Still on my cloud surfing trip and riding on the wave created by Ronnie Bennett, “Time Goes By” blog roll.  Thanks again Ronnie.  This time I have landed on a really interesting blog by Warren Flick which you can find by clicking on this “Laterlivingblog“.

What first caught my eye was a post about a trip Warren made through the high plains.  You can find the story in the archive for April 09, 2015.  It has some great photos that show the huge expanse that is covered by the great plains area and the flatness and dryness of the landscape.  Warren’s writing makes the trip really come to life and probably saves me from following in his footsteps :-).  I’m sure my Texas friend John Tripplehorn would be interested to read his blog and particularly his comments about cowboys and cattle drives.

Another post which I found even more interesting was about a retirement community in Florida called The Villages.  You can find it in the archive February 15, 2015.  It was particularly interesting to me because I have spent most of my working life building retirement housing and pioneered the idea of retirement villages in the UK.  I have been to Florida many times but not found this particular village.

The Villages complex that Warren describes, is home to 110,000 older people and covers an areas of 35 square miles.  His post describes it very well so I won’t repeat it here, but what it does show is that many older people in America have many more opportunities for living in retirement than we have in the UK.

When I started working in retirement housing, a typical sheltered housing scheme had between 30 and 40 flats.  Anything bigger than that was regarded, particularly by Social Services Departments, as something of a ghetto for older people.  It took us many years to edge the numbers up from 30 to 40 to 50, but it wasn’t until we built our first retirement village in 1998 at Berryhill in Stoke on Trent that we managed to build our first larger scheme which was 148 flats.  At the time we thought that this was enormous and there was only one other scheme of that size in the UK.  Whilst at the ExtraCare Charitable Trust we subsequently went on to build many more villages, the largest of which so far is at Lark Hill Village in Nottingham which is over 300 flats and bungalows.

In spite of their noted success, retirement villages as a concept has still not really taken off in the UK and certainly nobody has been adventurous enough to build retirement communities on the scale that are built in the USA.  With the desperate shortage of housing that exists in the UK, maybe someone sooner or later will take this bold step.

My thanks to Warren Flick for this insight into “The Villages in Florida” which you can find by clicking here .

After surfing through many more bloggers’ diaries of daily grind, I at last found another gem.

A guy called Scott who lives in America and has been blogging since 2011 about all the race events he has taken part in.  Remarkably he is intending to complete 100 races and walk 10,000 miles before he retires!

Each blog is about an event he has taken part in – illustrated by photographs he has taken along the route.  Everything from 5k walks to 10k, to half marathons, marathons and a 32 mile hike, all around the outskirts of Manhattan.

I first wrote about walking as good exercise way back in November 2010 under the heading “Walk for Life” (you can find it in the ARCHIVE).  Since that time it has been a recurring theme, prompted by research studies about exercise being a good preventative, in terms of ill health.  Scott’s approach seems to me much better because it doesn’t turn exercise into a boring routine nor a mindless heart pumping exercise in the gym.  Scott gets to see new places and meet new people.  What a great idea!

It stands out among all the other diary type blogs and it is well worth a visit.

You can find it by clicking on the following link:-

“Walking to Retirement”

I have spent a large part of August exploring the hidden depths and dizzy heights of the internet.  My search on the internet for positive stories about ageing goes on.  You can see earlier posts on this theme by clicking on “CLOUD SURFING” in the TAG CLOUD”.

So far my hunt has been time consuming.  It has been interesting nonetheless and I am beginning to gain some insight about how the internet is being used by older people, mainly of course in America.

I have found lots of blogs written by older people, thanks to a site put together by Ronni Bennett called “TIME GOES BY” (click on the link to see it).  It has a massive blog roll, which is a list of links to blogs mainly written by older people.  Most of them are written as diaries of later life and they give you a great insight of older people in America.

Most of what I have found has been in the USA and so I feel like Christopher Columbus with his trustee telescope searching for “land ahoy”.  Thanks to Ronni Bennett’s website, my search has been made easier and it’s obvious that there is much more active involvement with older people on the internet, and blogging in particular, in the USA as compared to Great Britain.

Here are a few first impressions of what I have found so far:-

• Most positively, publishing your thoughts on the internet is a new hobby for many elders;
• You find some great examples of good writing and some brilliant photography;
• Geneology features in quite a few blogs and shows how the internet is being used to allow people to explore their family history;
• On the challenging side of later life, health issues feature quite prominently in a lot of peoples’ blogs;
• Families and support from friends also feature quite frequently;
• Most of all, you see great examples of people grasping the opportunity to learn new skills and seek new adventures.

Thank you Ronni Bennett for giving older people the chance to communicate their skills and wisdom around the world.  I have found lots of interesting reading and several inspiring stories of how older people have created a new life for themselves in retirement.  I’m still only half way through Ronni’s Elderblogs list, so I will continue my search in the following month and report back on what I find.