The Open Road 2

Back in September I wrote about our experience of hiring a motorhome, not an unalloyed success.......but Cannyrob (my other half) was interested enough to book tickets for the Scottish Carvanning and Camping Show in Glasgow.  There was nothing that appealed - wood effect chalets, huge vehicles with proper bathrooms, vast tents, all kinds of accessories - but then..........we spotted the new Volkswagen Campervan, the California Ocean.  We talked about it all the way home. Cannyrob has been researching online ever since and we are hoping to rent one for a few days next month.  We've still to make up a Pros and Cons list, while coming up with good reasons for buying.

We've been getting around by train and car meantime.  I had an interesting weekend away on my own, staying in a hotel, a Georgian house which was once a private nursing home.

I was born there in 1947.  In my comfortable en suite room, I imagined my mother, with me a tiny baby, spending her two weeks 'lying in' and coming to terms with this huge change to her life, having no experience at all of babies. It was a stormy night, as it might well have been that November, and my sister and I, armed with umbrellas, battled through the dark streets to a cosy Italian restaurant, where we managed to scoff the free bottle of wine over a good meal with lots of laughter.  

That afternoon, I'd had a catch up chat with my grown-up niece in Edinburgh, remembering her as a little girl with her sister, coming to stay with me, and the fun we had. Now she's facing adult choices with admirable equanimity.  I took her a sampler which came from my great-aunt's house in London, embroidered by ten year old Ann Crouch in 1830.  Her father was a high-ranking official in the household of an Oxford Dean.I imagine this little girl, hair in ringlets or maybe in a cap, bent over her work somewhere like the 'breakfast' room in my great-aunt's house, full of chairs and little tables draped in velvet and lace, as it still was when my sister and I stayed there in 1960.  I wonder if she liked to sew, or if it was a chore she had to tackle each day, and reflect on the limited options she would have had for her adult life.

Sunday breakfast was just too early (I had to get up at 7.30!) and my plans to explore the old part of town were foiled by yet more torrential rain.  I headed for a bright modern shopping centre for some enjoyable browsing and lunch, appreciating just having time on my own.   The afternoon was spent with a lovely family, the children as imaginative and lively as their parents, a dramatherapist and a musician, then a night staying with my oldest pal in her cosy house on the top of a hill.  We talked through our current concerns, with another bottle of wine, falling into bed with the wonderful prospect of Monday morning without work, possibly the single best thing about retirement.    The weather had improved and I spent a peaceful half-hour listening to the birds and the susurrus of the leaves, walking up to where my parents are buried, on a slope overlooking the village where my mother grew up.  It was just the kind of day they would have enjoyed, Mum getting out into the garden to do some tidying, Dad off to the golf range......
For me, now, there's a calm peacefulness now where there used to be pain and grief.

I eventually set off for home, thinking how fortunate I was to have the car.  Cannyrob selflessly travelled to the rugby international in Edinburgh by bus (a five hour return trip).  Now if we'd had the campervan.....we think this one is small enough to use as a second car.   And I'm back on the open road theme again.  We've now made a booking to rent a Volkswagen T5 California Ocean the first weekend in April.

Glad to get back to my Tuesday art classes again after a break over Christmas and New Year. Tackling oil paints is challenging, but really enjoyable.  I've bought pretty much everything I need, causing some hilarity in class when I took out my new double dipper (large, as recommended, but not that large, apparently) and my palette knife (I'm useless at metric, especially online) which could be used by a plasterer.  However, I have completed a first still life.

See my Sketchbook at the top of the blog for recent drawings.

The Open Road 2

Back in September I wrote about our experience of hiring a motorhome, not an unalloyed success.......but Cannyrob (my other half) was interested enough to book tickets for the Scottish Carvanning and Camping Show in Glasgow.  There was nothing that appealed - wood effect chalets, huge vehicles with proper bathrooms, vast tents, all kinds of accessories - but then..........we spotted the new Volkswagen Campervan, the California Ocean.  We talked about it all the way home. Cannyrob has been researching online ever since and we are hoping to rent one for a few days next month.  We've still to make up a Pros and Cons list, while coming up with good reasons for buying.

We've been getting around by train and car meantime.  I had an interesting weekend away on my own, staying in a hotel, a Georgian house which was once a private nursing home.

