Tadpoles

I am quite discombobulated. The 'Blogger' format has changed. At my age all change is guilty until proven innocent. I've established that there is still a 'Save' click-on and still a 'Publish', all up instead of down and much paler than I remember. Maybe ink is costing more or it's cost-effective to discombobulate or both of the above.It also says 'Preview' and 'Close.' What on earth could they mean? Anyway, if the Wizard of Cyberspace allows me to get to the end of this post, we shall discover if what you see out there, particularly in Mountain View California, stays the same. Seriously, though, change is practically non-negotiable when you are seven score and more than ten years - much. The change which got me to the computer is about tadpoles. One of Liz's eyes now houses two tadpoles. This is change in spades - well, baby frogs, let's say. The Father of my Children had this same experience and was then discovered to have a detached retina. Because of what he went through,it was Post Haste to the Doctor. From hence booked in to the eye clinic; on Saturday morning, if you please. That surely makes it serious, doesn't it? No, of course it doesn't, merely precautionary. I am quite happy to house un-serious tadpoles, or even frogs, come to that, but I'd rather not detach my retina. Himself spent weeks upside down on his bed. What would happen to my beloved four-legged best friend? Equally, my lodger, my campers, the washing machine? I did try washing them off my fringe, wiping off my mascara, putting drops in my eyes. Nothing worked. Thus, to the medics went I. (Something to do with Shakespeare's birthday, I suspect in my verb inversion) Think of me, to-morrow morning, no make-up - because they put drops in your eyes, silly - and no car because you can't see properly for several hours after they look in to the nethers of your optics. Which brings me to another change. Walking down to the hospital, I shall catch sight, in the various shop windows I pass, of this waddly old lady lurching along, the be-prammed babies staring at her third leg, and wonder where went the elegant stride of yesteryear; off with the melted snows, I suppose. I watch people walking on the open land opposite where I live and follow the known paths with my inner eye - the one without the tadpoles - and feel quite jealous. More, my curly hair has stopped being curly. It has more or less agreed to keep its colour but it has given up its mojo. The man who cuts it has at last given in and given it a shape that doesn't depend on curl. Relief all round, though a very different look in the mirror and a very different technique with the brush. I like it. Not one person dear to me whom I have seen since this catastrophic reversal has even noticed. I am both changed and invisible. A waddling, three-legged tadpole-housing eccentric blogger with straight hair who can't tell, from the new format, how much she has written. Perhaps, when I eventually turn in to a frog someone will kiss me and turn me in to a Princess. That'll do nicely. Nos da.

Misunderstanding

There's a thing:in more than three score and ten years, you'd expect me to have experienced more than a few misunderstandings. I confess, I would more readily expect them to have occured in my forties than my seventies. However,it seems age offers no protection and the part of me that is still forty is more than capable of suffering them, currently. Example: friends invited me to the National Film Theatre at the weekend. We went to see "La Grande Illusion". I was passionately in love with the lead actor, one Jean Gabin, in my susceptible teens. I saw it, then, many times, for that reason. Now, it was time to see it as a work of art and an ageless plea for what I can only and simply call peace and, sadly, the illusion, only, that this may be possible. For reasons I won't go in to, the day had had its stresses. Some of them had translated in to a great deal of physical movement involving cardboard boxes, cars, storage and the like. Geographically, this had left me, lunchless, quite near the NFT, but early: time enough to eat. There followed two battles. One with the jobsworth keeper of the barrier in to the complex including the NFT and the National Theatre. He didn't want me to come in without the ticket my friends were holding. That battle I won by the little old lady method. It can work even better than the eye-lash flutter used to. Battle number two was to get the tea I craved in a restaurant that, 23 seconds before, had started its dinner menu. More little old lady. I won again but three waiters and a Manager later. Hunger satisfied it remained only to negotiate the NFT's many stairs. Needing a response to Nature's call, I was thrilled to see a door, on the same level, with the Disabled symbol on it. I rushed over in and for relief. I was intercepted by a large man who, again, asked for my ticket. Appalled, I said, again, that my friends were waiting outside with it. Patiently it was explained I could'nt go in without a ticket. My Russian blood - as my Mother would say - was up and he suffered a diatribe about little old ladies and disabled loos. Without a word, he opened the door and I saw the inside of the Theatre. No loo, no stairs, simply an entrance for those who couldn't manage the climb. Oh Dear.

