Week 42 Healthy Wijnjewoude

 

Week 42

From nu.nl

Reaching state pension age is no reason for more and more elderly people to stop working. They enjoy working and it keeps them young. In ten years, the number of working people over 67 has more than doubled.

About 223,000 people will still be working in 2023 after they turn 67 or older, according to figures from statistics agency CBS. Ten years earlier there were 105,000. The share of workers in the total number of people over 67 has also increased, from 4.7 percent in 2013 to 7.5 percent now.

The state pension age will be increased gradually due to increasing life expectancy. In 2023, the state pension age will be 66 years and 10 months. In 2013 it was 65 years and 1 month. Next year the state pension age will be exactly 67.

"The main reason that people work longer is because they simply enjoy working," says Bastiaan Starink, professor of Labor Market, Pensions and Tax at Tilburg University. "The social contacts and young people keep you young."

I guess I'm still "working"? I get a part pension from the Dutch government - they argue that I should be getting the rest from Australia - but Australia says I don't qualify because of the Means Test. Interesting situation...(The Dutchies can't believe that the Means Test even exists).

Luckily, I love what I'm doing and if anybody asks, I just say that I am happy to be still ABLE to do what I do.

Just a couple of weeks ago one of our contacts in the village fell down the stairs in his house - and died as a result. He used to arrange for people to use the electric Duo-fiets (bicycle) that is garaged at our place.

So, things can change suddenly.

Now, related to this in a way...

Two years ago, a “Healthy Wijnjewoude” working group was created from Local Interest (Plaatselijk Belang) Wijnjewoude. The reason was an evening in the Swingel village hall, organized by the municipality of Opsterland. The topic during this evening was “Positive Health”. Together with members of Local Interest and associations of Wijnjewoude, we have considered what the range of associations in our own village is that can contribute to the well-being and quality of life of the residents.

Inspired, the aforementioned working group from PB decided to get started on this. The ambition that was formulated is: “to become and be an attractive village for young and old where people like to stay and can and want to grow old healthily!”

The working group has managed to recruit a student from the Healthy Aging course at Hanze University of Applied Sciences to conduct research for and with the working group into what residents of our village consider important when it comes to the aforementioned ambition.

A lot of information was collected by interviewing residents while walking, having conversations with representatives of citizen initiatives/associations, the village hall, Longa gymnastics club, ODV football club, Kom bij bij and Dorpsteunpunt. Another survey was launched and primary schools were contacted.

The common thread was that residents surveyed felt that there is already a lot in our village, but there is a lack of mutual connection and solidarity between different groups and initiatives.
A group of residents' representatives then looked at what initiatives could be taken. Many ideas were collected there.
In the meantime, contacts were established with the municipality about our plans. Because of these plans, the municipality has nominated our village as a Bloeizone village.

Principles of a flourishing zone village within the care economy trajectory from the municipalities in southeast Friesland:

• Exercise naturally: no gym, but living in an environment that encourages you to move without thinking about it;
• Know your purpose: Know what you want to wake up for in the morning. Having a goal can add seven years of extra life expectancy;
• As little stress as possible: take time for relaxation every day;
• The 80% rule: reduce your calorie intake by 20%;
• Vegetable food: grow your own, especially beans, are part of the daily diet of most centenarians;
• Like-minded people: belonging to a group that meets regularly has a positive influence on health;
• Family: Put family and loved ones first;
• Circle of friends: good circle of friends and sufficient social contacts.

The above information is translated by Google.

I was interested in the last block - as I have most of it covered :)

I often say to our Day Activity people the bit about "having a reason to get out of bed". That is one of the reasons that they come to us, of course. A very worthwhile Government-funded program. I sometimes wonder just what obligation there is for them to attend? ie. could they just opt to go fishing instead?

Janny and I have both signed up for the Fitness Test Program.

My confirmation letter....

Bevestiging Fittest Wijnjewoude zaterdag 21 oktober 2023

Geachte K. Copeland,

Hierbij bevestigen wij uw deelname aan de fittest in Wijnjewoude.

