I’d lost her a few years before. Our two children had emigrated: one to Canada and one to Australia, so I saw them once a year at best. I’m not an easy mixer and I tend to keep myself to myself.

My house was my kingdom, set in a large plot and screened from the road and neighbours by tress I’d planted years before. Generally I enjoy my own company and while I was working it had been enough. I’m on friendly terms with my neighbours but I don’t see much of them – living on a busy road we mostly go out in our cars and so it’s a case of a friendly wave as we pass.

For a few weeks I slipped into depression; I’d become a lonely old man with no sense of purpose, and nothing seemed worthwhile. I hit the bottom though, and then gradually came back up out of it, bit by bit.

I got a dog, in fact two dogs, so I had company and creatures who needed me and returned my affection. They made a lot of difference.

I spent more time with my computer and joined some forums, and got a lot of support and encouragement. It’s amazing the difference it makes just knowing that others have the same problems as you. There was some good advice too, and the best advice of all was to start a project.

I’ve always liked water, right from when I was a little boy, and I like DIY, so eventually the project I settled on was to build a swimming pool.

I went through my finances with my retirement lump sum, and I found I had enough, if I did most of the work myself, to build a pool in its own building, attached to the house.

Well doing the work was part of the idea, so I set to.

Searching online for ideas I saw lots of houses with small pools in small rooms, looking pretty unattractive and useless, and I was determined to make mine different. It was going to be a place to relax, enjoy, spend quality time in, and the pool was going to be long enough to swim proper lengths even if it had to be narrow.

There was going to be a lounging area with a hot tub and a TV. In fact I half expected to abandon my existing living room for the pool room.

So I did my own design with a glass front facing south over the garden, made up entirely of patio doors. I hired a digger and dug the pool and the wall foundations, bought the materials, and the filter, heat pumps, dehumidifier and everything. I learned to lay bricks, do the tiling, plumbing and electrics.

It took nine months, then I had a pool company come in to finish off and commission it.

Finally the great day had come: it was done and the water was warm enough to swim in. I almost wore myself out doing lengths, thrilled to be swimming in my own pool, then I brought the dogs’ beds through and settled down on the vinyl-covered mats to watch some TV.

Next evening the doorbell rang. I put on a robe and went to answer it; there were three children in the porch.

I only half recognised them, so I was glad that they introduced themselves as being the Mellors’ children from directly across the road. There were two girls and a boy, between perhaps twelve and seventeen years old.

I missed their names – I’m hopeless like that – but they were very nice children, very polite, who’d come to invite me to a party at their house, that their parents were holding for people on our rather busy road to get to know each other better. I said yes, of course. By now the need for company easily overrode my bashfulness.

So the next Saturday I went over and had a very nice time, I must say. Paul and Amanda were very friendly and it was good to meet everyone. After an hour or so the children came in and I was, fortunately, reintroduced to them: Vicky, the oldest, Laetitia, and John.

I was slightly surprised, though not disappointed, that Laetitia didn’t immediately go off somewhere after the introduction but stayed to talk to me. To my relief I found I was actually doing a lot more listening than talking, because she was a very friendly extrovert person and talked easily and at length in response to any question.

She was very engaging, very pretty, with shortish brown hair and brown eyes, a small turned-up nose and a wide mouth that was always smiling. She had charisma, a very expressive face with her features all on the move as she talked, and she waved her hands about a lot too. I found her magnetic.

She was quite short, and somehow the way she looked up at me made her even more appealing.

Also I have to admit that part of my smile back at her was because I couldn’t stop myself thinking of a short version of her splendidly old-fashioned name: Titty.

Because her tits were very prominent. Not large, especially, but jutting. She was wearing a thin pullover that shaped itself over them as though moulded, and they formed two highly visible cones high on her chest that I had to make an effort not to stare at.

It had been many years, decades even, since I’d been to bed with a woman but I’d never lost my interest in them. Laetitia was far, far too young for any serious interest, obviously, only sixteen perhaps, but she was very sexy; it was impossible to deny.

I was just trying to work out how aware she was of her breasts and the effect they were having on me, when Paul and Amanda came and joined us, as the party started to wind down. I’d been enjoying listening to Laetitia but I’d been starting to think it was time to go; however they seemed quite keen to keep chatting.

After some village gossip and chit-chat the conversation drifted round to the children, and how keen they were on sports and the various school teams they were all on, swimming among them.