The next is even more lost in translation. To-morrow, I am responsible for a poetry reading during lunch hour. These events are usually attended by two women and a cat but require the same preparation as one would afford a National Theatre production. My inner world has created many impediments to doing this properly so it has been a very last minute pulling myself together. The good, patient lady who is the over-all organiser was to print programmes. She needed the material. I had made five, yes, five attempts to collate and type the list presentably, fighting with the word processor facility all the way. It even had the nerve to take over the enumeration when it hadn't been asked to. Anyway, at the fifth attempt, I left all numbers out and, at last, managed a fair copy. I rang her to see how I could get it to her. "Email it", quoth she. From Word Processor to Email? Not in my lifetime. Print, read out,fax, drive over, but re-do it on an email? A bad joke. (I know: no verb).Dear Reader, she actually managed to talk me through how to transfer from one medium to the other. Not, however, before the MISUNDERSTANDING. "Put the cursor in the middle of the space where you would normally send an email". Yes dear. However, this brought the material into the space for hiding recipients, BCC I believe it's called. It took more than a few goes but, having, at last,tried putting the cursor in the top left hand corner, where I normally start "Dear Guru", for instance, it worked. I wish I could say I was proud. I'm not. I'm exhausted.

Finally: there are three young men living in the house. (Don't even go there. The explanation is more than my blogsworth). A cry from one of them, the longest incumbant; where are his violet underpants? Text messages all round but, clearly, neither of the other two is in a position to look and see if he has misunderstood whose underpants are whose. Nos da

Love, again

It wouldn't be surprising if someone of my great age would feel she had plenty to say about love. Those dear, faithful readers who have been kind enough to keep up will remember that there have been previous wanderings in to this particular minefield. However, there will be more to say on the subject than is dreamt of in anyone's philosophy and I don't see why a concern about presumption should inhibit me.
As I was saying: love. Today's impulse was occasioned by a recent paschal visit to my homeland.That visit deserves a post all of its own. After all, not everyone is driven eighteen miles out of town to buy a leg of Welsh lamb from the best butcher in the Principality. That will have to do for the moment, though. During the visit, my chauffeur and I met some old friends of his who have, I am delighted to note, become friends of mine. Indeed, they undertook to be guardians to my rocking chair when I made the final move from the domestic toe-hold I had kept in the land of leeks and daffodils long after it had ceased to be economically viable. Pause for a green ink moment:in that town, there is an embargo on the hiring of cars by those of us passed the middle of the eigth decade, so no train and car combo possible. Driving all the way from London is exhausting but a car is virtually essential at the other end; result: stalemate or a generous son who also has a touch of hiraeth for the old place. He drove. During dinner with our friends, it emerged that, recently, the lady had had a difficult time. She had lost her parents only a few months before. She told us that having been extrememly close for nearly sixty years, they died on the same day. Someone of my temperament, or any nosey-parker, for that matter,would have found it very difficult to leave it there. I didn't. I asked how that had happened. She told us her Mother telephoned her from the town 50 miles away where she lived, to say that she had called an ambulance for her Father because she was very concerned about his health. This lady was of the nature that simply never felt able to bother the Doctor so my friend at once understood the real severity of the emergency. She alerted her sister who lived near their parents, That lady went straight round to her parents' house. Receiving no reply to her knock, she assumed her Mother had gone in the ambulance, too, and drove on to the hospital, believing she would find her Mother there. She was not. The news was broken that her father had died actually in the ambulance so she rushed back to the parental home. Letting herself in, she found her Mother dead on the floor with the telephone, open, in her hand. It is more than likely that each had died at the same moment as the other.Thus, each was spared the knowledge that the other had died.I am tempted to say " the conscious knowledge" because who knows what the depth of their loving connection might have made possible? The story appeared in the National newspapers. I don't think I saw it but then I would not have been aware of my friend's maiden name if I had.
I found the story beautiful and poignant and full of hope. I was envious, too. How blessed one would be to experience such a profound, mutual love no matter from what source. The awareness that it is too late, at more than three score and ten, to expect to be blessed with some of life's most exquisite experiences remains intellectual, stays in the head, until such a story emerges. Then it moves from the head to the heart. Bore da

