Sixty-Several and Counting

Crumble…?

In the light if this week’s collapse of the BlackBerry system across Europe, I heard yesterday on TV:

“If Apple had gone down as well as BlackBerry, headlines could read Apple and BlackBerry Crumble!!!”

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

If it’s silver, it’s not necessarily mine…

Went to the tip to take some bags of rubbish. Heaved them out of the car and threw them into the appropriate area, slammed the boot (trunk) shut after I took the last bag out. Turned around and found it was open again. Tutted and slammed it shut once more, got in the car and thought “there’s something funny here.” Then I noticed a man peering at me through the passenger window!

How do you behave when you’ve got in the wrong car? You get out, smile and say “It’s silver just like mine”, get in your own car and drive off quickly leaving a very bemused man behind with his mouth wide open.

As an aside to this (and just in case someone in my family reads it and thinks I’ve taken a turn for the worse), sorry, but I’ve always been like it!

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

The joys of cold calls…

The telephone rang this afternoon just as I was just settling down at my computer to write a blog post.  It was the company I have my funeral plan with and the very nice man on the phone asked me how I was feeling.  Er, hellooo!!!

I told him that up until that point I’d been feeling fine but was there anything specific he needed to tell me.  Turns out he wanted to find out if I’d written a Will and did I understand the concept of Power of Attorney.

How kind of an insurance company to go to such trouble to ring me, out of the goodness of their heart, to enquire about my wellbeing in such a fashion!  Of course, I did mention that if it was going to cost me money to find out about these things, then I didn’t have any (which meant the Will was taken care of) and if I was in need of Power of Attorney then it was likely I would be incapable and possibly have lost my marbles anyway, so my sons could sort it out.

Funnily enough, he wished me a good day and ended the call.

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

It’s good to talk - as the ad-man said…

I did say that this blog might be downright picky on occasions and this, I think, could turn into one of those occasions!

I’m talking about talking.  Really talking, not blogging, texting, facebooking, twittering, or any of the other currrent trends, I mean face to face, or over the telephone, one-to-one talking.

Friends ask me why I’m on Facebook and I tell them it’s a way I can stay in touch with what my family’s current interests are, where they’ve been, see photos almost as soon as they are taken and I truly value being able to stay in touch with their lives in such a way.  

I love technology and all that it offers and it’s an absolute boon for anyone living alone, particularly if they are unable to get out of the house. Everyone, however, needs contact with another human being at some point.

Because I’ve made sure I get out and about as much as possible, I’ve made many new friends and acquaintances since I moved to this area. I attend different groups - discussion, creative, walking, all sorts - but the people in these groups all say the same thing and that is, those they would most like to talk to, they don’t hear from because they are very busy people.  And, yes, I can understand that because I was once one of those very busy people, but I always made time to contact family members once a week, if only to check up that they were well.  The good old days, you know, prior to home computers!!!

The family member I have the most in-depth conversation with these days is my brother-in-law.  Since my sister died, we chat on the phone once a week and it really is a chat - which means it covers a whole variety of subjects from gardening, to shopping for groceries, sometimes how to cook a particular dish, cars (I don’t know a lot about cars but hopefully ‘um’ and ‘ah’ in the right place), the government, the world and now he has a very nice, new lady in his life he’s able to tell me about the places they visit together.  I call that having a chat!

There’s an organisation on the net called Flylady and it’s all about how to organise your day to day activities and chores.  As Flylady says, you can do anything for 15 minutes, so come on all you people who stay glued to your iPhones, iPads, laptops or whatever, pick up the phone and actually chat to someone you haven’t physically spoken to for a while.  Tell them what you’ve been doing.  However boring you think it might be, a conversation thread could be born and take time to listen to what the person you are calling has to say.  Mind you, if you haven’t telephoned them for a long time, they could be lost for words I suppose!!!

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

Anniversaries and Celebrations

If my husband had still been alive it would have been our 46th wedding anniversary yesterday.  Have to say the weather was a bit better than it was 46 years ago, when it chucked it down with rain and gale force winds battered us as we left the church.  Actually we could also say the following 38 years were stormy with some fine periods!

My eldest sister has just celebrated her 58th wedding anniversary.  Her husband always buys her a rather beautiful gift on their anniversary.  I did get a ring after 25 years but that was about it.

In all fairness, and as he isn’t around to defend himself, I have to say life was probably six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, although sometimes I think he was working towards a baker’s dozen, and we’ll leave it at that.

Moving onto celebrations, yesterday a friend invited a couple of us to celebrate her birthday and we had an afternoon champagne tea at a very nice hotel which was absolutely delightful.  We devoured lots of little sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, plus some very nice cakes.  All washed down by a chilled glass of champagne, and finished with pots of tea.  A little bit of escapism for a few hours.

We did take a stroll around the grounds afterwards but not enough to walk off what we’d eaten, so it’s the sin bin for me for the rest of the week, with no sweet treats at all!

I veer between thinking what’s the point of trying to get slimmer at my age, to “come on, buck your ideas up, where’s your pride girl.”  Sometimes one side of me wins, sometimes the other…that’s life!

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

A funny thing happened…

At the end of my last blog post I said I was looking for a makeover (reasonably priced) for seniors.

Well, don’t know about you but I find these days whenever I ask for something, I tend to get it.  Trouble is I never actually formulate my requests as ‘formal requests’, so I sometimes get the oddest of possibilities presenting themselves to me.

There I was with my sister in Holland and Barrett.  She’d run out of lavender oil so we’d popped in to buy some.  At the checkout was a smart, slim lady, probably in her late 40’s, with a basket full of vitamins.

