Never retire - totally

26 August 2010

I was visiting friends in Morpeth. We decided to while away an hour at nearby Wallington Hall, which was one of the first properties of its type to be gifted to the National Trust.  It was given to the Trust by Sir Charles Trevelyan who had been a Labour MP in the 1930's.

 Wallington Hall is an elegant house with stunning gardens, well worth a visit if you haven't already been.  As we wandered around the rooms full of portraits, photographs and furniture, we found ourselves in the library.  An older man, a National Trust Guide stood smiling in one corner.  My friend asked him a question about the house.  Les Duprey Reed was knowledgeable, friendly and happy to chat.  He looked no more than a man in his seventies, upright and pleasant.  I asked Les how he became involved with the house? 

He told me that when he left the Fleet Air Arm after the war, he was interested in the theatre and joined the local Operatic and Drama Society.  He then moved to the People's Theatre, the president of which was Sir Charles Trevelyan.  He and Sir Charles got on well, he told me and they often chatted about life.  Les said that Sir Charles was a major active support for the People's Theatre.  "I was grateful to him because without that theatre I couldn't have enjoyed the acting and the plays and I did get parts."

When Les decided to retire Les thought he would like to give back something to Sir Charles in his own way.  He contacted the National Trust about volunteering at Wallington Hall.  His first role with them was as a professional recruiter.  His job was to recruit visitors to join the Trust.

 "That was a paid job, well it paid for the petrol for my car.  But it gave me something to do, took me through the summer and up to retirement age proper. Now I come one day a week unless I'm asked to do other days and I'm brought off the subs bench."

Les is 83 years old has been working as a Guide at Wallington Hall now for over 20 years.

I asked what, for him, were the benefits of being older and working as a Guide still?  His eyes twinkled and he smiled as he pondered my question.  "Well, nice ladies like you talk to older men like me." At 83, Les is a bit of a flirt.

Les did admit in his gentle Northumbrian accent: "I'm a bit less tolerant of people (now I'm older).  I don't like to think I am but you don't like people wasting your time.  There's such a wealth of experience in older people, especially anyone who went through the war.  I was just a teenager during the war, Goering dropped a bomb just beside where I lived but I survived and carried on."

I think Les was talking about the resilience that older people have.  We've made mistakes. We've lived through good times and bad.  We may have been in life and death situations, perhaps through illness or accident and we've survived.  We're not going to waste time and we're not going to let other people waste our precious time either.

Having a purpose in life, a reason to get out of bed and 'carry on' is a major benefit of becoming a volunteer within whichever charity takes your fancy.  What Les is doing by giving up his time is contributing to something he feels is important; in his case supporting the National Trust and Wallington Hall.  What it gives him is a sense of worth, of his continuing value to society and a whole cast of friends that he sees and meets with on a regular basis.

I asked Les what he saw in the future for him?  He leant towards me; another smile crept across his face. "I'll keep going as long as I can".    If you visit Wallington Hall, ask for Les.  I'm sure he will be there for many years to come.

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It must be my fault

19 August 2010

 Looking back and wishing I'd done things differently is a tendency I have when I get a 'blue' day. Most of us will experience 'blue' days from time to time as we get older but they really are a waste of time and energy.  They help no-one, least of all me.

For example, did I do all I could have done for my kids?  I don't know.  I can beat myself up for hours on this one, especially at 3.00 am in the morning.  What I do know is that I did the very best I could do at the time I was doing it, making decisions, coping with the situation then - not now, then.  If I had my time over again would I do things differently?  Yes, in some instances I would.  But I didn't.  It's in the past.  Let it go.

Martin Seligman, author of 'Learned Optimism',(my current first half-hour in the morning read in bed with a cup of tea), advocates, as I do, that we take responsibility for our own happiness.  But that doesn't mean that we have to take responsibility for absolutely everything that happens to us.  The point of owning up to temporary failure is that we can change. We don't see the failure as permanent - I am stupid. It's all my fault.  It won't be - ever.   If your son or daughter drops out of university, it's easy to see that as a parental failure. I didn't instill enough self-discipline in him or her. That's nonsense. The reality will be that your student offspring was bored with the course and made his or her own decision to leave.

Be happy that whatever has happened in your life has brought you to where you are now, older, wiser, and more secure.  If you made mistakes in the past, learn from them and move on.  And if you want any more Seligman advice this is his website: http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx

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Am I a Tweeter or a Twatter?

12 August 2010

I wouldn't say I was on twitter day and night.  Last week when I was away oooop north, I barely twittered at all. Now I'm back, I'm back on the tweat.  Just can't resist clicking that cute little symbol to see what the world is saying today.

If you haven't tried it, have a go.  The www ignores age. What you write is more important than the number of decades you've been around. And you can tell the baby internettees because their powers of description are reduced to not being able to complete a sentence without including 'fxxxing' this and 'fxxk that'.  Just 'block' and 'unfollow' them.  People are more easily erased on the net than in real life.

Most people on twitter are grown-up, polite, sharing and caring and if you're not careful can become very close very quickly.  To the point that you may find yourself jumping back from the computer screen thinking 'oh I didn't really mean to say that to you.  I don't know you that well.'  Twitter is fun and I have learnt a lot through fellow twitterers sharing knowledge and sign-posting blog and web-sites that I find interesting.

I've also made some unusual connections, like having an early morning conversation with Marsha Lane Fox about what to do when you have a restless night and not enough sleep.  Like Tony Blackburn sending me little jokes like: 'did you know that fat people use more soap.'  Terrible joke (and fattist) but it did make me chuckle.  And surprise, surprise, Yoko Ono following me. How did that happen? 

I have some unusual followers.  I like a bit of a dance in the morning to wake me up and I tweet what I've danced to. As a result I have californian surfies, hard rockers and The Pete Walter band http://www.youtube.com/user/thepetewalterband#p/a all following a mature lady with a few jiggly bits who loves music. 

John Cleese calls his followers 'twatters' and there is a bit of me that worries that I can use twitter as though it really was the neighbour next door and that might make me a bit of a twatter.  Found myself yesterday returning from a shop in Brighton and having a rant on twitter about mothers who can't stop their toddlers from emitting high pitched intermittent screams for no other reason than they can.  Am I being a grumpy tweeter or a plain old twatter?

Are we all going to end up living alone and talking to our computer screens?  And if we do, is that a bad thing?  At least it can't rant back.  No, wait, I'm forgetting the Pete Walter Band - they may have an opinion on screaming toddlers - they may even have a few between them. 

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Ha'way Bonnie Lad - eeeh it's good ta see ya

05 August 2010

I'm up in the North East of England this week, in a small town just south of Sunderland. We're talking corned beef and potato pies, gravy and mushy peas stotties and malls full of shops like Peacocks, Greggs, Pound shops, Cash for Gold and Asda, bless 'em.  I'm meeting with a treasured friend from a time when I moved here to be close to my Dad who had dementia.

As we walk through the shopping mall, my friend stops for a chat with someone she's known from school, there's a wave from another friend over the road and two more exchange a quip knowing no-one will take offence. They're all part of the same family, the same community.  If there was a nuclear strike, you'd best be here.  This is a tough ex-coal mining society. It's also one where looking out for each other, family values and loyalty counts above all else. They will survive.

Living in the soft south, I sometimes forget the importance of 'community'.  Anywhere south of the Watford Gap, we become 'individuals'. We lose a strong sense of community.