Funerals

It wouldn't be surprising if funerals were to come to mind from time to time at my interesting age. Well, I find age interesting. I am living with a monkey on my shoulder with a degree of interest which borders on compulsive obsessive. He watches my life as if it were his sole source of nourishment. For all I know it may be. (I can just see the fellow, with his bright, intense eyes, and he is clinging to me as if his life depended on it). I have already planned my funeral with great care. Actually, I planned it some time ago and it may be that the details will need up-dating. Indeed, the nice Welsh minister I had in mind to conduct it has retired and gone to live a long way away. Recently, I attended a funeral other than my own. It was a lady I had met but not really known. One of her sons is a friend of mine; a good friend, a friend in need. When a drain is blocked or the downstairs is flooded, there he is, six foot in all directions and equally strong. (His is, of course, help in addition to the Guru's. In fact, I didn't know how nuch the Guru did for me, outside of Cyberspace, until he moved out and stopped doing it). Anyway, I went in order to support my friend. Before the interment, there was to be a service at the Chapel in the grounds of the cemetery.The day was foul: driving wind and rain and really cold. What's more, finding my way is not what I am best at. Even having, eventually, found a Chapel, I couldnt be sure it was the right one.But, I spotted a group of men and women, each one six foot in all directions and hoped this may be a reliable clue. Indeed, I had stumbled on the right Chapel and was soon being interrogated by the largest and clearly the lead quizzer of the bunch. After a few questions, which I was beginning to find border-line cheeky, I realised I had been mistaken for the lady- friend they knew my friend had recently acquired whom none of his family had yet met. Since he is in his forties, I was seriously flattered. Having clarified my role, we all relaxed and chatted like old acquaintances until the hearse and other family cars arrived.So far, so ordinary.

I found the service touching and effective. Three huge sons, a sister of normal proportions, and assorted relatives I had no way of placing assembled and prayed and sang and listened and gave what had clearly been a good and worthwhile human being a fitting send off. There were no surprises and, in due course, the Minister invited us to bring our cars and follow the hearse to the burial plot which was some distance away. At this juncture, it seemed prudent, having done my duty by friendship, to slip away. No point in exposing another old lady to the vicissitudes of wind, rain and mud when my presence had been noted and my respects paid. Therefore, I took the opportunity to find the door to the Ladies at the back of the Chapel and attend to a need which had become rather urgent given the extended length of my journey there and so on. Duly found, I got on with my business, tidied my weather-blown hair, taking my time, and prepared to leave and drive back home. Dear Reader, to my horror,emerging back in to the Chapel I realised I had been waited for. Hearse, Minister's car, kin cars and kith cars all waiting, just for me. Up there with the most embarrassing moment of my life, it was. Anyway, no hope of retreating for home and a hot bath. Back in my car and meekly follow the procession miles and miles round the cemetery to the interment, like a good girl. Naturally, I was last so last in a long line of cars on a single lane road. It was clear the way out was ahead and around so there I was trapped, hopeless. The shorter version of this sorry tale is that I, following the example of Another, backed down the approach road and managed to get away before the assembly had an opportunity to berate me for holding them all up and what- did- it- matter- what- my- hair- looked -like anyway? I promise to have my funeral on a dry, windless day and I'll forgive you if you miss the actual interment because of Nature's needs. I'm sure my friend's Mother would have, too. Nos da

