Many things that I do…

I left it till my early 40’s to decide what it was that I wanted to do for a job. A job for which I got paid that is; not my ‘life’s work’ of being a wife and mother. You might think middle age is an odd time to start University, but for me it worked well, mainly because I had got to an age where I didn’t particularly care what people thought of me, but mostly because I had a home help to look after the kids on my frequent trips to London. This lady was a gem, my friends, and I couldn’t have done my degree without her. Women make the world go round more smoothly.

Of all the things that my day job involves, one of the things I like doing is making medicine. And one of my favouritist things is making capsules. I have a jar of powdered herb, a capsule making machine, and iPlayer which I have doing the rounds of Radio 4 dramas – most recently That Was Then with the brilliant Rosie Cavaliero.

In my Pharmacy room, I can sit all alone and concentrate on the scooping of powder, the filling the machine with empty capsules, the tamping down and popping out and let part of my mind follow the drama while going through the repetitive [but calming] motions of fill, tamp, pop… We all need a bit of calm in our lives and medicine making demands it. I’m not rushed, I don’t make mistakes, I do a good job. This calmness is more important when I mix up tinctures, only then I don’t listen to BBC dramas, no. I need my full concentration to check the right herbs, and amounts and prescription details. Filling a specific prescription like this is never repetitive, it is a more creative activity and focuses my mind on the person who will receive it and the problem that they have that I am trying to help solve.

And now I teach Pharmacy at the School of Herbal Medicine, I hope to pass on to our students the art and science of making plant medicine: when it is done properly it is safe and effective and we need more people to know how to do it…

www.schoolofherbalmedicine.co.uk

Can I let this go?

Moving day looms in the very near future and time left to get things organised is running out. When I was younger I was all over this sort of thing, but not these days. I’ve been picking away at sorting stuff out and now things have to speed up a bit.

Every day the truth of the phrase ‘The more you have, the more you have to look after’ hits me with a fresh impact.

I am faced with sorting all the random unnecessary stuff I have been lugging round with me for years. It’s been taking up precious space, taking up time and cluttering up my mind. I know I am not alone in this. So many of us go through life collecting things that we don’t actually need or have ceased to need. Then one day, maybe when you’re trying to fit stuff from a four-bedroomed house into a two-bedroomed bungalow like I am, you ask yourself - Why? What am I keeping even half of this stuff for? Who is going to treasure any of it when I’m gone? And who is going to be stuck with the job of sorting it all out? Not a small task as things stand at the moment.

My biggest weakness is for the sentimental stuff, but I’m prepared to stick up for that, at least in moderation. I treasure the things my children have given me over the years. Also selected highlights - mostly the bits that made me laugh - from their school work. Oh, and I can't throw away their brilliant pictures, can I? I’ll be hanging on to those things because they mean something to me.

With a large family, though, you do have to be selective about what you keep. Perhaps most precious of all are the things my children have written to me in cards and letters. I was very proud of myself when I hit on the idea of sticking them all in a memory book which is so much more organised than piles of cards and papers which might get lost and anyway look very untidy. Of course the project of actually getting this memory book done has been ongoing now for a few years while I ‘don’t have time to get round to it at the moment’. And why don’t I have time? Well, like I said, the more stuff you have, the more you have to look after.

Now, when I've gone who is going to be interested in a pair of Bambi bedroom curtains circa 1955? Yes, the very ones that hung in my bedroom when I was a toddler. And for quite a few years after, I seem to remember. I have them with me still. I can’t remember why.

Or my tiny little party dress, also from the 1950s. I have that too. 

Again I can’t remember why. Its so long ago I don't actually remember going to any parties wearing it. But it’s too late now, it has to stay. Along with my first school exercise books, just in case I forget that, aged 6, I made butter at school by shaking creamy milk in a jam jar, or that my baby brother's name was Simon and he was one year old.

Ok, so I’ll keep a couple of boxes of old treasures in the loft. But all other superfluous stuff WILL BE GOING! If I find stuff that I don’t need but has nothing wrong with it (my biggest hoarding category) I will find somebody who does need it or take it to the charity shop. Junk will be going to the recycling centre. Genuinely un-recyclable rubbish (yes I do have some) will go in the bin.

I have a vision now of a life where clutter is at a minimum, I have what I need and nothing that I don’t need. Where housework is kept to a minimum, but the home is cosy, tidy and clean. Where I can enjoy simple pleasures without spending a fortune, and we can get up in the morning, put a picnic and the dog in the car (but not too close to each other!) grab my camera and say – where shall we go today?

Tomorrow I am 61, but I've just got used to being 40...

I've just got used to being 40 tho'

How does it happen, eh?

Time rolls by and just as soon as you have got used to the fact you are middle-aged you are pushing at the door of being old. Have you looked in the mirror recently and been surprised at what you see? That's not me, honest. That sagging face surrounded by the wispy grey hair, where did that come from? The age spots on the back of my hands have appeared so slowly that when I noticed them fully grown one morning it was with with some shock: when did they get here?

A young guy said to me recently [and I quote] 'Your age is quite old...'

You wait, buster!

So now I have the time to follow any pathway in life I so desire - I don't have the time to see the pathway to its end. So much to do and so little time. At 61 I may have 10 years of active work left in me, you think? Crikey! What did I do in the last 10 years? I did hear of a woman in her 70's who was signing up to do a PhD, and she can't be expecting for it to reap financial rewards for the rest of her life - she's not going to land a position with that qualification that will earn her back the money she has spent on attaining it, so why do it?

Because life isn't about money, is why. It's not just about training for a particular job, or upping your skill set to be more useful to prospective employers, or performing better at your job. You can learn new stuff just for its own sake, just for the deepening wisdom pool you carve out for yourself, just for taking time to learn something worthy...

I know I took my degree late and didn't finish till I was 50, but should I have done it earlier? Should I have taken time out [so much time as it happens] when most of my kids were small and I was pregnant/had a baby/toddler/so many little ones?

Nah. I know I'm old mature, but I seem to have the best of both worlds. I have a large family and now a profession. Now is the time when I can concentrate; not during sleepless nights and through wet beds and school runs. So, I may not have time left in my life to climb any ladders to the top, but I don't want to.

I've trained as a Medical Herbalist, I help run a training school and I still get to hold babies when my kids produce some each year. I've not done so bad.

So, at 61 I can say I have no regrets. But looking at that photo, maybe I ought to visit a hairdresser...