I was born there in 1947.  In my comfortable en suite room, I imagined my mother, with me a tiny baby, spending her two weeks 'lying in' and coming to terms with this huge change to her life, having no experience at all of babies. It was a stormy night, as it might well have been that November, and my sister and I, armed with umbrellas, battled through the dark streets to a cosy Italian restaurant, where we managed to scoff the free bottle of wine over a good meal with lots of laughter.  

That afternoon, I'd had a catch up chat with my grown-up niece in Edinburgh, remembering her as a little girl with her sister, coming to stay with me, and the fun we had. Now she's facing adult choices with admirable equanimity.  I took her a sampler which came from my great-aunt's house in London, embroidered by ten year old Ann Crouch in 1830.  Her father was a high-ranking official in the household of an Oxford Dean.I imagine this little girl, hair in ringlets or maybe in a cap, bent over her work somewhere like the 'breakfast' room in my great-aunt's house, full of chairs and little tables draped in velvet and lace, as it still was when my sister and I stayed there in 1960.  I wonder if she liked to sew, or if it was a chore she had to tackle each day, and reflect on the limited options she would have had for her adult life.

Sunday breakfast was just too early (I had to get up at 7.30!) and my plans to explore the old part of town were foiled by yet more torrential rain.  I headed for a bright modern shopping centre for some enjoyable browsing and lunch, appreciating just having time on my own.   The afternoon was spent with a lovely family, the children as imaginative and lively as their parents, a dramatherapist and a musician, then a night staying with my oldest pal in her cosy house on the top of a hill.  We talked through our current concerns, with another bottle of wine, falling into bed with the wonderful prospect of Monday morning without work, possibly the single best thing about retirement.    The weather had improved and I spent a peaceful half-hour listening to the birds and the susurrus of the leaves, walking up to where my parents are buried, on a slope overlooking the village where my mother grew up.  It was just the kind of day they would have enjoyed, Mum getting out into the garden to do some tidying, Dad off to the golf range......
For me, now, there's a calm peacefulness now where there used to be pain and grief.

I eventually set off for home, thinking how fortunate I was to have the car.  Cannyrob selflessly travelled to the rugby international in Edinburgh by bus (a five hour return trip).  Now if we'd had the campervan.....we think this one is small enough to use as a second car.   And I'm back on the open road theme again.  We've now made a booking to rent a Volkswagen T5 California Ocean the first weekend in April.

Glad to get back to my Tuesday art classes again after a break over Christmas and New Year. Tackling oil paints is challenging, but really enjoyable.  I've bought pretty much everything I need, causing some hilarity in class when I took out my new double dipper (large, as recommended, but not that large, apparently) and my palette knife (I'm useless at metric, especially online) which could be used by a plasterer.  However, I have completed a first still life.

See my Sketchbook at the top of the blog for recent drawings.

Santa's fairy paints her nails

It's been a while since I've written.  Christmas seemed too big and unwieldy a topic, and, anyway, I was too busy getting ready for it to write. However, an item on BBC Woman's Hour  about the 'emotional work' women do - caring for someone ill, managing family life - especially at Christmas, making sure cards are written, food is bought in etc., stayed on my mind.  My mother loved Christmas, but ran herself ragged with shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking and festooning the house with fairy lights.  On the day itself, she never sat down, constantly checking on the food, catering for a growing extended family, often ending up with a nosebleed.

I think I have inherited some of her traits, along with two sets of her fairy lights, and used to find family Christmases quite stressful, wanting to get everything right.  The years when the children were young were quite magical in their own way, and yet that emotional work did take its toll.  In my teaching days, breaking up at the end of term usually coincided with a cold!   This year, with both of us retired, shopping - for presents, the tree, food - was quite leisurely and the responsibility for making it a happy time shared.  Visits to relatives and friends were planned well ahead, with a couple of nights in a budget hotel making the travelling easier.  I felt really calm, reflecting on my previous tendency to set myself unrealistic deadlines e.g. making all our cards, knitting or sewing projects started too late...........Putting decorations away, holding our fairy doll (made by me forty years ago), I suddenly remembered being eight and out in the dark wearing my ballet dress with tinsel wings and a crown.  I was to be Santa's Fairy at a party for under fives. Dim lights and jingle bells set the scene and the children seemed happy to accept me (feeling I really had been endowed with some of Santa's magic) and the parcels I gave out.  That was definitely a satisfying piece of emotional work.