Marriage

If you think that Marriage can be dealt with in a single blogpost you are probably not married. If you think I would have the temerity to cover it in one post I must have misled you, grossly, about who I am. At any rate, I do intend to make a start on a subject I have avoided up to now although it exercises, often, my mind and because, yesterday, it leapt in to focus in a rather unexpected way. To begin at the beginning: the mores of marriage are amongst the greatest changes observable in the years between age 40 and 75. Obviously, one great change is what might be called 'non-marriage'. Two people of opposite genders living together without benefit of clergy, as the saying goes/went, in the 70s when I was in my 40s, were regarded as Living in Sin. The woman was no better than she should be. The man was on to a good thing. The waterfall of reasons, ideas and philosophies inherent in that and, more important, in the acceptance of the current status quo, would take a dam of unimagineable proportions to control and exploit. At risk of drowning, I shall, nevertheless, approach and hold a jug under the flow to analyse just a litre or so. Marriage must have seemed the only solution which would both protect a woman and give her an acceptable role in a world where she was largely excluded from professional gratification. This solution would have lost its attraction as women gained more and more freedom and stature in the world of work. I have watched this erosion with mixed feelings. I am both pleaased for and envious of women who are currently 40. But I am also concerned. I do see value in tradition and containment. Whatever went on behind closed doors, men, women and children, too, for that matter, knew what was expected of them and, more or less, how to carry it out; no bad thing, surely.
Yesterday, I took part in a discussion which was, loosely, about comparative religion. The significance of woman was raised. An idea was put forward that there may be an intrinsic fear of women, of their power. A power that may be implicit in their fundamental and essential faculty to feed the young. From Nature's point of view, before the arrival of teeth - and Formula - civilisation could not survive without the milk of the Mother. The fact that without the man there would have been no conception in the first place got swallowed up in the overwhelming awareness that things would have progressed no further if there had been no means of nurturing the new-born baby.The point being that this dependence on the woman for survival made her threatening beyond tolerating and, as I see it, led to all the sublimation of that gender that we know about. Simplistic? yes, indeed. What it incontravertibly (?) shows is that there is essential necessity for both genders. Does equality follow, I ask myself: I ask you? Anyway, this may well prove to be quite the wrong forum to raise the matter. I suspect the Guru switched off a hundred words ago. Why should a man for whom a mobile phone is as ordinary and accepted as are his ears, his hands, be caught up in the mind-blowing development of the role of marriage between the time when his Godmother was married and the present day?
The story may have a happy ending. A couple, married 62 years, attended this meeting having travelled by 'bus. The lady got off first, at a particular stop and walked through a passage to reach the top of the road where the venue was. The man continued on the same 'bus, up through the village and down again to a stop at the bottom of the venue road. This was done with complete unanimity and acceptance. No argument about efficiency, no marital sniping, no "I told you so" by the first to arrive, just the independence each to do what he/she thought worked better. Who would want it any other way? Prynhawn da

Just a Minute

Yesterday, I took the minutes for a meeting of my Doctor's General Practice Patients Group. There were about a dozen people there. Now, I live in a community that is highly articulate, educated and political. The latter not necessarily in the sense of allegiance, more in the sense of involvement in what's going on in our community and in the country. Proudly, I drew a little map of the table so I could note not only the names of those who attended, (absolutely not: I refuse point blank to call them attendees, so there), but also where they were seated, to make it easier to ascribe comments. This is an occupation in which I have indulged before, however, not for more decades than it would be decent to remember. I tell you this because I was under the impression, when I offered to stand in as a one-off for the appointed Secretary, that my earlier experience of committee note-taking and my ordinary student experience, when the notes of the Professor became the notes of the student without passing through the head of either, as the old saw goes, would be all I needed to keep the pen on the paper. I suppose I was also thinking of my later professional need for note-taking. Crazy: the making of headline notes in a 50 minute consultation when 45 of those minutes consisted of a profoundly constructive silence has nothing in common with a room full of jabbering interested parties falling over one another in their eagerness to be heard. No, I don't do shorthand. I did attend a Secretarial School for Young Ladies sixty years ago when it was the thing for well-brought-up young Welsh girls to do if they wished to leave the Principality (Wales, if you are over the Pond)and set themselves up in the Smoke (London, ditto). I left on the third day and managed to resucitate my offer of a University place and embark on quite a different path. All this would be of little interest if I were as young as last I was in this situation. I am not. I don't hear as well, I don't write as fast and I don't, after all, remember those things that seem so obvious they don't need writing down. To cap it all, when I made my egregious offer, I was unaware that there was to be a guest speaker.
Thereby lies the rub. A youngish, prettyish woman, a highly qualified medic, buzzing with enthusiasm, energy and evangelism arrived to address us on the part she, the practice Doctors and we were to play in the re-organisation of our National Health Service. Dear Reader, she dived from a height straight in. I was utterly drowned in her words. I have hung on to a few of the Pitman shorthand symbols, learnt in those three days, (Does Pitmans even exist now, I ask myself; I ask you?) and the improvised shorthand I used for lecture note-taking - no vowels, for instance - but none of my resources was equal to the flow of fact-packed, urgent and essential information emanating from this gifted and unstoppable person. What to do? I put down my pen, wiped my fevered brow and decided to fall back on my facility for recall to fill in the gaps at home. But I couldn't. My mind is/was a blank. I have suffered the guilt, the shame and the inevitable. I could tell you what she was wearing to the last button but what she said is mush in my ears. It is Phillip Glass where it should be Mozart. I ask you to pray with me, that the Practice Manager is in a good mood, on good form and with a good memory when I report back to her on Monday. Otherwise the minutes will simply have to read: "there was a guest speaker." Nos da

