Caught with his phone out...

So, you take your Dad out for lunch to celebrate his 89^th birthday and this is what happens…

And they say young people can’t leave their phones alone at the table!

That said, it’s nice to have parents who have smart phones. 
That said, they don’t always know what to do with them...

To be fair though, I think our Ma and Pa do very well indeed with their technology as far as it goes. They aren’t sitting in their armchairs moaning about young people all the time. [Just some of the time - Saggy]

But then, neither Pa nor Ma act like old people anyway. As far back as I can remember they don’t ever seem to have acted like adults either. I can’t believe they are both entering their 90^th years. Apart from a tendency to mention the war years and/or the 1930s in every other sentence, they both have a surprisingly un-elderly attitude to life.

It was lovely to spend time with them just chatting, having lunch… and taking pics of each other on our phones.

Many happy returns Dad!

Saggy eating sticky toffee pudding. Phone on table. 

Moo eating sticky toffee pudding. Phone hidden.

And then he was gone too…

I think the youngest son could have timed this better.

It is what you call a double-whammy.

No sooner had I put clean sheets on our youngest daughter’s bed, ready for the stream of guests we can have to stay now that she has left home [see 08/06/18] – but youngest son has gone too.

OK, it’s not for ever; just two years. But two years feels like forever when he will be, literally, the other side of the world. Apart from the most obvious problems like who will strim the hedges and mow the lawn for the foreseeable future, there is a deeper concern: who will keep us up to speed with technology, Top Gear and show us YouTube clips over dinner? Who will put his arm round our shoulders and call us short? Who will make us laugh because he acts like an idiot?

When someone leaves there is a hole that you didn’t know needed to be filled.

His car [the Mighty Astra] is sitting quiet and desolate in our garden. This car has driven www.freshcut.org.uk to great heights. It has completed many trips to airports picking weary travellers up and taking visitors back at all times of the day and night. It has been used to drive me down the motorway at speed just to show me he could. It has even backed into a new white car and left red marks down the side…

Oh, the youngest son was loud and bouncy. He was always in a good mood and I can’t remember when he was last grumpy. His favourite greeting to me morning and evening was, ‘You lovin’ life?’ So maybe he will be lovin' life in Australia, driving hundreds and hundreds of miles around, and talking about horses. He will be having BBQs on the beach, and taking selfies with kangaroos and koalas. How did parents manage before smart phones and internet? I have told him, I want regular updates about everything. And I mean everything.

Thank goodness next-to-youngest daughter is still at home. Even though she is out all day and most evenings it is a comfort to hear her car come up the drive and her key turn in the lock and know she is home safe. And although she doesn’t show me funny YouTube clips while we are eating, she does sometimes bring me tea when I am sprawled on the sofa, brain dead.

Next-to-youngest-son is supposed to be coming home in a few months after two years away. I think I will believe it when I see it as his return keeps getting delayed by more interesting things to do. But his bed is ready…

Living the dream

No, maybe not the roses round the door type dream. I just liked the picture. The dream I’m thinking of is a lot less high end. I’m talking plumbing here. Who would have thought such a basic thing as a bathroom could be a dream come true? Maybe I’m getting a bit carried away, but I’m still in the first flush (see what I did there?) of enjoyment of a new bathroom.

 After a gruelling two weeks of bucket-flushing at night, a man working in the bathroom all day, washing at the kitchen sink and sticking my head under the kitchen tap to wash my hair, plus the awful prospect of having to wee in a bucket in the garage if needs must (it didn’t as it turned out), at last we have a beautiful fully functional bathroom. The pleasure I get from being able to step into a shower seems out of all proportion.

I guess it’s going without it for two whole weeks that heightens the appreciation. It brought it home to me that this is what my Mum grew up with. She never knew anything different as a child. The family of eight had no bathroom. Just a cold tap in the kitchen, an outside toilet and a tin bath hanging up in the yard. My guess is that the tin bath didn’t get to come indoors very often. Imagine trying to have a strip wash at the kitchen sink  while your older brothers keep rattling the door handle, making out they are going to come in. 

