Retirement Activities: 4th Choice

Writing! Writing can be such fun.
Two days ago, I finished a children's story that I started 9 years ago.
The end just came to me out of the blue, and it was such fun.
You can write a diary, or start a regular blog right here on blogspot.
You can write a book from the imagination, or do a biography of your life.
You can write a letter or email to a politician or a Letter-to-the-Editor.
Expressing your opinions and ideas for solutions to social problems is rewarding.
You can write a regular column or just an article for the local newspaper about your hobby. Our paper has regular entries from a local gardener, and a local conservationist.

Retirement Activities: Choice #3

Join a Club.
Tonight we returned to our photography club, Photo Nat (Nat for nature) in Belleville, after a year's hiatus.
It was packed. Even if you don't want to go out and take pictures, you can just sit and watch other people's pictures being projected on the screen.
Eighty percent of people have now gone digital and most put music with their selections.
There's interesting conversations, old acquaintances, and tonight was swap night for folks who wanted to sell some of their equipment.
There was a feature speaker/photographer who specialized in insect photography, a particular interest of mine.
And it's only once a month, but with one or two photo outings between meetings.
If you don't feel like taking photos, you can just go along for the fresh air and a good hike.
Many clubs also do portraiture or artsy fartsy or architechure photography - we're nature, only.

Choices: #2 Books

Books will take you to worlds you could never have dreamed up on your own.
Travel books will show you wonderful sights from every country.
Mystery books will entrap you for days in exciting adventures.
Novels will touch on all facets of human existence, both teaching and treating you to hours of interest, education, history, psychology, and entertainment.
Children's book will delight you.
Just open any Robert Munsch book - like 'Good Families Don't'.
Books make you laugh, love, cry a little, die a little, and stimulate the imagination and the erge to travel and meet new people(s), eat new food(s).
Here are a few good ones I've read lately:
D.R. MacDonald's 'Laughlin of the Bad Heart' (Cape Breton)
Indra Sinha's 'Animal's People' (Bopol India after Union Carbide incident)
Yasmina Khadra's 'Swallows of Kabul'
Frances Itani's 'Deafening' (Belleville, Desoronto)
Anna Quindlen's 'Rise and Shine'
Jen Sookfong Lee's 'The end of east' (Vanc)
Barbara Gowdy's 'Helpless'
Jane Urquhart's 'A map of glass' (Picton)
Nancy Huston's 'Instruments of Darkness'
Wayne Johnston's 'The Navigoator of New York' and 'The Custodian of Paradise' (Nfld)
Richard Teleky's 'Winter in Hollywood'
Alice Monroe's 'The View from Castle Rock' and 'Away from Her' (Ontario)
Alexander McCall Smith's 'The Celtic God of Dreams' (Scotland)
Janet Kellough's 'The Pear-shaped Woman' and 'The Palace of the Moon' (Picton)
Margaret Atwood's 'Moral Disorder'
Heather O'Neill's 'Lullablies for Little Criminals' (Montreal)
Alice Kuiper's 'Life on the Refrigerator Door' (short)
Leslie Hal Pinder's 'Under the House'
Anita Rau's 'Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?' (Canada & India)