“What on earth have you got there?” says I, being curious.  That was my second mistake, because she then started to eulogise about the vitamins she was taking saying they had helped her lose 3 stone over the 3 years she’d been taking them.

She said they gave her lots of energy - I can vouch for that by the way she was dashing between the shelves to point out all the various combinations of pills I might like to take.  The lady at the till looked on in astonishment, the queue grew longer and longer and I could feel the irritation rising from some those waiting to be served, whilst others were not doing a very good job of trying to conceal their laughter.

No amount of “Wow, would you believe it.  Thank you, I’ll think about it.  Gosh, I’m not sure I’d be able to swallow that many pills” was going to work, so I bought a bottle and then found out it was a BOGOF so ended up with two bottles of vitamins I am not going to take! If she had been taking them for three years, then two months worth was not going to do a lot for me!!!  

So, to all my friends, if I start to say that I wouldn’t mind having, doing, being, and then clam up halfway through the statement, it’s because I’ve remembered that I need to think clearly for a change about what it is I actually want, by which time I’ll have forgotten what it was I was thinking about anyway.

Thought life was supposed to get easier when you got older. Hmmm!

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

Ouch!!!

I just read a blog post where someone said they’re sick of following blogs where people don’t post regularly…guilty as charged!  

So why did I start a blog?  I simply wanted to write about how I felt maturing into my late 60’s.  I so remember my mother saying to me (when she was in her 80’s) that in her head she was still the young woman who could dance the night away, but being fairly immobile due to arthritis, physically she was unable to match her mental vision.

I don’t want to do that (just live on memories).  I want to find things to do that make me feel good regardless of the age I am at the time.  So what have I been up to during the quiet weeks of my blog?

I’ve been to France on a Monet’s Garden trip and had a wonderful time. It was quite hectic, lots of touring, visited beautiful, historic buildings, vibrant cafes, peaceful gardens; had good food and lots of laughter.  The woman I shared a room with at the hotel (I went with our U3A group) enjoyed a glass of red wine, so we tended to have our wine and a dish of olives as a nightcap whilst we reviewed the day - and laughed a lot.

After that, I went off to visit a friend in Suffolk and another relaxing week of fun and laughter.  Came home, did some gardening, a little bit of painting and decorating, met up with a ‘quilting’ friend and spent a day sewing and chatting; walking, coffee mornings, met my ex boss for lunch, took my grandchildren out for lunch plus an afternoon of pottery painting and laughter.  In the middle of all this I’ve tried to puzzle out what on earth I’m going to eat.  Such a nuisance, sometimes, having to stop, to shop, to eat!

Have my sister staying this week and we’re off out shopping shortly and will no doubt be doing all sorts of things during the time she’s here…or nothing at all, as the mood takes us.  

And that is what this is all about - doing what I want to do when I want to do it. So my apologies for being one of the irregular bloggers but I’ve lived my life by the clock and deadlines, so now I’ve taken the clocks off the walls, just kept my wristwatch - because I’m used to wearing it - and enjoy my life as and when.

Oooh, I did go and get my hair cut shorter again, which has made me feel quite lightheaded, lol, and I’m still looking for some good ideas on makeovers for the mature lady (I might be a Granny but I don’t want to look like one).  Fashion, make-up and exercise thoughts wanted please.

Anyone out there with any good ideas that won’t cost me a fortune?

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

Let’s hear it for the quilters…

There have been two very interesting articles about quilting in the press recently in the UK. Apparently, research has shown the health benefits of quilting or sewing. Well, any quilter could have told them that and saved them a lot of money into the bargain.  In fact, the benefits of quilting have been known for centuries.

Last year I visited an exhibition at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  It was fascinating.  One of the very old quilts had been made by the paper piecing method. For some reason the person hadn’t completed the quilt and you could see that the papers used had been old, handwritten, letters or documents.  What chance of that happening these days, eh?  A wonderful snapshot into the past.

Soldiers who were in hospital recovering from horrific injuries received during the First World War had been encouraged to create the most amazing quilts, depicting what had happened to them.  You could see one man’s story there, in front of you, and most importantly, it had been created by him and not by someone else.  

There was also a quilt on display made by a inmate at a London prison, with a video commentary by the creator running alongside, where he talked about the benefits he had experienced from stitching his quilt.

All of this brings me to the fact that I’ve been to my Quilting Class this morning and what a wonderful group of people they are.  Every week I leave there feeling good. Some members are superb stitchers, others (like me) are still learning new techniques but everyone is willing to help and we can just sit and sew and chat about so many different things.  I don’t think I’ve ever left feeling deflated, only keen to find more time to do more sewing.

So, if ever you’re feeling down, just go find a quilting group and become part of a different, positive, community for a couple of hours a week.  They’re worth their weight in gold.

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)

Summer is Here…I think

The sun shone yesterday afternoon and it’s out again today.  Woo hoo!!!  Maybe summer has arrived here at last, or maybe I speak in haste.  I’m supposed to be doing an historic walk around a local town at some point but if the day continues as its started, it could be too hot for that sort of thing.  Choices, choices, again…

Everything looks so beautiful in the sunshine and it makes me feel so much better.  I didn’t go out yesterday as I was busy completing a quilt for the Linus Project.  Need to meet and talk to some other human beings today, I think, as it can get a bit depressing being on your own too much.

Funny that.  When the family were young and I was running a home and had a full-time job, plus all the other commitments that come with school age children, I used to think how lovely it would be to just have one day to myself.  Now I have lots of days to myself if I choose and I think, how lovely to have the noise and bustle of a family around.

A house can be beautiful and empty or it can be a home full of life, laughter and lifes up and downs.  Think I vote for the latter.

(Source: sixtyseveralandcounting)