Although when I think about it, 'community' can be defined anyway I wish.  What's important to our health and well-being as we get older is to be an active member of any 'community'.  I belong to an eclectic group of people who frequent the Metrodeco tea rooms in Brighton. http://www.metro-deco.com/  Members of the group come and go but it will be a rare occasion when I walk in and don't know someone I can share a cuppa with, have a moan or a giggle about the way the day is going.  In an emergency I suspect we'd all be pretty useless but we might get together afterwards and write poetry about it.

What's your 'community'?  I'd really like to know.

 

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Become a Silver Surfer

27 July 2010

They are missing out. Being able to access the world wide web is as life changing as the first time my grandmother turned on an electric light switch.  Can you imagine a world without being able to switch on the lounge light?  No.  Neither can I, as a silver surfer, imagine a world without access to the internet.

I was lucky.  Being able to type and working in the health sector,which has been quick to plonk computers on every health professional's desk, I made the transfer from Remington Rand to Packard Bell with barely a ripple of unease.

Not so for millions of other senior citizens who lack confidence (it's all a mystery to me, I let the grandkids sort it)  and/or money (can't afford to pay me bills, let alone pay for one of those new-fangled thingamebobs).  They are missing out on fun, keeping up with family overseas, sharing photos and finding the best financial deals.

 More efficient use of money for older people is one of the arguments put forward by Race Online 2012, which is a Government backed initiative to get everyone online by 2012. http://raceonline2012.org/  The Race Online manifesto says:

"To give over-65s the same amount that the average household saves from shopping and paying bills online via the state pension would cost Government £6bn a year."

I'm over 65 and I live alone.  In the past 24 hours I have, with my luscious Lucy laptop:

*   ordered a couple of books on Amazon http:///www.amazon.co.uk
*   paid two online bills, my credit card and to a private service provider
*   received an email from Lovefilm.com telling my next rental film is winging its way to me http://lovefilm.com
*   had a face to face conversation with a friend in New Zealand via skype and my webcam on the laptop http://skype.com
*   researched celebrity contact details for my book 'Grow Old, Be Happy' (out early next year if you're interested)
*   had a twitter conversation with Martha Lane Fox about the problems of waking up early.  She is the Champion of Race Online 2012 and it was through twitter that I found the initiative.
*  and I'm just about to online book my ticket to London for a meeting tomorrow.

I would find it difficult to exist without access to the internet and I haven't even touched the possibilities offered by i-phones and i-pads.  The internet is not just for the young.  We need to encourage older relatives, friends, acquaintances that we know to get online.  I'm usually a bit anti Government telling us what to do, what to eat, blah, blah but this initiative I believe in.

And did I mention that Yoko Ono is following me on twitter?  How great is that.

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Newcastle Charter for Changing Age

18 July 2010

 I listened to Professor Tom Kirkwood give the Reith Lecture on BBC Radio 4 back in 2001.  It was the first time I had heard anyone say that ageing and even dying is not inevitable.  I was so impressed, I went out and bought the book of lectures.

We are not programmed to die.  We age because of cellular damage. Tom Kirkwood, who is Professor of Medicine at the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University, is at the cutting edge of research into cellular damage.  He says that we age because our cells experience tiny screw ups and they build up.  The DNA is damaged and our protein becomes resistant to the cells repairing themselves.  It's more complicated than that, but basically the more we can protect, repair and strengthen our cells, the longer we are likely to live.

I'm hoping to interview Professor Kirkwood for my book, not just for his research knowledge but also because he is passionate about celebrating getting older.  The fact that we are all living longer is humanity's greatest success, he says. Too often older people are seen as a burden on society.  Society has to catch up with the health technology that is enabling more of us to live a high quality happy and long life.  It's all good news.

Tom Kirkwood says: "Older people are our future selves.  We need to build a society that can accommodate people of all ages in a fair way that respects their individuality."

To that end he is behind establishing the 'Newcastle Charter for Changing Age' Charter 

I urge everyone, regardless of your age, to have a look at the Charter and pledge your support.  It argues that 'A radical reassessment of the place of older people in society is long overdue'.  I could not agree more.  It's my passion and what my book is about.  Support the Charter today.

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Older women lose out on breast cancer treatment

12 July 2010

 "Over half of new cancer cases occur in patients aged >65 years.  Many older patients can benefit from intensive cancer therapies, yet evidence suggests that this population is undertreated."  That is quoted from an abstract of an article in the June edition of 'The Oncologist'.

It was picked by the Radio Four's 'Today' programme and they invited Professor Robert Leonard from Imperial College to comment.  He agreed with the article and said that little consideration was given to the biological age of a woman as opposed to her chronological age when clinicians were considering treatment.  If you're over 65, you're likely to get inferior treatment.

That's the reality.  It is hard for the medical fraternity to decide how to divi up a scarce pot of money amongst diseases and ages but I can't accept that because I am a certain age, I don't get just as many options and just as good treatment as anyone younger than me.  It's one more example of the medicalisation of ageing.  Don't accept it.  Having worked in the health sector for years, it worries me that older people will slide to the bottom of the list in terms of medical support.  What the medics are overlooking is that people over 60 generally are fitter than their parents were and likely to live at least ten additional years.

I have a list of 200 celebrities and achieving oldies I want to interview for my book 'Grow Old, Be Happy' and they are the tip of an iceberg of positive, fit people over 60.  Everyone I mention the book to will inevitably come up with an older relative or friend they know who's run their 10th marathon or who travels around the world or who is still working in their 80's.  Is it right that these people get inferior treatment just because of their chronological age?

Medics work out who gets what treatment on what they call 'Quality of Life' indicators.  For example, if you've been a heavy smoker or drinker all your life, spending money on highly expensive treatments like heart procedures is less likely to be successful than giving treatment to a non-smoker or drinker.  It's a reasonable assumption but heavy smoking and drinking can happen at any time in your life.  To effectively put up a barrier to treatment based solely on age is just not on.

The Oncologist
Professor Robert Leonard

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The joy of being a dog on the beach

09 July 2010

7.20 am and it's hot on Brighton beach.  I never thought I would ever write that.  It's predicted to hit 30 degrees today and it's pretty warm already.  I do my usual bit of a walk, bit of a jog, bit of a wander, bit more of a jog, bit of a sit down at the end and gaze out over clear water and a blue sky with whisps of cloud dashed across it as though the perfect blue would be too perfect.

A man approaches walking his dog.  The dog looks like a cross between a german shepherd with some labrador.  It's main feature is that it's happy both ends.  You know how some dogs have smiley faces - this one honestly beams with happiness.  His long tail wags and he runs by the waves.  Then he stops, looks out to sea - looking for monsters perhaps? - then as the wave breaks he runs.  He runs fast, his legs stretched out at the front and as he runs, be barks excitedly at the waves.  Sorry buddy, Canute tried the same but he couldn't stop the waves either.

This dog is living in the moment.  He is full of joy right now, not yesterday, not tomorrow - right now.  He is so happy, he's beside himself with happiness - I've never quite known what that means but you get the picture.  I can learn something from this dog.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow - well who knows what will happen tomorrow - the only time we have is right now, at this moment.  And we can choose to feel joyous about this moment or we can choose to be unhappy, a grouch, brooding on something that didn't happen or someone who has upset us.  Pointless.  Live in the moment, let go the angst, relax. 

And if you are living anywhere on the south coast, grab some time and walk down to the sea.  It's definitely the day for that.
Enjoy your day.

 

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Stand out in a crowd

08 July 2010

When I worked in recruitment, I learned that the first 20 seconds of an interview is crucial for candidates.  This is because your appearance, your clothes, how you wear your hair, whether or not you have a beard - these all reflect who you are.  Non-verbal communication is as powerful as verbal.  When I meet you, I make a judgement quickly on who you are and whether we will get on, based on your physical appearance. 