I have taken indoor plumbing totally for granted, I see that now! Not any more though. I use the new shower, washbasin and loo with an appreciation that verges on well-practised mindfulness.

This is where the dream bit comes in…

Many years ago when Saggy and I still had our little ones around us, we listened in awed silence to a 60-something friend telling us how she woke every morning to her new day with a leisurely stretch and yawn, had her cuppa and took a relaxed shower. Taking her time to get ready for the day. No demanding toddlers, no kids to get off to school, no teenagers to dig out of bed. Saggy and I looked at each other. Just imagine that! What a dream that would be…

I remember that feeling now every time I step into the shower. This is that dream, I think to myself. It’s my turn for the leisurely morning start, and in some small way it helps to ease the ache of the empty nest. Ok, the dog needs to be taken for a walk, but at least I don’t have to get him ready for school.

So many dreams never come true, and quite frankly that’s not always a bad thing. But I like to enjoy the ones that do, even if its just a laid-back start to the day.

This is a sad one...

It just hit me and I wasn’t expecting it…

I have had several kids get married and yet there were always lots of younger children to keep me busy, so somehow there wasn’t such a big hole.

But now my youngest daughter has got married and I can’t get used to it.

I have two other kids at home. Lovely kids. But they are adults and don’t need me; one has a job and one goes to college. I say goodbye to them in the morning as they go off, and hello when they get back. In the evening they are busy with friends or activities and I say goodbye again as they go out, and I am in bed by the time they come home.

But the youngest daughter was not at college and didn’t have a regular job. She was usually around. She cooked dinner. She sometimes made me tea in the middle of the day. If I was going into town or to the shops I would say ‘D’you wanna come?’ and she often did. I even watched football with her sometimes.

I came back from the supermarket the other day, and as I was putting the meat in the fridge I was thinking about what to ask her to make for dinner. Then I remembered…

It’s not as though I am sitting alone at the kitchen table moping. No, I have a full and busy life. I work, I have hobbies, I have friends and a husband. I am not lonely. I am not idle. But I have to say there is a gap in my life that will be hard to fill and [no disrespect to my daughter] I wasn’t expecting it to be hard.

I have photos of her enjoying her new life. She has moved to a new country with a different culture and she has a lot to get used to, a lot that will be new everyday. We keep in touch on Telegram and Instagram so I have some idea of what she is doing. It helps.

Her bedroom is cleared out and it is so quiet. I used to hear her music thumping through the floor, especially when she was cleaning. Oh, especially when she was cleaning. And when she made dinner, yes, she liked loud music as it helped her to work. And ‘Rage Against the Answer Machine’ on Radio 1; she got me into listening to that with her – it was so funny.

I don’t know how long this strange time will last, but it might help if I go and tune into Radio 1 at 5.30. Maybe she will be listening too …

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4CG4LQ3T8z6SQkM694HTSrr/rage-against-the-answer-machine

The pic of the hand is from By LeftHand.jpg: Ludorderivative work: AS990 (talk) - LeftHand.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6652592

Getting away

I’ve just come to the last day of a holiday, and I’m glad to say I’m not dreading going back to the normal daily routine. Its been a wonderful time though. A whole week where I haven’t had to do anything I didn’t feel like doing. There was so little washing up that you hardly noticed it. The bed seemed to make itself, and I had so few possessions with me they didn’t need tidying. And I couldn’t have asked for better weather!

I’ve done so many things that I did want to do that my body is a tad achier than normal, but having conserved all my energy for going out and doing interesting stuff its hardly noticeable. And anyway, it’s worth it.