I also remember the let-down when the festivities were over.  Aged three, I sobbed inconsolably when I realised that it would be a whole YEAR until Christmas came again.  I remember the flatness of those first January days, writing the same resolutions in my diary

I resolve not to talk so much

I resolve not to bite my nails

I resolve to help more at home

I resolve to do my homework 

I'm not sure I had much success with any of these, although I no longer bite my nails and I don't have homework any more.   The post-festive angst was avoided completely this year by flying off to the Canary Islands as soon as the decorations were stowed back in the loft.  Sunshine and blue skies were a treat after the dark rainy days of winter in Scotland.   A week later, it feels good to be home again, even though it is cold and icy.  Last night we had a power cut, so it was truly dark outside.  Our toddler grandson, who already loves the moon, was entranced by the myriad stars.  "Amazing!" he said.

I always intended to have a fashion/beauty element in this blog, and I have a good product to share this time. I had fun on holiday painting my nails with this great varnish (my husband is just too good at sourcing presents!)  I do not have nice nails, but this Ciaté polish in Starlet, an amazing blue/green/purple, goes on smoothly and sort of fades at the edges rather than chipping.  I have a lot of reject nail polish bottles which disappointed from the start, some cheap, others expensive.  Price doesn't guarantee quality. Ciaté products are around £9.00 but they have offers.
https://www.ciatelondon.com

Two of my heroes died this week, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, both such brilliant, seemingly ageless artists.  It is a memento mori when near-contemporaries go, hard to accept that they are just not there any more.

Time to get on with living life to the full, not assuming that there will always be next week, next month, next year.

Santa's fairy paints her nails

It's been a while since I've written.  Christmas seemed too big and unwieldy a topic, and, anyway, I was too busy getting ready for it to write. However, an item on BBC Woman's Hour  about the 'emotional work' women do - caring for someone ill, managing family life - especially at Christmas, making sure cards are written, food is bought in etc., stayed on my mind.  My mother loved Christmas, but ran herself ragged with shopping, wrapping, baking, cooking and festooning the house with fairy lights.  On the day itself, she never sat down, constantly checking on the food, catering for a growing extended family, often ending up with a nosebleed.

I think I have inherited some of her traits, along with two sets of her fairy lights, and used to find family Christmases quite stressful, wanting to get everything right.  The years when the children were young were quite magical in their own way, and yet that emotional work did take its toll.  In my teaching days, breaking up at the end of term usually coincided with a cold!   This year, with both of us retired, shopping - for presents, the tree, food - was quite leisurely and the responsibility for making it a happy time shared.  Visits to relatives and friends were planned well ahead, with a couple of nights in a budget hotel making the travelling easier.  I felt really calm, reflecting on my previous tendency to set myself unrealistic deadlines e.g. making all our cards, knitting or sewing projects started too late...........Putting decorations away, holding our fairy doll (made by me forty years ago), I suddenly remembered being eight and out in the dark wearing my ballet dress with tinsel wings and a crown.  I was to be Santa's Fairy at a party for under fives. Dim lights and jingle bells set the scene and the children seemed happy to accept me (feeling I really had been endowed with some of Santa's magic) and the parcels I gave out.  That was definitely a satisfying piece of emotional work.

I also remember the let-down when the festivities were over.  Aged three, I sobbed inconsolably when I realised that it would be a whole YEAR until Christmas came again.  I remember the flatness of those first January days, writing the same resolutions in my diary

I resolve not to talk so much

I resolve not to bite my nails

I resolve to help more at home

I resolve to do my homework 

I'm not sure I had much success with any of these, although I no longer bite my nails and I don't have homework any more.   The post-festive angst was avoided completely this year by flying off to the Canary Islands as soon as the decorations were stowed back in the loft.  Sunshine and blue skies were a treat after the dark rainy days of winter in Scotland.   A week later, it feels good to be home again, even though it is cold and icy.  Last night we had a power cut, so it was truly dark outside.  Our toddler grandson, who already loves the moon, was entranced by the myriad stars.  "Amazing!" he said.

I always intended to have a fashion/beauty element in this blog, and I have a good product to share this time. I had fun on holiday painting my nails with this great varnish (my husband is just too good at sourcing presents!)  I do not have nice nails, but this Ciaté polish in Starlet, an amazing blue/green/purple, goes on smoothly and sort of fades at the edges rather than chipping.  I have a lot of reject nail polish bottles which disappointed from the start, some cheap, others expensive.  Price doesn't guarantee quality. Ciaté products are around £9.00 but they have offers.
https://www.ciatelondon.com

Two of my heroes died this week, David Bowie and Alan Rickman, both such brilliant, seemingly ageless artists.  It is a memento mori when near-contemporaries go, hard to accept that they are just not there any more.

