Dianna Adams laughs at the idea of slowing down after retirement.

The 70-year-old teaches exercise classes, grows vegetables, constructs furniture and makes household repairs.

“I’m busier than ever,” she said.

She got interested in fitness while working for the Bermuda Tourism Department in Atlanta in the 1980s.

“The Georgia Baptist Hospital held a women’s retreat about the importance of staying fit and healthy,” she said. “They stressed the importance of walking and water aerobics.

“I walk every day but walking is not enough when you are older. Water aerobics is easier on your joints.”

She teaches four water aerobics classes and a stretch class each week for Community and Cultural Affairs and the Seniors’ Learning Centre.

“Mostly retirees take the classes,” she said. “Whenever I visit my daughter Zonya in Atlanta, I take water aerobics at a nearby fitness centre. I pick up ideas for my own classes from that.”

She thinks a lot of seniors sit too much. “We have to work on keeping our joints moving all the time,” she said. “A lot of people think as you get older you are supposed to get slower. They think you are supposed to walk bent over and have aches and pains. You don’t have to. That is what I try to stress in my classes.”

Too much sitting has never been a problem for her.

“I have never been able to sit still,” she said. “I always like to be doing things.”

She was born in St George’s, the second youngest of five children. Her parents were Grace and Clarence Smith.

As a youngster she went for a week’s visit with her aunt, Emily Darrell, in Smith’s. She stayed five years.

“My aunt didn’t have any children,” she said, “so you can imagine I got a lot more attention from her than I did at home. I asked her if I could stay, and she said, ‘Yes’.

“She lived just over the wall from Harrington Sound Primary, so going to school was easy.”

Her aunt deeply inspired her.

“My mother and my aunt were very strong women,” she said. “Both of them were very independent and encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do.”

Ms Adams later attended East End Primary, Prospect Secondary School for Girls and Clayton State University in Morrow, Georgia, where she studied marketing.

She started working as a tourism field assistant in 1981, first in Atlanta, and later in Boston.

“At that time, individual states started promoting themselves as tourism destinations; other islands started promoting themselves. Europe also became more affordable.

“Everyone found out they could make money in tourism, and that hurt Bermuda a lot.”

She spent a lot of time on the road promoting Bermuda in eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

“We had to work really hard for every person that we could get to come to the Island,” she said. “It was quite difficult, but it was an enjoyable occupation.”

She took early retirement at 54 and spent her time fishing.

“I needed to go home,” she said. “I’d always loved fishing. It was the one thing I couldn’t do in the United States. It wasn’t possible in Atlanta and when I moved to Boston, I couldn’t find anyone to go with me.”

But after four months she was bored. She went back to work, first doing administration for a concession, and then for the Sunshine League. She retired again in 2011. Carpentry classes with Alma Hunt replaced the fishing.

With her new skill she made her own lounge chair, a French-style dining table and doors.

She’s also put it to use on home improvements and repairs.

“I made my own gates and fence to keep the dogs in the backyard,” she said. “When I lived in Atlanta, I fixed my own roof.

“I just watched a roofer do it one day when I had a leak. I thought, ‘I could do that’. My neighbours thought I was very strange to be on my roof at all.”

Ms Adams is divorced and has three children, Honey, David and Zonya, and two grandchildren, Garyn, 20 and Zahna-bleu, 13.