My Friend Hans Came To Visit

One of the fringe benefits of being a retiree and just staying at home most of the time is that your friends actually take the time to come visit you. Today, my good friend Hans came over to pay me a visit and we had a nice long chat in the afternoon before having a great dinner together, prepared by my lovely wife. Hans is also a fellow retiree like me, and we pretty much have the same mentality and beliefs in life, which is to work hard, save, invest and then enjoy life when we retire. The only difference between us is that my wife is more beautiful haha! My wife will love me for saying that, but the truth is, the difference between Hans and myself is that he is more outgoing whereas I prefer to spend most of my time indoors and doing stuff like reading, watching tv, tending to my garden, and philosophizing with my wife. Of course, that might not include the time we spend in bed haha! Oh my I am feeling a bit naughty today but well it is all in the name of good fun and I am not sure who really reads my online diary anyway, except my wife who would be delighted that I still find her attractive after all these years hahaha!!

So Hans made the effort to come visit us bless him! And we had a nice chat talking about the good old times, not that we aren't having any good times now! In fact, we could perhaps be having one of the best retirements anyone has ever had, since we get to do what we like, anytime we like, and as much as we life. There are many others who are spending their retirement years wondering what might have been and regretting what they have done in their youth and wishing they had the chance to turn things around or turn back the clock. Not for me and Hans. We know we have done the right thing in terms of building a rock solid foundation for a comfortable retirement and also because we are simple men, we can derive much pleasure from the simple things in life that God has given us. Most men might be bored to death just going through the same routine everyday, but not us. We savor every second of our lives that God has given us the privilege to spend in good health and also the ability to still enjoy our hobbies at this age. Many people might suffer from backache if they were to even squat down in the garden pulling out weeds, but not me. I get a good workout from my gardening activities, and it keeps me healthy at this age since I do not really enjoy going to the gym or sports.

Our dinner with Hans was a nice spread prepared by my wife and included our favorite pasta dish (this time it was good old beef bolognese), a nice bowl of fresh salad, delicious tiramisu made by my wife as well (yes! she's really good at baking as well I am a lucky man!) and we each had a glass of red wine to wash it all down at the end of it. Not too there, since Hans had to drive back home and we would not want our good friend to get into trouble there. We spent another hour and a half enjoying our meal and discussing how we could perhaps make a holiday trip to Australia with Hans and his wife, and they could perhaps bring their kids too. Hans has two sons and a daughter, and they are all lovely and bright children. All very well taught and great manners, which is increasingly rare with youth of today. Too many of them have been brought up wanting to be successful fast and taught that to get what you want you basically have to be aggressive, selfish and rude. It is not the right way to do things and more of them should learn that nice guys do not always finish last. But no such problems with Hans' kids. They are all really nice people and we always enjoy ourselves spending time with them. It would be a great holiday if we could all go together and having children around would also make the trip much more enjoyable I believe.