The holiday accommodation is fine, maybe a little dated but that doesn’t matter. Its clean and everything works. The folks who own it live in the adjoining house and are everything you’d want from the owners. However, they do have a habit of popping out from nowhere every time you go out, like the troll from under the bridge trying to catch a Billy Goat Gruff. I don’t know how they do it. Some sort of surveillance system would be my guess. But they are so nice and helpful I don’t mind. 

Their cat also keeps an eye on us.

I’ve visited tranquil Buckfast Abbey and come away with a couple of bottles of their famous tonic wine. (Yes I did pay for them, and yes of course they are only for medicinal purposes). I’ve been to three castles, visited otters and butterflies, been to the zoo,taken a trip on a steam railway and had a walk in the woods. I’ve spent time resting, reading and just doing nothing.

So, why am I looking forward to going home? I’ll tell you…

1.     I miss my little dog. Feeling guilty for leaving him behind, even though its been a break from the responsibility of looking after him.

2.     I also miss our coffee machine. Haven’t had a single cup of coffee all week that tastes exactly how I like it.

3.     The Wi-Fi here is rubbish. You just cling on to it by the skin of your teeth then it cuts you off. Then you’re back on, then you’ve lost it again.

4.     Nobody told me how hilly Devon is. I’m well used to the rolling hills of Somerset, but Devon is in another class altogether! My poor leg muscles don’t know what’s hit them.

Now that lot sounds like complaints, but I’m not complaining really. I’ve had a wonderful refreshing time. I just love my normal life and miss a few home comforts.

So its back to normal tomorrow. I'll be taking with me not just the tonic wine and a sizeable bottle of scrumpy from the welcome basket. There's a new enthusiasm for getting out there and experiencing things outside the home. As Saggy put it so well last week - living, not existing.

Living, Not Existing...

 

I’ve been watching a lot of homesteading videos recently, mostly all from the US where they seem to have acres of land with trees that you can buy quite cheaply, erect your own log cabin and everyone is fine about it.

It looks so simple and enticing, and the main message is: escape the rat race and live off grid to your own set of rules and your own time table. They grow their own food, they keep livestock, they hunt and fish. The more I am drawn into these videos, the more I realise that I cannot do that here. Not in England, with the lack of space and planning regulations and such. Well, maybe some people could and perhaps did, but for everyone who managed to hide their mud hut under turf in Wales, there is another story of people evicted from their ‘illegal’ home-built cabin in the middle of their own land.

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3688320/Family-hoping-live-Good-Life-face-evicted-smallholding-building-shed-live-without-permission.html

But we still have the ‘rat race’ here, and we may want to escape it – so I began to think how I could do that while still living in the suburbs within walking distance of the town centre. I have chickens [3 whole ones who are still alive, thank God] and a vegetable patch and 2 allotments. Yesterday I picked beetroot and purple sprouting broccoli from my allotment, and cooked them up today for lunch. I have just been out to my veggie patch in the garden and pulled up a leek and snapped off some chard leaves. They have just been popped into a pan of simmering lentils to make a nourishing soup for my tea. We live in a detached house with a nice lot of garden all around, including space for my cooking cauldron over an open fire;

 

But there’s more…

When I had emergency surgery about 17 years ago, the consultant gave me some lifestyle advice instead of a prescription for antidepressants, he said;

‘God didn’t make man to spend all day cooped up inside concrete buildings. Go out into nature. Feel the wind in your hair and the sun on your face…’

Which was, looking back, an odd thing for an NHS professional to recommend, but I did go out into nature. I went out every day and looked at the green fields and trees, and breathed in fresh air. And I got better. Sometimes, when we are cooped up in our homes or offices or factories or schools, we forget about outdoors so much that it becomes a place we never think of being in, unless it is hot and sunny and there is a beach involved.

My husband and I have started to go on hikes, and to cook outdoors on our Trangia [honestly, go and buy one… http://trangia.se/en/ ], to walk through woods and throw stones in rivers. Life is too short to stay indoors.