Datum: Zaterdag 21 oktober 2023

Tijd: 16.00 uur

Locatie: MFC de Swingel, Meester Geertswei 4, 9241 GL Wijnjewoude

Denkt u alstublieft aan:

• Kleding waar u goed in kunt bewegen

• Makkelijk zittende schoenen. Het dragen van sportschoenen is niet

verplicht.

• Indien nodig: een leesbril.

Wij hopen u hiermee voldoende te hebben geïnformeerd. Mocht u toch

nog vragen of opmerkingen hebben, neem dan contact op met

buurtsportcoach Geerte Kwant.

geerte@sportfryslan.nl of 06 – 57 040 151.

Graag tot ziens op zaterdag 21 oktober!

Met vriendelijke groet,

Geerte Kwant - TeamFRL Opsterland

Bloeizone Wijnjewoude

From last week...

Ben's shoe modelling in Wassenaar

And the floor out. In 1999, we laid a very nice floor over the original floor base - looking very old now. The flooring cost 4000 guilders back then, so I presume it still has some value now, even though some of the tongue and groove is damaged.

 

I think I can do a couple of rooms in"our" apartment, by first putting in a false floor (with at least some insulation) and then laying our old flooring over the top.

Just (another) little side project to leave the apartment better than we found it.

We also removed the old bathroom cupboards - and placed them in the extra large laundry area of the apartment.

In 2008, I put shelves in this area - for the Day Activity group, which was housed in the apartment at that time.

Some of that had to be removed so that the bathroom cupboards would fit.

...and for the dryer

...and some old planking for shelves

On Saturday, one of the bigger boys helped me to make a start on pulling the old sub-floor out - Janny thinks that it is about as old as she is - one of the rebuilds nearly 60 years ago.

It's looking very damp and mouldy down there - not before time that we are ripping it out. The old pipes are from the heating system - to the radiators - that will all be removed and replaced with in-floor heating - on top of a few layers of concrete. The bottom layer will be an insulating "foam" concrete- laid on plastic. It takes a while to cure - with air trapped in bubbles (so they say).

On Saturday afternoon Janny and I did the Fitness Test in the village - with what appeared to be a high participation rate.

We have to go back in 8 weeks time to do it all again - to see if there has been any self-motivated improvement. We're already dieting and my work is entailing a lot of walking - to and from the workshed and doing the cleaning up - just dumping it all out the back until we have enough for a skip.

On Sunday, we left home at 0645hrs to go to Amsterdam to (yet again) help Ben with moving.

All his stuff is coming home this time - not sure what the next move will be, but he is well on the way to having enough for a deposit on a new (but small) apartment in Amsterdam. He has a bit more travelling to do first.

He told us that South America will mean that he has been to every continent - mostly as a result of his modelling work - he might "retire" soon as he has been doing it for 10 years now.

We hired a larger van for the day - ours would have been too small and we didn't want to take a trailer into Amsterdam!

Just since last week, they have made Ben's street into a dead end - so we had to figure out how to get there! It all ended up OK and we parked at his front door. We did see some people protesting  - "Stop the Poles" - they have been installed in many places - making it (more) difficult to get around.

The bags left over for Mexico...

First a night in the hotel chain that he works for...

...then Madrid, then Mexico.

Last week we had the Marten attack on our bus...

the bill was €249,00 - of which €4,90 was parts!!! Coodabeen worse...

Our garage people said that it is amazing just how much Marten damage they have to repair.

I retrieved this book from the boat...I have read a few chapters and skimmed the rest - surprised at how little time I took to actually sit down and read. Always too much other stuff to do on the boat...

So, I have started it again and realised this time that the first bit is about the late1880's and goes into a lot of social changes, including the introduction of "a half day off per week". Melbourne opted for Saturday afternoons and this helped the popularity of footy. My realisation was more about the fact that Lizzie was writing to Ben at that time - late 1890's. The book is very informative and gave a bit more context for Lizzie's letters.

Great grandmother writing to Great grandfather late 1890's, early 1900's - my original inspiration for writing this each week :-)

https://lizziepeelman.blogspot.com/2016/03/lizzie-peelman-letters-revisited-note-i.html