In a recent tidying up moment I came across several jumpers with what we always called "turtle necks". For the uninitiated, this did nor refer to an exposure of a turtle type neck on you but to the collar of a jumper which came right up to the chin. Had it, thereafter, rolled over, if I remember rightly,it would then have been called a "cowl neck". I have no recollection whatsoever of my reason for housing them away from the general jumper population but there they were, opening up yet another cash-free enhancement of my current wardrobe.
But there's the rub. Putting one on I chanced to look in the mirror, (applying lipstick, since you ask), and discovered, horrified, that I did, in fact have the sinewy neck of a turtle: not a good look on an elderly lady however charming her neck may have been when she was forty. Of all the things someone seventy five going on forty has to adjust to, perhaps a changed appearance may be the most astonishing.. I don't mean the phenomenon is astonishing. I mean I am astonished when I am forced to recognise it. Having had obedient, curly brown hair with tones of russet, I now have listless, recalcitrant hair the colour of which my Mother and her friends used to call "pepper and salt".There is a slight hiccup of 'is that me?' every time I have to deal with it. Having worn with pride a bikini - at the time called a two-piece swimsuit - I now hide in the longest one-piece swimsuit I can find and that only to run in to the sea and submerge until invisible. (That's a lie. I stagger in to the sea supported by the reluctant Guru's reluctant hand and procrastinate, tentative about moving off in full view of an amused but invariably courteous collection of pretenders-not-to-notice with whom I shall, in due course, be having dinner). Oh, and waist: what waist? At forty I was - or thought I was - full of interesting ideas, thirsty for knowledge and a touch pedantic in the search for it. Well, actually, obsessively pedantic in the search for it. And it was not only knowledge. As I have disclosed in an earlier blog, ( the repetitiveness of old age) veracity: it's name was chocolate to me . "No, it wasn't 5 o'clock, it was 5 05 o'clock" I might say to a companion, not by way of correction for the sake of correction but by way of accuracy for the sake of accuracy. Not surprisingly, correction was heard as just that: a pointing out of a mistake in The Other. It's a wonder I held any friends at all in my fifth decade. With a mixture of compassion, a sense of proportion and laziness the elderly me lets all these 'mistakes' go by, the inner voice and the man in the archives noting, nodding and shrugging conspiratorially with a tolerance they rarely showed four decades ago. Anyway, I would far rather be The Mock Turtle than The Mad Hatter though there are some who would swear I was both Prynhawn da
Friday, 15 January 2016
Friday, 1 January 2016
It's That Time Again
Those of you who dare to be as old as I am may well remember a radio programme called "It's That Man Again" popular in, I think, the Forties and Fifties. Of course, I don't recall the name of That Man but only that it was a comedy programme that we all followed faithfully and felt the better for it. Yes, I do: it was Tommy Handley. There you are, you see, a tee-total New Year's Eve has left the old man in the archive fit and chirpy to push his library steps briskly up to the correct files.(That kind of serendipidy pleases me, as you will understand. I do appreciate the workings of the inner world, mysterious and unpredictable as they are. Incidentally, my American spell-checker has constant catniptions faced with my UK english).
Anyway, the time that has come round again is for the making of New Year Resolutions. Here are a few: 1] I will re-organise (US spell-checker interfering once more, wanting a 'z', I suppose) my clothes cupboard and a) throw some of them at a charity shop b) find my wardrobe renewed by items heretofore hanging at the back or hanging in the wrong place. 11] I will groom my long-haired cat diligently every day in spite of his antipathy to being done underneath and suffer the consequent wounds of war. 111] I will return the books I have taken out of the hospital library and stop counting on the fact that I am the one who deals with the 'books-out' index to hide the fact that I am overdue. 1V] I will arrive on time at the hospital and report to the Volunteers' office, as I should, rather than sneak straight to my post on the first floor. V] I will stop eating croissants and cheese for supper and find a healthier way to avoid cooking. V1] I will take more exercise and cease deliberately to avoid thinking about the person close to me who goes routinely to Boot Camp, which makes me feel guilty, inadequate and stiff. V11] I will go regularly to Eire to see my dear friend who lives there and not grumble about the exigencies of current air travel. I will cease to be too mean to stay over-night in an hotel because, as it happens, the young are worth far more than I am and are certainly not awaiting an inheritance. V111] I will endeavour to differentiate between appropriate interventions in the affairs of strangers and those that are a b....y cheek. eg It is acceptable to smile at and encourage a young Mother with a screaming baby on a full flight but not to tell off the lout who leaned over his chair to ask her what sort of Mother she was. On reflection, it was wrong to tell him off: it had consequences. Murder would have worked better .1X] I will do my best to accept my calendar age and grow up from the forty of my phantasy age. X] The thing is, the only resolution I have any hope of keeping is the one not to make any New Year Resolutions. Bore da and Blwyddwyn Newydd Dda ( Can you imagine the reaction of the spell-checker?)
