Retirement sounds pretty nice. The ONS says that pensioners spend an average of seven hours and ten minutes a day on leisure activities. Over seven hours. That’s a lot of time for nice things. Yet the prospect of retirement can bring a certain dread. According to a YouGov survey, only around half of people about to retire look forward to it. The reality of having nothing to do is as terrifying as it is thrilling.
So how do you feel when you have not held any old job, but one that kept you busy 24/7, one that let you meet hundreds of people every day and one that gave you an enormous sense of purpose? Angela Merkel faces that prospect. She has been the German chancellor for 16 years. No time for hobbies, no time for idle thoughts, no time for herself.
Yes, Merkel went on holiday trips with her husband Joachim Sauer. But a ‘holiday’ for the chancellor only meant no official appointments for three weeks.
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