Time to get on with living life to the full, not assuming that there will always be next week, next month, next year.

From Paris to Penguins

Recently I had a most enjoyable weekend celebrating my birthday.  Strangely, after many years when birthdays seemed largely irrelevant, and even slightly embarrassing, it now seems good to have made it through another year.  Because I planned the weekend instead of waiting for someone else to suggest doing something, I spent it with people I wanted to see and spoke to others who were further away.  It felt really good to have fun and celebrate lasting relationships.

However, there was a grim backdrop to the festivities - the dreadful carnage and terror in Paris, a city close to home where we spent Easter Weekend, a familiar place, now on the list of atrocities carried out by a group of people known by several names.  I've been trying to work out what to call them, listening to broadcasters and politicians. Islamic State, Isis and Isil all seem to carry some suggestion of legality, of statehood.  Apparently, Daesh is disliked by the terrorists.  An Arabic acronym, it can also be an insult which can mean 'to trample and crush' or 'a bigot who imposes his views on others'. This name has been used by Hollande and Obama since the Paris attacks.  Today, I kept hearing the term caliphate used, with pictures of troops marching in Raqqa.

I still don't know what to call them, or what should be done.  As a child born into post-war austerity, I grew up with bomb sites, railings cut down to stumps for munitions and an awareness of what a terrible time it had been for my parents.  Later, I learned about the first world war, and how lucky both my grandfathers had been to survive it.  As a teenager, I became aware of the threat of nuclear war, with talks at school about how to build a shelter under the stairs, then the Cuban missile crisis and that day when we thought the world might end.  I joined CND (I'm still a member) and have consistently opposed all the wars to which the UK has sent troops.  I feel the same this time - although an enemy which defies identification and strikes where least expected is almost impossible to engage with.  It has young people willing to die in suicide vests.  Bombing will inevitably result in civilian deaths.  I've just been listening to Emile Zola's Blood, Sex and Money  (BBC radio adaptation of his novels) in which ordinary people try to bring about social change through fighting.  It always ends in death and tears.

 I suppose getting older and having lived through decades of history, several things happen.  You know you don't want to wear or furnish your home with anything 'retro' or 'vintage'.  You realise that no-one learns from history and that most things that happen have happened before.  I feel my world has shrunk a little.  I am very unlikely to travel to India or South America, primarily because of health issues, although holidays in the Canaries and Seattle are planned for 2016.  I spend my time doing things that make me happy (art classes, knitting, shopping. and drumming) and being with my family and close friends.  Of course I still care about what goes in the wider world and do what I can to help.

As well as CND, I'm a member of Amnesty and support several charities, I sign petitions, vote in elections and read the The Guardian and The Observer.  I listen to news and discussion on the radio. But what I love most is to be in the moment, with my little grandson, seeing the world through his eyes.  The moon is a thing of wonder to him just now, as he sees it change shape as the days pass. I'm glad he's not old enough to have seen and understood  John Lewis' Christmas advert about the man on the moon.  Last year's penguin one was so much better.  This year I bought myself a Christmas jumper (a new departure).  It has penguins on it.

From Paris to Penguins

Recently I had a most enjoyable weekend celebrating my birthday.  Strangely, after many years when birthdays seemed largely irrelevant, and even slightly embarrassing, it now seems good to have made it through another year.  Because I planned the weekend instead of waiting for someone else to suggest doing something, I spent it with people I wanted to see and spoke to others who were further away.  It felt really good to have fun and celebrate lasting relationships.

However, there was a grim backdrop to the festivities - the dreadful carnage and terror in Paris, a city close to home where we spent Easter Weekend, a familiar place, now on the list of atrocities carried out by a group of people known by several names.  I've been trying to work out what to call them, listening to broadcasters and politicians. Islamic State, Isis and Isil all seem to carry some suggestion of legality, of statehood.  Apparently, Daesh is disliked by the terrorists.  An Arabic acronym, it can also be an insult which can mean 'to trample and crush' or 'a bigot who imposes his views on others'. This name has been used by Hollande and Obama since the Paris attacks.  Today, I kept hearing the term caliphate used, with pictures of troops marching in Raqqa.