Anyway, the time that has come round again is for the making of New Year Resolutions. Here are a few: 1] I will re-organise (US spell-checker interfering once more, wanting a 'z', I suppose) my clothes cupboard and a) throw some of them at a charity shop b) find my wardrobe renewed by items heretofore hanging at the back or hanging in the wrong place. 11] I will groom my long-haired cat diligently every day in spite of his antipathy to being done underneath and suffer the consequent wounds of war. 111] I will return the books I have taken out of the hospital library and stop counting on the fact that I am the one who deals with the 'books-out' index to hide the fact that I am overdue. 1V] I will arrive on time at the hospital and report to the Volunteers' office, as I should, rather than sneak straight to my post on the first floor. V] I will stop eating croissants and cheese for supper and find a healthier way to avoid cooking. V1] I will take more exercise and cease deliberately to avoid thinking about the person close to me who goes routinely to Boot Camp, which makes me feel guilty, inadequate and stiff. V11] I will go regularly to Eire to see my dear friend who lives there and not grumble about the exigencies of current air travel. I will cease to be too mean to stay over-night in an hotel because, as it happens, the young are worth far more than I am and are certainly not awaiting an inheritance. V111] I will endeavour to differentiate between appropriate interventions in the affairs of strangers and those that are a b....y cheek. eg It is acceptable to smile at and encourage a young Mother with a screaming baby on a full flight but not to tell off the lout who leaned over his chair to ask her what sort of Mother she was. On reflection, it was wrong to tell him off: it had consequences. Murder would have worked better .1X] I will do my best to accept my calendar age and grow up from the forty of my phantasy age. X] The thing is, the only resolution I have any hope of keeping is the one not to make any New Year Resolutions. Bore da and Blwyddwyn Newydd Dda ( Can you imagine the reaction of the spell-checker?)
Monday, 28 December 2015
No Room in the Inn
Thinking seasonally, it suddenly seemed to me that the story of the search for a place for Mary to give birth may actually be as significant as the birth, itself. No, don't protest yet: see what you think after I have had a go at explaining. The whole question of acceptability and confidence which comes with knowing who and where you are must be fundamental to human well-being, don't you think? The symbolic possibilities in the situation in which the Holy Family found themselves are endless. As we can't help but notice, there is currently a mind-blowing number of people on this planet without homes. More than just being without, they are exiled and destitute. It must be inconceivable to live any kind of 'ordinary' life in these circumstances. Giving birth on a dinghy will surely have echoes of giving birth in a barn.
