Uncategorized – ALIVE AND CREAKING

2025 – STILL HERE

I started this blog 12 years ago just after I left full time employment but have neglected it for several years – largely because I have been very busy running my own business as a funeral celebrant.

I’ve decided to revisit – and rename – the blog in 2025 as I am considerably older and have to accept that I am no longer a fit young 65 year old 😉 but a rather creaky 77 year old. Hopefully my mental faculties are still sharp (at least no-one has told me otherwise yet!)

So why have I made this decision? Largely because I constantly find things that people say or don’t say amusing and/or annoying and want to share them. Share with who -sorry, whom – you may ask? Perhaps with others of a similar vintage who can relate to these musings, or perhaps a whole new group of younger folk who have never thought about how us ancient ones actually used to be young and enthusiastic like them…

Let’s get the ball rolling by asking anyone reading this who is under 60 – when did you last compliment an older (60+) person on their appearance?

And to those over 60 – when did anyone (other than a spouse/partner) compliment you on your appearance and notice if you’ve changed your hairstyle?

My guess in both cases is ‘I can’t remember’. It seems that as we get older we become less and less visible. I still put on makeup every day, go to the hairdressers regularly and often change the style, keep up to date with fashion trends and try to buy ‘age appropriate’ (whatever that is!) versions of these – but I honestly can’t remember anyone ever commenting on how I look.

Some of you might think this is very shallow of me, and I realise that this mainly applies to us women – somehow men don’t seem to be as invisible…

I do all this so that I feel good about me, not for external gratification, but when you hear all those around you being complimented on a new outfit, new hairstyle etc. and nobody includes you, it can be quite depressing.

To me it implies that you are no longer visible. Your role in the world has diminished – and I’m not ready to be put on the scrap heap yet! I still want to contribute to the world around me. I may not have the energy of a 20 year old anymore, but my brain still functions – and I want to keep it working. I still have new ideas of things to do, I still want to work – I still want to contribute to my community. And as a further incentive, I need to earn an income to pay my bills as my pension just doesn’t cover it!

So, come on all us ‘seniors’ ( I actually HATE that word ) – it’s a new year so let’s all resolve to stay positive and BE SEEN. Are you with me?

A touch of reflection

It’s just over a year since I started this blog and I’m not a very regular blogger, but thought I ought to take a moment to think back over the last year.

I gave up full time work in August 2012 and have spent the time since then developing my own new business as a Reiki and EFT Practitioner. I have also managed to fit in a wonderful month in Australia, visits to friends around the UK, as well as joining a creative writing course, and achieving a proofreading diploma,

The business is growing slowly but steadily and I now have my own premises – though I don’t work full time. The whole point is to make enough of a living for those extras like long holidays in faraway places without having to slog my guts out in a 40+ hour week!!! I also enjoy Reiki and EFT as they are wonderful therapies that can help people without doing any harm.

On the whole it’s been a pretty good year, despite the sadness of losing my 97 year old aunt in April. At a recent checkup with my GP she commented that my cholesterol and blood pressure levels were better than they’ve been for years – and the only thing that has changed is my work situation. Proof, if any were needed, that stress has physical manifestations!

My birth certificate says I am 66, but I have decided to start counting backwards so on my birthday last month I turned 64… Roll on being 60 again 😉

To keep or to sell (updated in July)

I have a dilemma.. I’ve been having a clear out and have found an old doll that was either a birthday or Christmas present (can’t remember which!) when I was about 10.

I called her Pamela and she was gorgeous – dark hair (and she came with her own brush and comb set), eyes that opened and closed, she walked – and TALKED. I also got a doll’s pram for her and used to parade up and down the street with my baby… as I see little girls still do nearly 60 years later.

Pamela has spent the last 30+ years wrapped in a silk scarf at the back of a wardrobe. She is in her original clothes, including the straw sun bonnet, although the white vest and socks are a bit grey. I’ve just washed them all in the hope they’ll look a little fresher… She still walks, her eyes still open and close, but she has long since lost her voice.

I have no children of my own to pass her to, and although I do have one special little 7 year old who loves girly things, she is in Australia and I’m not sure she’d want Pamela anyway.

It seems silly to keep her wrapped up and never seen, so I’ve checked on Ebay and there is a market for such dolls – although she won’t make me a rich woman. Do I keep her or sell her? And why I am really fretting about it… I have no reason to be sentimental about this.

Funny how we hang on to things from our past when they serve absolutely no purpose.

JULY UPDATE – I decided to sell Pamela and she is currently winging her way to a lady in Western Australia whom I hope will look after her

An old life nearing its end

I am writing this in the home of my 97 year old aunt. She is in her bedroom and she is dying; there are only the two of us in the house. The nurses came earlier this evening to set up a syringe driver to make her remaining time less stressful for her as she was hallucinating and becoming agitated. So now she is very peaceful, virtually unconscious, as she starts her final journey.