Your image is as important when you are older as when you were younger.  So many older people I see around me when I walk along the prom to Brighton are wearing drab clothes, beiges, blacks, greys.  It's almost as if they are saying, 'don't look at me, I'm old'.  Why is that?  Do we press a button after 60 that says 'I'm inconsequential.  I don't count anymore'?  Who is handing our the 'old' uniforms?

I want to bring back colour to our senior years.  I'm beating a drum for wearing clothes that say 'Look at me.  Aren't I fabulous?  I've lived a full life and doesn't it show!'  That's why I enrolled in Sue Donnelly's one day workshop: The Art of Style http://www.feelfabat50.com/  She runs the workshops from her home in Peterborough and limits the numbers so everyone has plenty of chances to contribute. We progressed our day through a workbook of exercises which encouraged us to be honest about who we were and why we dressed the way we were dressed.  It was a fascinating and revealing day.  One woman had a passion for travel and exotic fabrics but never wore them.  Another made statement necklaces from orange, brown, gold beads - stunning pieces which she then gave away because she dressed in corporate dark tops and trousers and didn't feel she could carry them off.

These were professional, confident women but something held them back from wearing the fabrics, colours and styles that they really would love wearing.  We can get in a rut with clothes.  We wear the style and the colours we've always worn.  As we get older, we play safe.  Well let's throw all that out of the window along with all those drab, dreary clothes that are hanging in our wardrobes.

Let's celebrate being older externally as well as internally.  Stand out in a crowd.  Be the person who turns heads as you enter a room.  If the last 20,30 years of your life are going to be happy and healthy, they've also got to be fun.

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Get into the habit of walking

28 June 2010

 People who live a long and healthy life do not spend every day in the gym.  You don’t have to change much to change your healthy life expectancy.  Getting into the habit of improving your balance by, for example, standing on one foot while you wash up the breakfast dishes could save you from a fall in your later years.   Breaking a hip in later life these days doesn’t necessarily mean the end of your world.  Renewing ball and socket joints in hips is an operation that is performed on 90 year olds.  But it’s healthier for you if you don’t fall and break that joint in the first place.  A good sense of balance will help you.  Tai Chi exercises will help you take on the habit of slow, serene and balanced movement.  Yoga teaches balance as a fundamental pillar of its exercise regime.

In Dan Buettner’s book, The Blue Zones, he visits communities all over the world where there are significantly higher percentages of centenarians.  One of the common similarities centenarians shared, whether they live in Japan or Sardinia, is that they walk every day and have been doing for most of their lives.  Walking is cheap, saves money, gives you time to breathe outside and personal space within which to think.  Walking every day, at a rate that increases your heart rate, is excellent cardio-vascular exercise.  If you can get into the habit of walking briskly every day for at least 30 minutes at least five times every day, you will be giving yourself a longevity bonus.

I live in Brighton where car parking is at a premium and horrendously expensive.  I think our parking wardens must have been trained by the Marines, they are so vigilant, focussed and determined.  They will catch you if you park longer than 30 seconds anywhere that isn’t a defined parking space that you have paid for.  Visitors live in dread if they are dropping off something to my house. Running up the steps to ring the bell, running down the steps to check the warden hasn’t nabbed them, running back up again, like demented yoyos.  That’s how scared we are of wardens in Brighton.

On the other hand, the buses are good and frequent.  As a consequence of rigorous parking wardens, high parking fees and good public transport, more Brightonians are giving up on personal vehicles and, as an oldie, yippee, I have the added bonus of a bus pass so it's free.  It makes no sense for me to take on the additional financial burden of a car.  As a certain meerkat is fond of saying ‘simples’.

Walk, bicycle, roller blade, any activity that gets you from 'a' to 'b' without sitting down in a car will do so much for your general health.  And once you get into the habit, you will miss your daily walk if something prevents you.  Exercising a dog is the ultimate habit.  They won’t let you forget you haven’t had your daily walk.  On my wander into Brighton, I often pass a 92 year old lady who walks ‘Bessie’, her small, elderly terrier companion.  If she didn’t have Bessie, would she walk every day?  Who knows?  The point is if I organise my life so that I have to walk every day, I will be doing my health as well as the environment a huge favour.

 

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Being Grateful for Cormac McCarthy

22 June 2010

Bright blue sky, pink long stemmed flowers growing along the victorian rail track on the beach and an indigo, heavy sea.  I can smell salt in the pure air.  I am grateful that I am here in this place on this day at this time of my life.

I sit down by the water. No-one swimming yet but it is hot enough at 8.00 am to swim.  That has to be something to be grateful for in England.  We count the days of warmth in England.  This is the day after the summer solstice.  There is a man with his dog about 200 yards away.  The dog is a white bull terrier, one of those dogs I never pat without asking the owner first.  This one is focussed on its owner.  I can't see the dog's face but I imagine, by the joy in his tail, that he is smiling.  He dances around the man, happy and expectant.

Be grateful for these moments. 

I read 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy over the weekend.  I couldn't put it down.  It's a sort of literary, spiritual Mad Max sort of story, although I can hear McCarthy aficionados gnashing their teeth in horror at me describing it as such.  A simple story of a man and his son existing through each day in a post-apocalyptic world where there are more bad men than good.  The sun shines through murky clouds.  It rains most days.  The landscape is burnt.  There are no animals, birds, fish in the rivers and sea.  Everything is dull and dingy. The man and boy wade through ash and live in fear.  It is a possible look into the future if we don't take climate change and stuffing up the world seriously enough.

'The Road' is why I write.  It's why I sit at this computer and tap away.  Not that my aspirations are to be another Cormac McCarthy.  I'm not sure I have 10,000 hours left to practise my craft enough but I am grateful for the opportunity life has given me to get up in the morning, walk along by a clean beach in the sunshine, return to my gracious flat and sit and write.

Be grateful for these moments.

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Paying grandparents for childcare

16 June 2010

I was reading an article last weekend which said that in a survey by Grandparents Plus (http://www.grandparentsplus.org.uk/) 70% of grandparents thought they should be paid for their childcare services.  I don't yet have grandchildren but live in hope? (Are you reading this kids?)

But something about money passing hands for looking after your own flesh and blood struck a jarring note with me.  And I wonder what happened to the value of duty?  It seems to me that 'duty' has become a bit of a dirty word in our British individualistic society.  Like 'community' and 'family', the meaning has changed over the last 30 years. 

The notion of duty nowadays is that it's something one would rather not do rather than do.  Something we are pressured into but would not do if we were given the choice.  I like the notion of duty but I do have a caveat.  That is that as a carer we agree  ground rules that suit us.  The over-50's are the sandwich generation. We can find ourselves in a position where we have grown up children living at home and/or we become a permanent part of a child care service for working parents and/or we are checking up on elderly parents.  It's no wonder there's resentment around amongst older carers.

If I look at other cultures, like Asian cultures or African cultures, being part of a 'family' still includes the value of duty to look after your own.  It's all done with love, not money.  Older parents and grandparents look after younger members of the family and in turn younger members of the family look after older members as they become infirm.  Families work within a circle of life and love. It's something we have lost, largely, in Britain and I'm all for bringing it back.

If you're caring for someone, it seems to be that it has to be a conscious decision carried out because you want to, not because you feel obligated to.  As baby-boomers, we're vulnerable to being guilt-tripped into caring for much loved grandchildren and for parents but if we do it for the wrong reasons, if we sacrifice free time and energy when we don't want to, all that happens is resentment.  I'm not convinced that paying grandparents is right.  Do it because you love to do it and only do as much as you want to.  If our children are grown up enough to have children, they are grown up enough to sort out their own child-care arrangements.  You can always act as a back-up, or one day a week, whatever suits you.