If you live this way, I salute you, and may give you a wave if you pass us while we are setting up our cooker by the side of a stream. Perhaps we could share our soup. If you are not in the habit of getting out into the countryside and cooking over a camp fire – give it a go. Start watching YouTube videos and you will be drawn in. Trust me.

 We are both in our early 60’s, and my husband has Parkinson’s, but even though we live in a town, we are going to get out and do stuff before we get senile.

We are going to live, not just exist… 

43 years of walking the same road together

Waste not...

I am on a mission to cut down on food waste. See all these lovely veggies? I am going to try and make sure that none of them end up in the compost bin. That is what usually happens to approx half of the veg I buy. Partly because the supermarket sells some things in quantities enough to feed a family when I only need enough for myself and one vegephobe, and partly because I lack the imagination to be able to make vegetables interesting before they start to rot. I need the culinary skills to make green vegetables attractive to a Glaswegian. This is a big ask, so if anybody could help me with that one, I’d be grateful!

What I really need, I guess, is a good greengrocer a short walk away so I can buy a little at a time. You see, I do tend to buy enough for a week with the hope of staying out of the supermarket as much as possible. I just don’t need the temptation to spend that lurks inside. They have only just stopped ambushing us with Easter eggs for goodness sake! But I do buy lots of lovely looking veg (it does look so appealing, doesn’t it), then it sits in the fridge for days while I try and work out what to do with it. Yes, I know I should make a weekly menu and shopping list. I don’t find this as straightforward as I used to for various reasons. Something to do with being overwhelmed with choice I suspect.

If anyone can teach us something about reducing food waste, it must be the wartime generation. Our mum was brought up when severe rationing was in place and used to regale us with horror stories of just how little butter/cheese/meat or anything else was available. Especially sweets. But maybe that’s why she had an 18 inch waist as a teenager. Many people grew their own veg. They had to or they would have been very hungry indeed. So anyway, food was very precious and was never wasted. As a last resort, if something was way past edible it would go in the pig bin.

A little of this attitude was still around during my own childhood, as rationing only finally ended the year I was born. But back then there was hardly the cornucopia of foodstuffs available and/or affordable. As a child, I had never heard of aubergines, mangoes, peppers or any of the many things we are urged to eat in quantities these days. Green veg meant cabbage, and beans came out of a tin. Asparagus was for the wealthy (it still is), and garlic was just plain… foreign!

I have been amazed at the ‘past it’s best’ food the elderly are prepared to eat rather than waste it. Community carers often come across out of date food, especially cheese sprouting whiskers, and are asked to serve it up for a meal. Now, there are rules about this sort of thing. You may not serve somebody food that is out of date, mouldy or whatever. Why would you do it anyway? But try telling that to the elderly. They have always eaten cheese with whiskers and it never did them any harm. Or so they tell you. Besides, there isn’t anything else to eat. So you have a conversation with the Powers That Be that goes something like this:

Carer: Mrs X insists on having out of date food for tea.

PTB: You must throw away all food that is past it’s use by date.

Carer: But Mrs X won’t let me.

PTB: You must throw it away. Do it when she isn’t looking.

Carer: But she knows exactly what’s in the fridge and gets angry.

PTB: Sigh. OK, leave it there – it’s her choice. But you mustn’t give it to her to eat.

Carer: But there isn’t anything else.

PTB: Heavier Sigh. Just use your initiative.

Carer: She can’t eat my initiative. If I go out to buy something I won’t have time to cook it AND she won’t pay for more food when there’s something in the fridge already.

PTB: ……..?

They never throw away food, even if it’s mouldy. Just scrape off the mould, cut out the bad bits and eat it.

I like a bit of mouldy cheese myself, but prefer the sort that is supposed to have mould. I’ve got this cheese still in the fridge, opened a few weeks ago. Now I’m not sure if the mould is the sort that is supposed to be there, or has grown there since. I must be getting old, because I’m going to eat it anyway.