Until 4 days ago she was very independent, living in her own home and caring for herself with minimal help from a twice weekly cleaner and home deliveries – she hasn’t been out of the house for a year. She is highly intelligent and a week ago we were both sat here in her living room doing a crossword puzzle and discussing the death of Margaret Thatcher. My aunt has very strong political opinions and they are not those of Maggie!!!

I keep going in to check her breathing – her body has started to shut down and the doctor thinks she will probably die in the next 24 hours.

The person lying in the bed bears no resemblance to the woman I know and love. Marie was born in the middle of the Great War, in January 1916, the 4th of 5 children. She has seen so much and is a wealth of stories about life in London from the 1920s onwards. She married the love of her life after he returned from the Royal Marines in the 2nd World War. They had no children. She has been a widow for nearly 20 years and for all that time she has been fiercely independent and feisty.

So as I watch the life force leaving her I feel immense sadness for me that I will no longer be able to have long phone conversations about world affairs with her, no longer be able to ask about family history – she is the last in the line, my last relative. I am happy for her as she says ‘I have lived too long’ and is looking forward to being reunited with all those who have gone before her.

CAT UPDATE..

She’s now on a drip for 24 hours to rehydrate her…. and I am a worried owner. She’s used up an awful lot of her 9 lives that I know of – and as she was a rescue cat I don’t know how many she’d already cashed in before I got her!!

Cats!

This is my lovely cat relaxing in the garden last year. Right now she is at the vet having blood tests and scans because she seems to have ‘lost her mojo’. She’s getting on a bit – in her mid-teens, but has been very healthy until the last few days.

So now I have to wait and worry – and hope. We invest so much time and love into our pets, and they give us so much in return – not least, unconditional love and acceptance.

Sitting in the waiting room at the vet’s surgery I looked round at the other ‘patients’. One very young and enthusiastic spaniel wanted to make friends with every other dog there – including a VERY large labrador/retriever who wasn’t quite so keen… The spaniel was obviously a novice at the vet’s and hasn’t yet learned to be terrified of going! Others, more experienced, sat and shivered under their owner’s legs as if waiting for a call to the gallows. Yet I have been told that once in the surgery, most dogs become compliant and soppy and let the vet do whatever he/she needs to!

Cats, on the other hand, are usually much calmer and more laid back as they wait their turn. They sit in their carry cases and usually look bored or go to sleep – until they are called into the surgery where they become vicious, spitting, almost rabid, feline monsters as they try and fight the vet!

Contrary creatures.

So I sit and wait for a call from the vet to say when I can collect my poorly cat, and I just hope they have found the problem and more importantly, a solution – preferably one that doesn’t involve too many tablets. Administering tablets to a cat is a whole new blog!

Bear with me…

Just in case anyone is reading any of my blogs, please bear with me as I am still learning how to build the pages! This means that I’ve created some pages with nothing in them yet. It’s very time-consuming to get it right, and I am a bit of a perfectionist… I’m also playing with different designs and backgrounds, so the site could well look totally different tomorrow, and again on Sunday.

If anyone has any tips or comments on what makes a great blog – please do tell me. And if you think my blogs and/or pages are rubbish, constructive comments are welcome.

Thank you 🙂

It’s all in the mind….

As my blog is about not getting old, this picture seems very appropriate – and it made me laugh.

I remember my Mum telling me, when she was in her late 70s and frail, that she used to wake up every morning and feel 21 – until the moment she tried to get out of bed and everything creaked and ached. Once she saw herself in the mirror it was downhill for the rest of the day. I also remember her saying, after her GP suggested she join the local ‘Darby and Joan’ club for over 60s (again she was in her 70s), that she wasn’t going to join a club full of old fogies and fuddy-duddies. ‘Old people are so boring’ she remarked, unaware of the irony that she was probably older than many of the members.

Now I am in my 60s I understand exactly what she meant. I see someone who is probably my age but who, in my opinion looks ancient, and I think ‘Poor soul. Should I help them?’ Ironic as I am probably more physically slow than they are – but it’s all about how we feel inside, and like my Mum I feel 21. And I want to stay like that 🙂

Long winter..

It’s been a long winter here in England and just when we should be looking forward to re-birth, lighter evenings and higher temperatures we have been plunged back into -7C temperatures with the accompanying ice and snow, not to mention winds from Siberia!

So why am I blogging about this – only because I want to share that the sky is blue today and I can see buds on the apple trees, so spring IS on its way and we should all be positive about that

Today I joined my local library!

It’s about 7 years since I last used a library – which is strange considering how many books I get through every year! Moving to the country made it harder to get to a library and somehow I just never got round to it – until today when I decided I really MUST join.

Well, libraries have undergone a total transformation since my last visit – all for the better! It’s so easy to check your books out. No waiting in long queues while librarians stamped return dates in the front of every single book, and checked dates on all the books being returned; just scan your card and put the books in a hatch and it’s all done, boom.

And I can take out 12 books at a time! I am an avid reader, but I would struggle to read 12 books in 3 weeks, not to mention the prospect of back strain trying to carry them all.

Still, it’s a lovely library and I’m looking forward to finding lots of new treasures there.