 

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Joanna Lumley and Training yourself to be Happy

14 June 2010

 This is the maxim by which Joanna Lumley lives according to Mick Brown's interview with her in Saturday's Telegraph Magazine: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/7813233/Joanna-Lumley-interview-honey-and-steel.html

Most of us scramble through life and it does seem to me, after more than 50 years of scrambling, that discipline or focus has to be a positive benefit of ageing well.  I think it supports a resilient outlook on life and 'resilience' is one of the key attributes that support not just a long life but also a happy and healthy life.

Once you reach a certain point in life and that could be any time after 45, we have accumulated sufficient knowledge and experience to know what we want to focus on for the rest of our lives.  What is important to us and what is less important.  Often that knowledge is intuitive rather than a result of analysis.  We sort of know what is important.  What we may not do quite as well as keep our focus on that importance.  It's all too easy to be pulled away from your true path, the one you want to tread, the one you believe in.  We get involved in other people's agendas. 

Keep to your own agenda, your true path and you will be happier.  Don't get pulled into other people's arguments, moaning or negativity.  Keep positive, look for the good, not the bad in everyone you meet and everything you do. 

Joanna Lumley is a Kipling fan and particularly of his poem 'If'....she says: "'if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster/ And treat those two impostors just the same', Absolutely right, let 'em go, doesn't matter, don't get dragged down by them, or blown up by them.  And right at the very end of it he says, if you can do all that you'll be a man, and that will be marvellous.  And what he means is that you'll be a fine person, and it applies just as much to girls as to boys."

Go Joanna!

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The BP Legacy

12 June 2010

Listening to the news this morning, our PM David Cameron will be talking to President Obama later today about the disastrous oil leak across the Gulf of Mexico.

Their conversation will be, we are told, 'workmanlike'.  What does that mean?  Are they talking about the kinds of shovels used to remove the oil from the coastline?  Unlikely.  I hope they do treat each other with respect and work together to resolve the situation.

I'm feeling that on the one hand, BP is doing all it can to stem the leak and should be supported and on the other, that the leaks should never have happened in the first place. Whichever way any of us feels about the situation now, in the future,whenever the name 'BP' is said out loud, everyone will have that image of brown, pathetic, oil covered, unhappy pelicans and feel angry that its happened.  This will be BP's legacy to the world.

It made me think about my legacy to the world.  What will people say about me when I'm not here anymore?  It occurs to me that I have to consider what I pass on to, and how I affect, my family, friends, work colleagues, community, the world every day of my life.

It is quick and easy to destroy someone's confidence.  It is quick and easy to upset someone more than we intended. It is quick and easy to misunderstand an action. An angry word said in the heat of the moment can ruin relationhips and it's even worse when it's written down.  It's hard to take back emotional hurt.  It's easy to judge in haste and regret that judgement later.

However frustrating someone is being, take a deep breath and pause, before snapping back, or undermining with sarcasm.  The benefit of feeling justified or in the right, is never worth the hurt you are dealing out. Never. However many nice words you use to smooth over words spoken in anger, the angry words are what will be remembered.  Just as we will now forever associate BP with ecological disaster. 

They should have been better prepared. They clearly have the money.  Not one pelican should have died because we all like driving cars at reasonable petrol prices.

What legacy are you leaving to your family, friends,work colleagues, community, the world?

 

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The World is Your Stage

10 June 2010

Once you've booted the last chick from the nest, suddenly there is more time, and importantly, more money. I know we can bounce from caring for offspring to caring for parents, but generaly the older we get the more free time we have to pursue hobbies, travel and dreams.  Once we get past, certainly 60, if not 50 we deserve regular holidays and fun.

For many people over the age of 50-55, this equates to a renewed enthusiasm for travel.  Those 'far away places with the strange sounding names' that have called to us through the decades now become a travel reality. I've been researching the travel chapter in my book (working title: 'Grow Old, Be Happy') and it is fascinating to see just how far the baby boomer travel industry has developed.

What's heart-warming is how many adventures we can now have and at the same time contribute to society in a developing country.  Lots of holidays helping children to learn English, for example or working with endangered species.  Read Jacky Davis's account of her holiday in Costa Rica working with a Sloth rescue conservation project.  As she writes, there's plenty of opportunities for 'Granny, grey haired, gap year travellers'.  Made me want to jump on the next plane.  I do feel an affinity with sloths. 
www.gapyearforgrownups.co.uk/JackyDavis

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CAN YOU HEAR ME MOTHER?

08 June 2010

I know I shouldn't mock the afflicted but deafness can be very funny.  I read 'Deaf Sentence' by David Lodge last month and I did laugh out loud.  The hero, like David Lodge, is hard of hearing and wears a hearing aid which doesn't work well when he's in a noisy social occasion so he often turns it off and guesses what the person is saying to him, smiling and nodding in what he thinks are the right places.  This tactic gets the hero into all sorts of trouble through misunderstanding what is being said. It's a great read because it's funny and it's moving because behind the laughter, the book illustraes the huge struggle that people losing their hearing face, especially in social environments.  It's often easier to stay home which can lead to lonliness and isolation.

A product to help the hard of hearing was discussed in the Daily Mail yesterday.  It was about a new phone for older people and it made me laugh out loud.  The phone is the Geemarc Clearsound http://www.geemarc.com/eng/default.asp  which has a ringtone of 100 decibels, equivalent to a pneumatic drill or a passing train.  This phone is brilliant for people who can't hear quite as well but as Dan Bates, the writer points out..."for those (with good hearing) who are sitting close by when it rings, it could be a shock".  Well there's an example of British understatement.  I could just imagine going to visit an elderly relative when the phone rang.  I think I'd fall off my chair with alarm. 

 

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Take Control of Your Week

07 June 2010

I spend my life scampering from one activity to another.  There is always something I need to do, someone I want to see, or somewhere I want to go.  For a long time, I would get days when I felt so overwhelmed with everything, I wouldn't achieve anything.

Then I read 'Seven Habits of Effective People' by Management Guru, Stephen Covey. https://www.stephencovey.com/7habits/7habits.php

He suggested a technique which I have used for many years now and always helps me to stay on track, manage my time and balance my life.  This morning I sat on my patio in the sunshine with a cup of coffee and drew a quadrant over the whole page of my journal.  If you don't keep a journal, just a piece of A4 will do.  Then I head each square of the quadrant with the areas of my life currently important to me.  Three of the headings can change, the 4th - PERSONAL - has to go in every week, because that's the square that will keep your life in balance.  For example, this morning my headings were:

BUSINESS:  I'm still in setting up mode and need to buy a screen monitor.  I also need to file my business receipts for the past month and talk to a virtual PA who may be able to take some of the ongoing admin load from me.

WRITING:  I really need to focus on sorting out the interviews for my new book, maybe I'll try for 3 interviewees (working title: Grow Old, Be Happy) and completing at least one chapter this week.

HOUSE:  There are a number of improvements I need to organise, eg quotes for new decking, window cleaning and I've been meaning to clean out the cupboard under the sink.

PERSONAL:  Organise a massage using a gift voucher, find a pilates class, and send a birthday present to a friend in New Zealand.

In each empty box you write your 3 top priorities for the week.  These can be little or large tasks.  They must be achievable, which is why I write 'complete one chapter' not four.   What happens when you make this a weekly habit is that (a) you feel emotionally stable.  You have control over your time and energy and (b) you achieve! And that's a great feeling.  I get a real 'high' if I have ticked off my goals for the week.