Focus

Yesterday, I attended a Focus group organised by a huge and very well-known clothing manufacturer and retailer. The subjects were knickers and bras. With a degree of mischief threatening to become unmanageable, I found my inner voice chanting "vicars and tarts" to itself as I did the bustling necessary to arrive on time. I'm sure my Mother would have been as horrified at the thought of a forum discussion on knickers and bras as she would have been had she been invited to a party with a theme of vicars and tarts . My naughty response will suggest to you that my own mindset is also not that far behind. Since I am, however, really only 40, I did feel equal to what I expected to be quite a challenge. The system was for some fourteen women to sit around a table with a Focus group specialist, a designer, a structural engineer and,in the morning, a knicker expert and, in the afternoon, an expert in bras. As it happens, I have attended one of these gatherings at this institution before. It was led by a man. He, having written the email of invitation, was unwell and, therefore, not in. Very sensible, I thought. Schoolgirl giggles could have been the only possible outcome if the ensuing process had been led by a man; even this man who seemed unlikely ever to watch a woman dress and undress. The instruction was to say which of our knickers we liked best and why and which had disappointed. Purchase from another source was to be acknowledged along the lines of ' what are they doing better than we are?' I was sitting where I was second in the round. (This matters, as will emerge). Now, Liz wears what I can describe only as 'school knickers': fitting round the backside, over the bulge and up to the waist. I love them. I have progressed, through the years, from this firm's pretties to this firms sensibles. My comment was that, pure cotton as they may be, they had shrunk. Time had been spent in selecting a pair that had and a pair that hadn't, to prove my point. Dear Reader, the entire team was round me like a piece of elastic. My undies were photographed, felt and recorded and the upshot was that my address was taken with the promise that I should receive replacements at their expense. Of course it matters, silly. If they shrink they are no longer capable of covering the bulge. They rest in an uncomfortable squeeze in the middle of it. This dilemma is meaningless to you young ones, but it is jolly disconcerting to the elderly aspirant to some degree of elegance - the line, silly, the line. You have probably guessed, but the relevance of being second emerged as we went round the table and the most frivolous, lacy, racy bits of nothing were displayed and examined, in colours I had walked passed with eyes averted when I was in the shop. I would have slunk out leaving my sample behind had I been any further round the bend...double entendre intended.
The afternoon was even more of a challenge. I was forced to confess I didnt buy their bras. I tried and they don't work for me. Expecting to be thrown out, I suffered even greater shame: the attempt to persuade me to have another go. If you have been at the receiving end of a concerted campaign by expert marketeers to get you to buy their product, you will have some idea of what I went through. Charm, discretion and a brickwall politeness finally exhausted me to a point where I agreed to a new fitting and another try. Well, you would wouldn't you when they are half the price of what I had bought and there are so many to choose from? But, actually, no. There were so many to choose from I was quite overwhelmed.....and exhausted. What kind of a world do I live in, I asked myself, that I can spend a whole day focussing on my underwear when the outside world is as the outside world is. Death, destruction, cruelty, tragedy: what can it possibly matter? How can a group of women, a group of experts and their employer call this Focus? But when I had run out of green ink, I realised that this particular employer gave work to more thousands of people world-wide than my imagination could encompass. So, drown your scruples and focus on that. Bore da
PS Mountain View, California. Do, please, put me out of my misery! Who are you?
liz.mountford@gmail.com