From those thoughts evolved thoughts about rejection, of feeling not wanted anywhere by anyone. People who find themselves in the wrong body, those who turn out to be a disappointment to those supposed to love and like them most must constantly feel as if forced in to an out-building on the farm of life. At all levels and in countless predicaments this feeling proves the rocky bed on which survival scrambles to take a hold. I have watched a cat of my acquaintance, who had an unsettled and unreliable early start in life grow from anger, fear and unreachability, even using his host's carpet as a litter tray, in to a joyful, lovable master of all he surveys. He lies unguarded, all the yard (meter) of him, on forbidden surfaces and greets in-comers with a sweet welcome and an invitation to play. I am not sure that humans with similar backgrounds would be able so genuinely and completely to overcome such an unpromising early life. It seems to me that not feeling wanted becomes a sort of fault-line. Thereafter, it is only too easy to regard a perceived rejection as being due to an inadequacy or characteristic in oneself that makes one unwantable. The pivotal thing about Mary, I think, was that she had the support of her husband and a batch of kings and assorted others who turned up in time, it seems, to find her clean and tidy holding a Baby who, according to most depictions of Him, had the look of a baby at least three months old. There is never a sign of blood and gore nor the exhaustion one would have expected after such a difficult and insanitary confinement. Nor does Joseph ever look to me to be someone with the presence of mind and resourcefulness to cut the umbilical cord. Ah well, in such a story anything can be made possible. Veracity is not always preferable to imagination, or, as the saying goes, why spoil a good tale with the truth? Bore da
From those thoughts evolved thoughts about rejection, of feeling not wanted anywhere by anyone. People who find themselves in the wrong body, those who turn out to be a disappointment to those supposed to love and like them most must constantly feel as if forced in to an out-building on the farm of life. At all levels and in countless predicaments this feeling proves the rocky bed on which survival scrambles to take a hold. I have watched a cat of my acquaintance, who had an unsettled and unreliable early start in life grow from anger, fear and unreachability, even using his host's carpet as a litter tray, in to a joyful, lovable master of all he surveys. He lies unguarded, all the yard (meter) of him, on forbidden surfaces and greets in-comers with a sweet welcome and an invitation to play. I am not sure that humans with similar backgrounds would be able so genuinely and completely to overcome such an unpromising early life. It seems to me that not feeling wanted becomes a sort of fault-line. Thereafter, it is only too easy to regard a perceived rejection as being due to an inadequacy or characteristic in oneself that makes one unwantable. The pivotal thing about Mary, I think, was that she had the support of her husband and a batch of kings and assorted others who turned up in time, it seems, to find her clean and tidy holding a Baby who, according to most depictions of Him, had the look of a baby at least three months old. There is never a sign of blood and gore nor the exhaustion one would have expected after such a difficult and insanitary confinement. Nor does Joseph ever look to me to be someone with the presence of mind and resourcefulness to cut the umbilical cord. Ah well, in such a story anything can be made possible. Veracity is not always preferable to imagination, or, as the saying goes, why spoil a good tale with the truth? Bore da
Friday, 4 December 2015
Received Wisdom
It was a toss up, whether to call this post "Received Wisdom" or "These I Have Learned", or, even, " Wisdom Received". Anyway, the intention is to address myself to all you youngsters out there to help prepare you for 75 on the outside and 40 where it matters. 1) Forget running for that 'bus. Catch the next one. 11) Allow enough time for 'bus-missing. 111) Either throw away your belts or keep your waist beltable. 1V) Do not drop things on to the floor. Your middle hinge will be too rusty to retrieve them. V) Do your best to help maintain standards, eg 'i' before 'e' except after 'c', See above. Do not use 'get' or its relatives. Supply a verb which will do the trick accurately. Do not add words for emphasis, eg very unique. Is it unique or isn't it. Kill off 'importantly' unless it is in a clause with a verb to which it applies. Remember your manners - literally keep bringing them to mind. In your older years you will find yours is the only generation which has any.
V1) Clothes provide a whole catalogue of their own. Here what the Guru calls "Age Appropriate" applies. Throw out the denim. Throw out the narrow-legged trousers - women, and the baseball caps - men. If you must dye your hair pay through the nose so that you, your hairdresser and the junior who washes it are the only ones who know. If you are determined to do it at home, don't. No more bikinis and if you say you still look good in them, I find that very hard to believe. Watch out for swollen ankles - women - so that skirts may not do it for you if you have them: swollen ankles, that is. Watch out for droopy trousers - men. You have shrunk. Have them shortened. 'T' shirts are just about alright, particularly with sleeves at least to the elbow. If they have words on them bin them even if the words say "Keep Calm and ask Mum" or "Dad". No decolltage -women: Don't tell me your neck area is not a touch wrinkled. No chest hair - men. Do up that top button . No more bare arms - women, No ill-fitting false teeth - both. Use nothing which is a) shabby b) not pristine nor sparkling clean. Keep your glasses clean; you will need all the help you can acquire to see where you are going. By the way, I mean spectacles but you should keep your drinking glasses clean, too, (See under 'pristine').