Have a great balanced and happy week.

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Capital Gains Tax on the Elderly is Wrong

03 June 2010

Our new coalition government has to get to grips with a huge deficit and is looking at many different scenarios to cut expenditure and raise taxes.  One of the 'raising taxes' plans is to set a crushing 40% capital gains tax when people sell second homes.  I'm not against the idea in principle.  It seems to me that if you own more than one home and make a profit when you sell it, paying a high rate of tax might be frustrating but at least you have your main home and you're still making a profit on the second one, albeit a smaller profit.  The tax is aimed at stopping property speculators making a fast buck.

However it will be blatantly unfair if the Government does not address the anomaly of elderly people who are in care homes.  After three years in a residential care home, it is deemed to be the elderly person's 'primary residence'. Their real home becomes their second home.  This new tax ruling will  double penalise someone who has saved all his or her life, lived independently of the State and still has to pay for care home expenses because they have been an honourable diligent citizen.

Not only will all the resident's savings be drained as the years pass by, but when inevitably their savings are gone and the family home has to be sold to continue paying for care, there will be even less money available to support Mum or Dad with the extras that make life easier for them and to hand on to children and grandchildren, which is so important to a generation that has lived through years of deprivation and a world war.  Come on Nick Clegg - this has to be wrong!

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Achievable goals

02 June 2010

My kids tease me about my goal setting. 'Mum can't go a week without a goal' and it's true.  Setting goals helps me to stay focussed.  The world is such an amazing place, I get easily distracted.  A few goals set at the beginning of each week helps me.  Also I'm a child at heart and love ticking them off - that's reminded me I must buy some more gold stars.

However there's a trick with goals.  There's nothing worse than setting goals and not achieving them.  That leads to underachievement and loss of confidence. You have to set achievable goals.  For example when I went for my writing retreat month in France I set myself two goals:

1    To lose a stone in weight

2    To complete my novel to the point I can send it to an agent.

The first goal was completely unachievable.  We're talking FRANCE - the wine is good, cheap and ever-flowing.  The food, even the simplest omlette and chips, is utterly delicious.  There was never ever any way I was going to lose weight.  In fact I put 3 lbs on and I think it was only that much because I tried to only eat once a day - twice a day and I would have doubled my weight.

The second goal was achievable.  There was no TV or internet access at the gite.  Did I achieve the goal?  Yes and no and you can 'yes and no' with goals.  The novel is not ready to send to an agent but I did a lot of writing and a lot of thinking about the plot and characters.  I made decisions that mean the rewriting will take longer than the time allotted but it will be a better novel in the end.  Goals can be flexible.  Sometimes they take you down one path and you end up at a crossroads and have to choose - do I go on with this goal?  Or do I choose to adapt the goal?

Set yourself 2 goals for the coming 7 days - and make sure they're achievable.

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Respect for the Elderly in France

01 June 2010

First day of June back in Brighton. I've been reflecting on my time in France in relation to older people.  France is still a rural based society and one of the benefits of this approach has been to support a family culture.  Families still live close together or, if they live miles apart, they keep in touch. 

Older family members are treated with respect and that respect seemed to me, to have spilled over into the population generally, and in particular the way young men viewed older people.  Struggling with my suitcase on the train station platform, a young man got down from the train and picked the case up for me and asked me where I was sitting so he could place my suitcase nearby.  'Bonne Voyage' he said with a smile.  Another delicious young frenchman (you know the type, with dark curly hair and long lashes) ran after me when I left a packet of biscuits by the supermarket till.  'Madam, madam' he said and then whatever the french is for 'you have missed these.' - all with a smile and genuine friendliness. 

I know this sometimes happens here also but it doesn't seem to happen as much.  One afternoon I was sitting alone by the riverbank in Cahors.  There was no-one else around. A scruffy young man, smoking, looking a bit suspicious, strutted along the path towards me.  Just as I was starting to think how do I get out of this, he reached level with me, and his scowl turned into a brilliant smile and he lifted his hat to me. 'Bonjour', he said politely and passed by.  A welcoming smile and a kind word mean so much when you are alone in a foreign country. 

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Back from Deepest France

31 May 2010

I'm back from writing a lot in Lot, south-west France, packed full of medieval fortified towns and villages, meadows of poppies, salvia and daisies, and an everything stops for 2 hours at lunchtime approach to life.  I have fallen in love with rural France.

Previously I've only ever done the Paris weekend trip bit.  This is my first time in real French countryside.  I so enjoyed being there.  I stayed in a cosy gite (complete with wood burning stove) in the tiny village of Prouilhac.  I woke up each morning to the song of a cuckoo and in the evening sat outside on my patio with a glass of rose, watching a ballet of swifts and listening to a nightingale.  Total magic.

No television, no easy internet access unless I did a 50 minute walk to Gourdon.  Even the mobile phone wouldn't work unless I stood half-way up a hill.  So I wrote and re-wrote my novel, read 18 books, learnt about the history of the Bouriane region and visited local markets and surrounding towns courtesy of my hosts, Angela and Cliff who let me ride along with them.

I feel invigorated, refreshed - and while I was away I was offered a book deal for my non-fiction book on Magnificent Ageing.  Vive la France! 

Holiday letting: Prouilhac 46300, Gourdon, Lot, France.  Angela and Cliff Bishop - tel: 00 33 565411985

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Malcolm McLaren – Fearless & Flamboyant

25 April 2010

 

Watching the BBC 2 programme on McLaren’s life last night, I found myself envious of the man.  He died last week, aged 64, so not that envious.  It was more about his, as he put it, ‘tipping the table’ approach to life.  I grew out of behaving like a spoilt teenager when marriage, a stable job, parenting and mortgages took over.  Malcolm Mclaren didn’t.

 

He didn’t ever grow up to be a rational, well behaved adult.  He stayed a badly behaved child through every decade of his life until his death.   Although he hopped from one passion to another, cutting ties with whichever artist or artists he had supported when he got bored, there was a consistency in his life; a theme, some strong values that he lived. 

 

Perhaps living the way he did was not the healthiest or the easiest, but it does seem to have been fun.  McLaren didn’t compromise on being authentic, even if that meant he wasn’t always liked. 

 

Age doesn’t necessarily have to equate with being restrained.  His son, Joe Corre said his father was always encouraging him to go on adventures.  Let’s all do that, at whatever level suits us, at whatever age we are.  Have fun and go on adventures.

 

Malcolm Mclaren said “You have to be fearless, go against what many people think and do it with as much style as possible.”  I like that.  What have we got to lose if we’re over 60?  I only want to live to be 100 if my quality of life stays as high as it is now.  Quality of life has to be, for me, more important than quantity of life.

 

“Better to be a flamboyant failure than any kind of benign success”

 Malcolm Mclaren 1946-2010

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The Marathon called ‘LIFE’

19 April 2010

 

It was the Brighton Marathon yesterday and the competitors ran one way past my house on the seafront, then turned round at Ovingdean and ran on the other side of the road up to Hove, then Shoreham.

 

I was out on the pavement with my neighbours clapping and encouraging.  It was a beautiful day and where I live was the 6 mile mark.  I heard there were 12 thousand runners.  The stream of people running past seemed to go on forever.  All ages, all sizes, all levels of fitness.  All optimistic that, at the very least, they were going to finish the race.