I still don't know what to call them, or what should be done.  As a child born into post-war austerity, I grew up with bomb sites, railings cut down to stumps for munitions and an awareness of what a terrible time it had been for my parents.  Later, I learned about the first world war, and how lucky both my grandfathers had been to survive it.  As a teenager, I became aware of the threat of nuclear war, with talks at school about how to build a shelter under the stairs, then the Cuban missile crisis and that day when we thought the world might end.  I joined CND (I'm still a member) and have consistently opposed all the wars to which the UK has sent troops.  I feel the same this time - although an enemy which defies identification and strikes where least expected is almost impossible to engage with.  It has young people willing to die in suicide vests.  Bombing will inevitably result in civilian deaths.  I've just been listening to Emile Zola's Blood, Sex and Money  (BBC radio adaptation of his novels) in which ordinary people try to bring about social change through fighting.  It always ends in death and tears.

 I suppose getting older and having lived through decades of history, several things happen.  You know you don't want to wear or furnish your home with anything 'retro' or 'vintage'.  You realise that no-one learns from history and that most things that happen have happened before.  I feel my world has shrunk a little.  I am very unlikely to travel to India or South America, primarily because of health issues, although holidays in the Canaries and Seattle are planned for 2016.  I spend my time doing things that make me happy (art classes, knitting, shopping. and drumming) and being with my family and close friends.  Of course I still care about what goes in the wider world and do what I can to help.

As well as CND, I'm a member of Amnesty and support several charities, I sign petitions, vote in elections and read the The Guardian and The Observer.  I listen to news and discussion on the radio. But what I love most is to be in the moment, with my little grandson, seeing the world through his eyes.  The moon is a thing of wonder to him just now, as he sees it change shape as the days pass. I'm glad he's not old enough to have seen and understood  John Lewis' Christmas advert about the man on the moon.  Last year's penguin one was so much better.  This year I bought myself a Christmas jumper (a new departure).  It has penguins on it.

Memento Mori

When I was training as a dramatherapist in the 90's,  and studying Carl Jung's work on symbols, I became interested in Tarot.  Using the first 22 cards, the Major Arcana, representing the journey of life, starting with The Fool and culminating in The World, I studied the images as a means of reflecting on my life. From time to time I still draw a card as a way of exploring my current situation and my feelings about it. This week's is Death, portrayed as a dancing skeleton. Beneath the bony feet, in the moving sea of transition, are green shoots of new growth. Rather than depicting the end of life, it shows the start of a new cycle.  It can represent change, a move from one life stage to another. That's the way I usually interpret it, but this time, death itself seems to be on my mind.  I read obituaries, check the ages - my age, younger?

My generation, baby-boomers, fans of the Who ('hope I die before I get old') saw ourselves as ageless. Now we are old, with a finite lifespan.   More years lived than still to live.   As Terry Pratchett said, So much universe, and so little time. A close friend will turn 70 soon.  Together we've been through having children, major life events, loss of parents. We live in different continents but keep in touch, planning another visit....thinking now we shouldn't put it off. Looking back at old photos, I can't believe 20, 30, 40 years have passed so quickly. 

The other day I came across this website (sponsored by Sun Life)  www.myperfectsendoff.co.uk  It’s a questionnaire in which you answer questions about funeral choices.  I found it made me think about my own death in quite a positive way. I plan to complete it (or something like it) and make sure my family know about it.  I heard a beautiful Scottish tune the other night, The Gentle Air that Wakes me, and added it to my ultimate playlist along with Bob Dylan's Forever Young.

Perhaps I will have many years beyond my approaching three score and ten, in which case there is no pressing need for my detailed plan, but it is good to be prepared. I like this line from Pratchett's Good Omens:

DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, says Death, JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.

If life is a social function which one attends for a while, mine has featured fun with friends from different parts of my life, good food, nice wine, doing quite a few party pieces (singing, acting), enjoying being with the people I love.  Being aware of death makes life more significant.  The moments that make up our days are special, however trivial. My little grandson's latest word, 'lorry', his first haircut, a really good cup of coffee, the last flowers in the garden, putting on my slippers, some liquorice allsorts for later, are some of today's small pleasures.   

What do you think? Should we think more about our inevitable deaths and plan accordingly? Can ageing be a positive experience? Share your thoughts by emailing me directly or leave a comment in the box below.