V11) Do not try to flirt. Throw out archness. It is toe-curlingly embarrassing to observe the elderly dealing with A. N. Other as if they were still in their teens or twenties. Indeed, throw out any device which looks good on a young person: it will not be a good look on you post middle-age.Above all, keep learning and do let the young teach their Grandmother to suck eggs. Bore da
V1) Clothes provide a whole catalogue of their own. Here what the Guru calls "Age Appropriate" applies. Throw out the denim. Throw out the narrow-legged trousers - women, and the baseball caps - men. If you must dye your hair pay through the nose so that you, your hairdresser and the junior who washes it are the only ones who know. If you are determined to do it at home, don't. No more bikinis and if you say you still look good in them, I find that very hard to believe. Watch out for swollen ankles - women - so that skirts may not do it for you if you have them: swollen ankles, that is. Watch out for droopy trousers - men. You have shrunk. Have them shortened. 'T' shirts are just about alright, particularly with sleeves at least to the elbow. If they have words on them bin them even if the words say "Keep Calm and ask Mum" or "Dad". No decolltage -women: Don't tell me your neck area is not a touch wrinkled. No chest hair - men. Do up that top button . No more bare arms - women, No ill-fitting false teeth - both. Use nothing which is a) shabby b) not pristine nor sparkling clean. Keep your glasses clean; you will need all the help you can acquire to see where you are going. By the way, I mean spectacles but you should keep your drinking glasses clean, too, (See under 'pristine').
V11) Do not try to flirt. Throw out archness. It is toe-curlingly embarrassing to observe the elderly dealing with A. N. Other as if they were still in their teens or twenties. Indeed, throw out any device which looks good on a young person: it will not be a good look on you post middle-age.Above all, keep learning and do let the young teach their Grandmother to suck eggs. Bore da
Tuesday, 1 December 2015
Back to the Beginning
Other than activities that make life manageable for a baby, like eating, sleeping, crying and, ultimately even walking and talking, she/he starts, as soon as is practicable, to learn other ways to live a life as free from hassle as is possible. For instance, one of the first non-essentials I recall - Mother thought it was essential - was the difference between 'can' and 'may'. All these decades later, I can still hear her voice each time I need one or other. Unfortunately, 'can' applies rather more often than 'may' in spite of the somewhat permissive age in to which I have crept.
Thinking about this, it came to me that old age seems determined to back-track on one's received knowledge, making it necessary to learn and experience all the little ploys again. An apple a day does not keep the Doctor away, particularly if you have dentures and the apple is crisp and juicy. I don't - have dentures, that is. I have green-inked long enough for you to remember that old age renders you invisible so, in an ideal world, there would be a hand, or even one finger to hold on to walking in a crowded street. I have re-learned what happens to fine and wispy hair when it's wet: frizz, not like scotch mist, more like wire wool. (Does wire wool still exist, do you know?) This covering was quite attractive when thin and wispy also meant a bow tied in the scrabbled together on the on-their-way locks. It was a step in the ultimate direction of a head full of woman's glory. Now it's a mess. Post prandial napping seems as natural as it must have been at six months, the difference being that it is rather late in the age to be wasting any time at all. I find, too, that I would have difficulty even in picking up as much as a Teddy Bear since my middle hinges have gone. I am also 'D' shaped in the middle, as little ones are, too, so that doesn't help deal with that stuff that's on the floor. I need a me from a former time when I was picker-up in Chief, to do my picking up, now. I recall the excitement of a whole page of script leaping out of the page as a readable reality. I was five, or maybe six and it was "Janet and John", (the book's title, of course). I have the same excitement when I press a key on my computer and find the whole page has actually not been consigned to cyberspace. But one enormous gain wrested from the rules of baby-/childhood: I am so old I no longer have to eat my greens. Prynhawn da