 

I'm sure someone must have written it before, but it was a metaphor for Life. As I stood watching the faces run past, some people were relaxed and smiling, some were stony-faced and intense, some were comic and dressed up (I liked the Scooby Doo outfit), and many ran for causes like Guide Dogs for the Blind or Cancer Research. And then there were those who were struggling even at 6 miles, red-faced and perspiring and at the end there were people who had already given up running and were walking instead.

 

How do you approach the marathon of life?  Do you want to win?  Is it more about being in the race?  Can you be relaxed as you jog through life or is it all serious stuff?  What happens as you get older?  Does that enthusiasm wane or increase?  Watching the runners glide by, there was a significant percentage over 60 years old.  Some of them were fit and up there with the younger runners.  Most were taking it a little more slowly but steadily.  It was clear to me that they would get to the finish line, perhaps not in the top third but definitely not at the back.

 

Running marathons has never appealed to me.  What does appeal about a marathon is the passion, the commitment and the sheer energy it takes to run 26 miles.  I admire that.  My passion lies elsewhere but I hope it is as strong a passion as drove many runners yesterday.

 

Age is immaterial.  What is important is your approach to life?  Are you a front runner?  Or have you given up and are dawdling on the periphery of life?

 

Congratulations to all the runners in Brighton’s marathon yesterday.  You are all heroes.  I might even go for a gentle jog this evening.

 

 

 

 

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Am I just too old for love?

11 April 2010

 

I’ve filched this title from a weekend Times article of April 10th where a number of famous people like Lionel Shriver talk about find love late in life.  The philosopher A.C. Grayling, photographed looking very fanciable with his mass of grey hair and tieless shirt, believes there is a difference between the experience of love when you are younger, which he says is more likely to be infatuation and what he calls ‘love proper’, which he defines as a recognition of separateness – but of separateness connected. 

 

I like the notion but am not convinced that age and experience put up any barriers to infatuation, that total falling out of the sky feeling.  The completely star spangled romantic tingles all over your body when you meet someone you know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you will end up in bed with at some time in the near future.  It may be infatuation but it can knock you sideways whether you are 23 or 63.

 

I have a friend who was as certain as any lady could be who was coming up to 70, that she had no further interest in relationships.  Then flash, bang, wallop, she fell in love.  Her sensible, no-nonsense self instantly reverted to being a soppy sixteen year old, waiting for the phone calls, admiring his every word, aching when she wasn’t with him. 

 

Maybe love can come in different forms when we are that bit older?  We can experience the all whistles, balloons, ecstatic romantic falling in love. And maybe we also have the opportunity to slip into an easy loving relationship with an old friend or the man or woman we meet up with at the swimming pool, or keep bumping into at the library, when affection, companionship and mutuality come first.  Passion may or may not come later and that’s alright either way.

 

And then of course we may have romantic regrets. My hairdresser this week told me that recently she had sat beside her elderly grandfather chatting comfortably over a cup of tea.  Making conversation, she asked him if he had any regrets in his life.  He thought for a while, then turned to her and said, “I wish I’d shagged more women”.  Honest - if a bit startling. 

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OLD ROCKERS ARE ROLE MODELS

06 April 2010

 

            Roger Daltrey (66) and Pete Townsend (64) are typical of a generation of musicians that go on and on.  ‘The Who’ played to a packed house at the Albert Hall last week, recreating their rock opera ‘Quadrophenia’.

 

They are inspiring examples of forgetting that you’re older than 19, even if it’s just for one night, and having as much fun as you ever did.  We don’t grow up, we just grow a few more years.  Daltrey and Townsend expect to have the energy and stamina it takes to play a full evening’s gig and so they do.  Being an ‘old rocker’ is a positive oxymoron.

 

The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the long list of major singers and performers who still tour and make CDs illustrates that ‘retirement’ is nothing than a self-imposed constraint.  No-one should retire if retirement means that you have come to the end of your productive life and that you have no more to give to your community, your society, your country, the world.  It’s all nonsense.  Of course you have.  You have more to give than ever before because you have the added advantage of all those years of experience and life skills.

 

If you dislike your job so much you look forward to an official retirement, then think of this time as a wonderful opportunity to do all the things you’ve always wanted to do.  Volunteer, travel, start an apple orchard; whatever you have put on hold, get that dream out, dust it off and make it sparkle.

 

If you like your job but maybe don’t want to do as many hours, negotiate with your employer to go part-time or work as a free-lance. 

 

And if you’re one of those lucky people, like successful musicians and singers, who love what you do, then why would you stop?

 

“Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.”

 Louis Armstrong  (American leading trumpeter, one of the greatest artists in jazz history, 1901-1971)

 

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Why is it our Fault?

29 March 2010

There have been a few magazine and newspaper articles written lately, some quite aggressive, that lay the blame for how the world is (and I assume that’s the good bits as well as the bad, although the articles focus on the negative) squarely on the shoulders of the baby boomer generation.

 

            We are blamed for the housing crisis because we made too much profit when we moved houses.  It’s because of us that the NHS is creaking.  We didn’t save enough for our old age so are likely to be a zimmer-frame burden on social services.  Also (and somewhat bizarrely given that our generation operated on the strength of limited knowledge at the time), it is because of our wasteful use of resources in the 70s, 80s, and 90s that the world is undergoing a climate change crisis. 

 

            Are we to blame for the way the world is today?  Well, to a degree, it has got to be ‘yes’.  Each generation lays the foundations from which the next generation builds.  We inherit a way of behaving; a way of thinking that is heavily influenced by how our parents and their peers thought.  We are a product of post-war celebration, an example of ‘you’ve never had it so good’ thinking and a generation that pushed against the old order of what was considered right and proper.  We are the first generation that ‘didn’t know our place’. 

 

            But entirely to blame?  No we’re not.  We did have it easier in some ways.  Take for example, the ability to buy our own homes.  In an article by Neil Boorman on the BBC News website, he claims that “baby boomers collectively own close to £500bn of the UK’s assets, which is four-fifths of the entire nation’s wealth.”  Most of that wealth is because when we were young house prices, relative to income, were lower. 

 

            I’m sure that’s true but on the other hand, our expectations were also lower.  We generally married earlier and had families earlier.  We saved for what we bought and if my husband and I did buy anything on hire purchase (pre. credit cards), say a new sofa, we paid off one item before we took on the responsibility of another large purchase.  When we had holidays at all, they were modest and spent in the UK.  We took the children for a week’s holiday at a Devon family guest house or hired a caravan with another family.  We didn’t expect to fly to Disneyland for two weeks (which is probably a good thing as I don’t think it was in existence then).

 

            Now young people expect to travel before they settle down and when they do rent or buy, they expect to have the latest wide screen HD television, a dishwasher, and half of all you can buy in IKEA two days after they move in.   That’s as well as popping over to Marrakesh for someone’s 21^st birthday or taking a year’s gap (although it’s hardly a gap if its bunged full of travel) after school to find themselves.  There is an entitlement culture around that I’m not convinced is healthy.  I feel like shouting: YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

 

In my today’s local paper, the Argus, there’s a piece about the Council being ‘disappointed’ because less than a quarter of families in Brighton and Hove who are eligible for free government funded laptops have actually bothered to apply.  Why is the Government buying laptops for families when there are plenty in the schools and free access in libraries?  It’s likely they are not applying because they’ve already got three, all bought on a credit card.  And here’s a thought, just maybe more homework and reading might be done without a computer in the house.

