Nearly two years have passed since I retired from work. People still ask me how I’m coping, and the truthful answer is that it’s going rather well. Actually, you can’t beat it: I have a good pension and a fairly modest lifestyle, so fortunately money’s not an issue. Yes, I do miss the company of some of the people I used to work with, and also the sense of purpose that comes with a responsible job. You know what I mean, those feel-good moments that result from being needed. But life moves on, and so have I.

No, the main problem with retiring is that I no longer have a bloody clue what day of the week it is.

You see, work imposed a structure on my life, mapping out my week in a meaningful way. And when it was gone it felt like I was at sea without a compass.

Before I retired my week was shaped by routines. To start with there was the framework of five days on – Monday to Friday – followed by two days off. The regular milestones of the working week added depth to the pattern: my boss Teflon Sal’s management team meetings on Tuesdays, my own team meetings every Wednesday, the Friday afternoon all-user email in which the great and the good desperately tried to convince the poor bloody infantry how well things were going while simultaneously demanding that we cut the crap and do better.

All of these things, and many more besides, were anchor points during the week. Routines keep me grounded, helping me make sense of the world around me. And when I retired these anchor points were ripped away overnight, leaving me drifting aimlessly.

But nature abhors a vacuum, and so it’s no surprise that new patterns have emerged. One of these is that on Sunday afternoons Mrs P and I play Scrabble, while keeping a close eye on the garden for a visit from Milky Bar and listening to a Newfoundland folk music radio show on the Internet.

Scrabble helps keep the brain active, which is a good thing now that I no longer have reports to write, managers to please or politicians to persuade. I should be good at it too: words have always been my currency of choice, my friends in adversity. I love them for their power and their beauty, which, I suppose, is one of the reasons for writing this blog.

All that counts for naught, however, in our weekly Scrabble games. We always get through four games over a period of around two and a half hours, and Mrs P always beats me by three games to one. Unless I’m having a really bad day, in which case I get thrashed four games to nil. Mrs P is very good at Scrabble, ruthless in fact!

And I love it, this weekly drubbing. It brings some welcome certainty to my confused post-working world, giving me a much needed anchor point in my otherwise shapeless existence.

If I’m getting thrashed again at Scrabble, at least I can be absolutely certain that it’s Sunday afternoon. Even more important, it reminds me that, the following morning, I won’t have go into the office to sort out the latest crisis and negotiate with a bunch of impossible politicians.

Retirement? You can’t beat it!