PLANNING FOR RETIREMENT

I had been looking forward to reading the classics, getting fit, cleaning my room. Turns out that's not all that exciting

- Richard Glover

IT'S IMPORTANT, THEY say, to plan for retirement. Mine's happening in five days, giving up my Sydney radio programme after 26 years. So I've been working on a plan to enact on that first free Monday.

Step one is to sleep in as long as I damn well like. Perhaps until 10 a.m.; maybe 11.

Step two is to discover I can’t sleep until mid-morning, on account that I’m not a teenager any more.

So, wake up at 6:45 a.m., as usual. Make Jocasta tea, as usual. Read the newspaper, as usual.

Get out of bed at 8 a.m. and watch Jocasta as she goes into her office to work. Note the way she closes the door.

Wander around the house for a bit. Clean the crumbs from the cutlery drawer while wondering, “How come there are toast crumbs when we never eat toast?” Knock softly on her door and, speaking through the closed door, ask: “What are you doing?” She says: “Working.” She uses a tone of voice which, I believe, is unnecessarily brusque.

Decide to get cracking with my plan of reading the great classics of literature. I start off with my old university copy of Homer's Odyssey but discover it's suddenly become more difficult to understand in the years since I first read it. Shift to James Joyce’s Ulysses, before becoming defeated in the low hills of the first chapter. Third choice: Dickens. Ah, that’s better. Terrific characters! What a story!

It's long, though, isn’t it, Dickens?