 

No I don’t think baby boomers should be made to feel guilty for all the ills in society because we had a lucky break with the housing market.  There are plenty of other influences to blame for why society is like it is today.  Television, which was hardly around for baby boomer children, has been a major influence in raising a ‘got to have it now’ culture.  The celebrity media circus sustains and inflames the consumer society.   Clothes are 60% cheaper now than they were when I was young.  I started my first job dressed in my school uniform skirt because it was the only one I had.  I cannot imagine any 16 year old who would think that was reasonable these days.  Easy access to 1001 university courses means many young people don’t even think about getting on the property ladder until they are in their late twenties.  They’ve lost years of potential earning and saving power.  And don’t forget that the research into health technology to keep us alive and energetic for longer had been paid for on the backs of baby boomer earnings in recent past decades. 

 

Improved health technology is one of the many gifts we hand on to the next generation, along with our wisdom, wit, and boundless optimism about the planet, society and the future of the world.  After all we are the generation that believe that all you need is love and we’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…..you can’t ask for a better inheritance than that, can you?

           

 

 

     

 

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Winston Churchill Jnr, me and ‘The World at One’

22 March 2010

 

I’ve just been listening to journalist John Simpson on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’.  He was talking about journalism sometimes being ‘deleterious’ to the truth.  I sort of know what the word means but looked it up for the actual definition which is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘causing harm or damage’.  I love the word and the fact that this man  used it conversationally without any affectation.  I thought of the young John Simpson I knew many years ago when I worked for the Beeb.  I worked for a regional radio news programme called ‘South East’ and John was in our cricket team.  I suppose I was a cheer leader of the times, travelling to the matches to applaud a team that included Martin Bell and Tom Mangold before any of them were famous.

John was then, and I’m sure still is, the epitome of an English gentleman.  As I remember him, he’s a kind, polite man who gave as much respect to the opinions of a naïve young girl as he would the Chairman of the BBC Board of Governors.    Listening to him this morning talking about integrity in journalism, he reminded me of another journalist I used to know whose photograph I saw at the back of the Guardian a couple of weeks ago.

I was at Café Rouge at Brighton Marina when I saw it. There was a biting north wind and watery sunshine outside; inside it was warm.  I looked out onto yachts bobbing gently on the inner harbour and seagulls marching up and down the decking. Drifting through a newspaper on a daily basis is a habit born of my early days working in the BBC newsroom at Broadcasting House.  I started my working life with the Beeb at 16.  I had been working with the Radio Newsreel team for 2 years when Eric Stadlen, the Duty Editor of the day, came in to the open-plan newsroom to find me.  My job was to monitor the stories being sent by journalists all over the world, make sure they were recorded on reel to reel tape and that every word was transcribed.  The Editor’s job was to decide what stories went to what edition of ‘Radio Newsreel’ or ‘From Our Own Correspondent’ or for what was then, a new, experimental lunchtime radio news programme, ‘The World At One’.   I ran around matching tapes and transcripts for the content and doing anything else that was required to ensure the programmes were produced to time and length.

Andrew Boyle, as I remember it, was the creator and driving force behind ‘The World at One’.  William Hardcastle presented it.  And they were looking for other presenters.  Many of the radio journalists I worked with went on to become TV reporters and authors. I remember Richard Whitmore who went onto be anchorman for BBC news.  Author David Benedictus used to ask me to parties. Freddie Forsyth with thick curly hair was impatient and scowled.  David Sells taught me how to cook spaghetti al dente and David Tindell was encouraging and interested when I confided in him that I too wanted to be a journalist.  And I remember Winston.

Editor Eric Stadlen was a stocky, barrel-chested man with a thick Viennese accent.  He could be fierce and he could also be fun.  “Penny,” he leaned over my desk.  His dark, smoky voice was even deeper than usual. “Penny, I need you - now.”

He was training Winston Churchill Jnr to be a presenter of ‘The World at One’.  Winston was already a journalist but not on radio.  Being a radio presenter requires a particular set of skills.   You have to have a strong sense of timing.  You have to elicit answers to questions quickly and succinctly.  You have to connect to your audience in a way that is more intimate than television.  Because you don’t actually have your audience physically in front of you, some people find this difficult.  Winston was having difficulties.  He was tripping over himself. He sounded stilted and awkward.  He had a good voice but he sounded as if he was reading everything.  All this Eric told me as we walked down the corridors in BH to the studio.  “I want you to charm him.  I want you to flirt a little with him.  I want you to smile at him.”

There is no way you could get away with an instruction like that to a female employee these days, but at that time I followed Eric meekly into the news studio.  On the other side of the radio desk, a pair of startling blue eyes looked apprehensively at me.  Winston had a clear, ruddy complexion as though he had just returned from a day’s fox hunting.  He brushed blonde floppy hair from his broad forehead.  He was handsome and he stood up to shake my hand.

“Winston, this is Penny.  I want you to relax and tell her the news.  As you read the links, you are speaking just to her, to no-one else, just to Penny.  Don’t think about the other listeners, just talk to Penny.”

So I sat at one side of the desk with my bouffant hair cut and my tight office shirt and skirt, and Winston sat on the other looking nervous in a sky blue shirt that matched his eyes.  Eric left us alone as he moved out of the studio. I tried to make conversation to put Winston at ease as I'd been instructed.   “You must be named after your grandfather.  That’s something to live up to”.   I sounded like Martine McCutcheon in ‘Love Actually’.

“Yes, yes, every other generation actually,” he replied like Hugh Grant, “You know, Winston, Randolph, Winston.  I expect if I have a son, he’ll be called Randolph.”  And he blushed.  Not a pale rosy hue, but a bright tomato red.  Eric appeared through the soundproof glass in the Ops room.  He pressed the intercom button.  “Pips first, then in your own time, Winston.”

I would like to share a happy ending.  The truth is I think I made Winston Churchill Jnr even more nervous.  I was 20 years old and Winston was 23.  Neither of us was quite sure what we were supposed to be doing.  Winston did go on to present ‘The World at One’, but not for long.  He wasn’t very good at it.

In Café Rouge two weeks ago, I drifted through the newspaper and turned a page.  There he was, just as handsome.  The blonde had turned to silver.  He still looked nervous. The obituary wasn’t very flattering.  It said he had hard-right views and was a philanderer.  It said he had two sons and two daughters.  His eldest son was called Randolph.  Winston was 69.

All those years ago.  The encounter is as vivid as if it were yesterday.  Time really is an illusion.   It can be bridged in a moment.  I am back in that slightly musty smelling, tiny, practice studio on the seventh floor of Broadcasting House smiling at Winston as we listened to the pips finishing and he opened the mic; “The World at One.  This is Winston Churchill…….”

 

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How to Get Published – or Not

15 March 2010

            Last Saturday I attended the first Writers and Artists workshop. Its title was ‘The Insider Guide to How to Get Published’.  As far as most of the speakers were concerned the advice generally was ‘don’t bother’.

The number of manuscripts submitted rises each year.  Andrew Kidd, Literary Agent with Aitken Alexander Associates told us that he receives 100-150 submissions a week.  Last year he picked 5 authors from his slush pile and only 4 of those were published.  He did impress on the audience that we needed an agent.  Although it seemed as though all they did was swan about and have lunch with publishers, agents were actually negotiating deals for their writers.  In response to a question, Andrew advised that all genres were alright to pitch for except non-fiction history books.  There was no market for them.

Bill Swainson who is the Senior Commissioning Editor at Bloomsbury waved his e-book reader at us.  He said he had currently 67 books to look at on his e-book reader.  Even most published books weren’t profitable he said.  90% of profit came from 10% of his ‘list’.  He took few new writers on and those he did came through agents he knew or through recommendations from other writers.  Publishers work 12 months in advance and each publisher has his or her strength. It’s important to submit your manuscript to the right publisher Bill advised; for example, he published non-fiction history books.

