People keep asking me “What do you do with your time at all now Martin since you sold the restaurant?
My customary answer is to grin and say, “As little as possible”

Lies, lies and more lies.

I know that every retired person in the world has a mantra about how full their life is since they stopped work, I’m no exception.
Take next week for example.

Tomorrow, Monday, I have a Euro-Toque commissioners meeting in Dublin. This is in the catering college in Cathal Brugha street at 11.00.
This means rising at 6.30 to get the 7.30 train to Dublin.
The meeting will be followed by a lunch with the powers-that-be of the catering college who are keen to find ways that we can mutually help each other, an excellent idea.
This will probably mean that I miss the afternoon train and not get back to Waterford until 8.30.

On Tuesday I have my customary slot in WLR in the morning.
This week I realised that Monday was going to be busy so I wrote and prepared my radio piece on Saturday last.
I only do a 10 minute piece but I reckon on spending at least 2 to 3 hours getting that ready, and the recipes sent out to their points of distribution, not to mention putting them on my web page.

Tuesday afternoon is going to be spent getting ready a class I am doing for the students in Failte Ireland on Wednesday afternoon.
The class is all written up and decided on, it is a two hour class so took considerably longer than 3 hours to get ready!
I’ll be bringing a lot of the ingredients there myself so will have to do a bit of telephone ordering, I also realise that I need to start getting recipes together for my piece in the local paper, Waterford Today.
These I usually send out in five week blocks, I am conscious that the last piece from my last block will run out this week so another five pieces must be got ready before the weekend.
I have a French class on Tuesday night, this is run by Alliance Francais and I have been attending it since the autumn.
As we intend to buy there in the next few years it is important that I improve my language skills if I am not going to have to rely on Sile for all transactions above the level of food buying, eating and drinking.

Wednesday morning is going to be spent preparing myself for my marathon class in the afternoon, this will be a solo demonstration so I will have to plan meticulously to insure that I will be doing something at all times in the period, and that the end results are dishes which will look and taste well.

My brothers and sisters have decided to put together a history of the Dwyer family of Cork . This is going to be a large project and we are putting a lot of research into it, as any reader of my blogs over the last few months will have noticed.
On Thursday morning we are having a meeting in my brothers office in Cork about the book so that will consume most of that day.
The night will be spent getting my pieces ready for Waterford Today as the following day is Patrick’s Day and I am declaring that a holiday!

Retirement can be quite busy, but only if you want it to be!