Thinking about this, it came to me that old age seems determined to back-track on one's received knowledge, making it necessary to learn and experience all the little ploys again. An apple a day does not keep the Doctor away, particularly if you have dentures and the apple is crisp and juicy. I don't - have dentures, that is. I have green-inked long enough for you to remember that old age renders you invisible so, in an ideal world, there would be a hand, or even one finger to hold on to walking in a crowded street. I have re-learned what happens to fine and wispy hair when it's wet: frizz, not like scotch mist, more like wire wool. (Does wire wool still exist, do you know?) This covering was quite attractive when thin and wispy also meant a bow tied in the scrabbled together on the on-their-way locks. It was a step in the ultimate direction of a head full of woman's glory. Now it's a mess. Post prandial napping seems as natural as it must have been at six months, the difference being that it is rather late in the age to be wasting any time at all. I find, too, that I would have difficulty even in picking up as much as a Teddy Bear since my middle hinges have gone. I am also 'D' shaped in the middle, as little ones are, too, so that doesn't help deal with that stuff that's on the floor. I need a me from a former time when I was picker-up in Chief, to do my picking up, now. I recall the excitement of a whole page of script leaping out of the page as a readable reality. I was five, or maybe six and it was "Janet and John", (the book's title, of course). I have the same excitement when I press a key on my computer and find the whole page has actually not been consigned to cyberspace. But one enormous gain wrested from the rules of baby-/childhood: I am so old I no longer have to eat my greens. Prynhawn da
Sunday, 15 November 2015
What's More
The "Does He Take Sugar?" phenomenon I put to you in the last post actually has several other faces. One that features most often in my life could be called "Ignorant, Naughty Schoolgirl". This occurs when I am seen to have made a mistake, indeed, often have made a mistake. The perpetrator then fixes me with a look which conveys both disgust and impatience - or even patience - and manages to correct me while making me feel a hopeless, inconsiderate waste of space: a naughty Schoolgirl' sensation; all this in a voice of compassionate understanding which feels infantilising in itself
I know, I know: I must take responsibility for my own reactions and I do, but I still don't like the way it makes me feel. One of the concomitant fall-outs is that I lose the capacity to justify myself or point out that I am factually right on the occasions when I am. Perhaps this highlights another potential hazard of older age: confidence, while increased in terms of sticking to a difficult truth, diminishes in terms of perceived tests of friendship and relatedness. In fact, the whole 'naughty schoolgirl' thing tends to depend on ones own particular fault line. Mine seems to be a concern that I may be seen as not-wantable. Yours may be, for instance, that you think only of yourself, or that the world owes you whatever. At the forty end of my spectrum there was time to 'cure' the fault that was irritating the other: time for another chance. Now, at this ancient end, the twig may fall off the tree before there has been any opportunity for reparation. How to reconcile that with the elderly tendency to be direct and imperious is a conundrum I find disheartening and insoluble. Quite often my dodgy steps are to do with an unfamiliarity with the electronic world. I have been to extraordinary lengths to track down over days information or an object. The Guru taps out a few digits on his phone and has the answer in seconds. To be fair, he doesn't subject me to 'the look' when I do something stupid and/or old-fashioned. I did risk buying cat food on the Internet - does it take a capital 'i'? - and was landed with a bag so big there is no cupboard to take it and I doubt my three and a half-year-old cat will have life enough to eat it all even if I have life enough to serve it.
Someone who was staying with me once accused the cat of being evil and opportunistic. (I think he had used a hand-basin as a facility). "He's a cat" I protested. Me, I'm an old lady, evil and opportunistic as well I might. Prynhawn da
I know, I know: I must take responsibility for my own reactions and I do, but I still don't like the way it makes me feel. One of the concomitant fall-outs is that I lose the capacity to justify myself or point out that I am factually right on the occasions when I am. Perhaps this highlights another potential hazard of older age: confidence, while increased in terms of sticking to a difficult truth, diminishes in terms of perceived tests of friendship and relatedness. In fact, the whole 'naughty schoolgirl' thing tends to depend on ones own particular fault line. Mine seems to be a concern that I may be seen as not-wantable. Yours may be, for instance, that you think only of yourself, or that the world owes you whatever. At the forty end of my spectrum there was time to 'cure' the fault that was irritating the other: time for another chance. Now, at this ancient end, the twig may fall off the tree before there has been any opportunity for reparation. How to reconcile that with the elderly tendency to be direct and imperious is a conundrum I find disheartening and insoluble. Quite often my dodgy steps are to do with an unfamiliarity with the electronic world. I have been to extraordinary lengths to track down over days information or an object. The Guru taps out a few digits on his phone and has the answer in seconds. To be fair, he doesn't subject me to 'the look' when I do something stupid and/or old-fashioned. I did risk buying cat food on the Internet - does it take a capital 'i'? - and was landed with a bag so big there is no cupboard to take it and I doubt my three and a half-year-old cat will have life enough to eat it all even if I have life enough to serve it.
