Category Archives: Try Something Different

#4 Buy a ‘Mystery Hotel’ Stay

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One of the big advantages of trying 101 Fun and Frivolous Things in Retirement is that it forces you to do stuff that’s perhaps a little out of character. Like:

#4: Buy a “Mystery Hotel” stay

When a friend invited me to his birthday lunch at a venue in Melbourne, I had to find accommodation, being from out-of-town and all. So I opened up Wotif and my next adventure jumped out – book and pay for a hotel in the city without knowing where it was.  

Okay, this may not sound too adventurous to some, but I’m the sort of person who needs to start new adventures ex..tre..mely slowly, so for me, it was an outsidethesquare experience.

Just before you commit to paying for your accommodation, the site pops up the sort of question guaranteed to give you the shivers:

“Are you sure you want to book without knowing where you’ll be staying?”

Now normally, I’d have had cold feet at that and backed right out.  But in the spirit of doing Fun and Frivolous Things, I took a deep breath and pressed the ‘Pay Now” button, which let me tell you, took some courage, even in the knowledge that I was saving oodles of money by doing this.

But miracle upon miracle, the hotel I scored was directly opposite the lunch venue!

So when the birthday lunch ended, several of us wandered over for a coffee in the hotel lounge – it being so close and so convenient – with me feeling mightily smug and proud of my excellent choice.

That was before I settled down for the night, turned off the television and realised that my room was directly behind a lift shaft.

Try sleeping on an airport runway. It’s probably more peaceful…

#2 Create a Home Cinema

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The previous owners of my house ran a small business from the converted garage, which I’ve used as an office and storage space for the last few years.  But now I don’t need a big office, I’m able to create a room for a small home cinema.

#2: Create a Home Cinema

So I bought a magnificently large TV screen, did some basic sewing to create thick black curtains to hang behind the screen from ceiling to floor and, with the help of a good friend who’s very clever and had several days to spare, a truly amazing sound system’s been connected.

Add a few old posters of scenes from Casablanca which I’ve kept for years (is that not one of the best films ever?) plus comfortable couches and it now seats six easily. With a platform to elevate the back row it will eventually seat more. I like to think it has the atmosphere of an old-style cinema.

Cinema

So my Home Cinema is up and running –  and even has a name.

While I toyed with calling it Cinema Paradiso (there’s another great film), a friend pointed out that as our town has a nine-cinema complex, perhaps it should be called Cinema Ten.

Also known as Cinema X…

Cinema sign

#1 Start a Blog

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What bliss.

Having recently retired, I’m now in the wonderful position of having days that belong to me, waiting to be filled.  No work. Little responsibility.

But many people are asking what I’m going to do with all that time.

So this site is dedicated to trying out things that are fun, things that I haven’t normally had the time to do, or are a little outsidethesquare so to speak. The sorts of activities that in my former serious and responsible real life, I often forgot to explore.

It’s subtitled “101 Fun and Frivolous Things to Try in Retirement”, but it’s not a bucket list that I have to complete before I shuffle-off.  You won’t find über-adventurous activities like bungee jumping here. I was born with a risk-taking bypass. But trying out things I’ve never tried before might just turn out to be very liberating.

Although I’ve roughly divided my 101 ideas into ten major topics ranging from Creative Activities through to Self Improvement,  I’ll be trying them out whenever they crop up, so as you’ll see, there’ll be no particular order as the outsidethesquare stuff is rolled out.

It’s now obvious what my first adventure will be:

#1: Start a Blog

Wow! That wasn’t too difficult…