Someone who was staying with me once accused the cat of being evil and opportunistic. (I think he had used a hand-basin as a facility). "He's a cat" I protested. Me, I'm an old lady, evil and opportunistic as well I might. Prynhawn da
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
Spare Parts
Centuries - well, decades - ago a lady helped in my family's business. She liked to be really busy and whenever she found herself idle would say "Oh dear, I feel like a spare part." Recently I had an experience which came under the same heading but with a different content. Planning a brief break with A.N. Other, the suggestion was made that I should acquire a suitcase whose dimensions fitted the 'hand luggage' requirements of the relevant airline so that we would not waste too much of our mini-break waiting for luggage from the hold.
We duly went together to a specialist luggage shop. The Other explained what we wanted to the assistant who approached us. Without hesitation he addressed himself to the Other in terms of " What do you think will suit her best? How much is she prepared to spend?" and other queries destined to clarify what would be the right purchase for the senile, deaf, dumb and non-English speaker hovering over him. His concerns were answered and a case produced that cost a month's mortgage installment. Accepting the parsimony of the Other he produced some more reasonably priced. Without once looking at me he showed his compassion, saying "This one is light enough for her. I recommend one with four wheels. She can ask for help to lift it in to the locker" and so forth and so fifth. With some difficulty we managed not to catch one another's eye and so avoided the discourtesy of laughing in his face. Finally, a case was chosen, at which point I asked him what his best price for it would be. Imagine his astonishment. Not only was I alive and well and in his shop but I had the gall to bargain with him. £6 was knocked off the asking price and we and the case rolled out of the shop free to laugh at last. That was fun. It is not so funny when I am an invisible spare part to people rushing past me not giving a d..n that I wobble and could easily fall over. It seems elderly women inevitably move from eyelash fluttering through stick waving to invisibilty. I have green-inked about this before. Which brings me to another observation you may find relevant: the elderly, forgetting to whom they have told what, inevitably repeat themselves. Blog-browsing backwards I see that I am as guilty of that as the next dotty old age pensioner. Be patient with me, I beg you. However, I have to say there is merit in some spare parts: implanted contact lenses, hearing aids, anti-pain patches and a third leg. No Zimmer frame as yet Bore da
We duly went together to a specialist luggage shop. The Other explained what we wanted to the assistant who approached us. Without hesitation he addressed himself to the Other in terms of " What do you think will suit her best? How much is she prepared to spend?" and other queries destined to clarify what would be the right purchase for the senile, deaf, dumb and non-English speaker hovering over him. His concerns were answered and a case produced that cost a month's mortgage installment. Accepting the parsimony of the Other he produced some more reasonably priced. Without once looking at me he showed his compassion, saying "This one is light enough for her. I recommend one with four wheels. She can ask for help to lift it in to the locker" and so forth and so fifth. With some difficulty we managed not to catch one another's eye and so avoided the discourtesy of laughing in his face. Finally, a case was chosen, at which point I asked him what his best price for it would be. Imagine his astonishment. Not only was I alive and well and in his shop but I had the gall to bargain with him. £6 was knocked off the asking price and we and the case rolled out of the shop free to laugh at last. That was fun. It is not so funny when I am an invisible spare part to people rushing past me not giving a d..n that I wobble and could easily fall over. It seems elderly women inevitably move from eyelash fluttering through stick waving to invisibilty. I have green-inked about this before. Which brings me to another observation you may find relevant: the elderly, forgetting to whom they have told what, inevitably repeat themselves. Blog-browsing backwards I see that I am as guilty of that as the next dotty old age pensioner. Be patient with me, I beg you. However, I have to say there is merit in some spare parts: implanted contact lenses, hearing aids, anti-pain patches and a third leg. No Zimmer frame as yet Bore da
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