Jo Herbert should have been the first speaker, rather than the last, as she took the audience through the nuts and bolts of submitting a manuscript.  Jo said an agent or publisher might receive 30-50 manuscripts a day and between 100-500 a week.  She told us we have make a convincing argument as to why our book is marketable.  We must remember publishing is a business and ask: “Why would a publisher want me?”

It was looking bleak for the 70+ wannabee authors who had paid for the day.

I’m undecided whether it’s good news or bad but the publishing industry seemed to me, to be in a complete muddle at the moment.  Richard Charkin, Executive Director of Bloomsbury Publishing, shared a presentation he’d done for a conference recently, but hey, he might as well share it with us anyway.  He didn’t know what the future of trade publishing might be.  Google and Apple were both planning to compete with Amazon. Everyone was reading online.  In the States the online Guardian and Telegraph were rated 4^th and 5^th in ‘most read’ newspaper listings.

Bemused by it all, he showed us a graph he’d done for the other audience, but hey, we could be interested.  It showed that traditional publishing sales were flat, which he pointed out, could be seen as good in a recession.  In comparison e-book sales were jetting away. The 3^rd Quarter of 2008 showed 17 million dollars worth of e-book sales.  The last Quarter of 2009 celebrated sales of 56 million and he added, “There is no sign of that increase slowing down.  There are a million books in English flying around the web”.  I felt like shouting from the audience, “Well that’s got to be good – surely?”

I didn’t understand much of what Literary Consultant, Rebecca Swift said.  She jumped from anecdote to anecdote whilst running her hands through already rumpled hair.  It was difficult to keep up.  Rebecca confided that she would have liked to have heard the first speaker but she was having her breakfast at the time.  I think we were supposed to sympathise, but as she worked in the same building as the workshop was held in, and I’d come up on the early train, it didn’t do much for me as an excuse.

Author Julie Myerson was a refreshing oasis in the day of gloom.  She was encouraging. Hurrah!  She was clear.  Hurrah, hurrah! She told us to persevere, not to give up.  Julie explained what she did to get published and how she wrote.  She wrote, she said, for herself. She didn’t construct background stories for her characters and when she started a book, she had little idea of how it would end.  A less than perfect writer who was a success – we all relaxed a little.

The day didn’t tell the audience how to get published.  It did tell me that the insider speakers had little more idea than we did about how to be successful in the current literary melee that is publishing today.  It feels like a lot of pushing and shoving is going to be required. 

I'll need a truck load of luck that my manuscript lands with the right agent on the right day of the right month and that he or she has had breakfast first.  It means my agent, assuming I am lucky enough to bag one, belongs to the same dining club as the relevant publisher.  Or I need to find another author to champion my book to an agent.  Or I could self-publish, but as one of the speakers murmured from the corner of his mouth, I might not sell many.

I’m a sucker for reverse psychology.  The more I’m told I can’t do something, the more I’ll work at achieving it.  I’m sure there’s a psychotherapy word to describe this personality trait.  The only one I can think of right now is being ‘bloody-minded’.  It wasn’t the most encouraging day I’ve spent but as I’ve burnt a whole river length of bridges to get to this point, I’m not turning back now.   I’ve just got to think a bit more strategically about which agent I take for lunch first?

 

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Older MPs and a Glass of Wine every day

10 March 2010

 Yesterday on BBC radio 4, there was an hour long debate, with lots of listener input, on the reforms required in Government. Liberal Democrat Lord Paddy Ashdown and Conservative Matthew Parrish, both of whom have been MPs disagreed with each other throughout the hour's programme.  They disagreed about proportional representation, MPs having second jobs and the role of the party whips.

On one point and one point only they agreed.  The UK needs fewer MPs and MPs who have done other things in their lives, than just be an MP. We don't need career MPs straight out of university making decisions that will affect every man, woman or child in the country.  Matthew Parrish said "we need older candidates, older MPs".   Hurrah!  At last some recognition that older people have more life experience to offer and are wiser.  I don't think anyone under 30 should sit as a Member of Parliament. 

It was an interesting hour and is available to be listened to again on BBC Radio 4's website.  I should put an insert link here I know but I've yet to learn how to do that.

The other positive statement I've heard this week is that 'A glass of wine a day can help you stay slim'.  It has to be regular to work, which is even better.  This was reported in the Daily Mail this week by Science Reporter Fiona MacRae who says:  "Women who enjoy a glass or two of wine a day put on less weight than those who stick to mineral water or soft drinks, research shows - with red wine particularly forgiving." 

As someone who struggles with guilt every time I pour an 'end of day' gow, this is excellent news.  The finding is based on a long-term study of almost 20,000 women where it was found that teetotal women gained the most inches.  Just half a glass of red wine a day can cut the odds of death from heart disease and a glass or two of alcohol a day can extend life expectancy by almost four years.  Be careful though that it's not more than that and personally I still think having a day a week alcohol free is a good idea.

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Perceptions

17 February 2010

 I’m on the tube in London.  It’s crowded and hot.  A young man gets on the train and sits diagonally opposite to me.  Years ago I would have glanced at him and carried on thinking my thoughts or reading my book.  Now I realise I am agitated. My heart is beating just a little bit faster.  London is on a high security terrorist alert. Announcements constantly remind tube passengers to report any boxes or luggage left on the platform.

 

I grew up in London.  From the age of 1 year until I was 18, London was my playground.  It was a regular family weekend treat to jump onto the tube, on the Piccadilly line, change trains and visit either the British Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Tower of London.  Sometimes my parents would take my brother and me for a Sunday walk along the Thames Embankment or take a boat down to Greenwich.  They were simple, cheap, educational pleasures and they still are.

 

My first job after leaving school was working in Broadcasting House just north of Oxford Circus.  This was the swinging sixties.  At 17 I would go to the Marquee Club or down to the 2i’s coffee bar in Soho with friends.  We didn’t feel any fear.  I had wonderful teens in London, a lot of fun and am lucky now to still know my way around central London easily.

 

For the first time, last week, I felt afraid in London.  The young man opposite me was swarthy, Arabic and dressed in combat jeans and jacket.  He had a black and white Palestinian scarf tied loosely around his neck and he carried a backpack.  Of course lots of people carry backpacks in London.  The advent of laptops and other mobile devices means men as well as women carry bags of one sort or another.

 

But this young man was from the Middle East.  He was carrying a backpack and importantly he looked nervous.  He constantly fingered a small, red, hardback book, A5 size.  He’d open it, read a couple of lines and look around.  I was close enough to see that it was written in Arabic and was some sort of poetry, meditation, prayer?  He’d look down, read a line or two, look up, dart his eyes about and shuffle his feet around his bag.  I caught his eye once and smiled at him.

 

I knew at that moment that if he was a terrorist in a crowded tube train, then this was my last journey.  Oddly I felt calm.  I contemplated getting off at the next stop and waiting for another train but that seemed almost like a betrayal of my fellow passengers.  I decided that if a bomb was going to explode, then thank heaven I was so close to him. I wouldn’t know anything about it.

 

Nothing happened and I got off the train at Kings Cross. 

 

On arriving back in Brighton two days later, I pulled my overnight case behind me and queued at the bus stop for the No 7 to Sussex Square.  There was an unusually high police presence around the railway station.  Police on each corner.  A black, white and yellow police panda van parked just around the corner opposite the bus stop.  Lots of muttering into walkie talkies, a stillness, an expectancy.

 

I asked the young women standing next to me why there were so many police around?  Was it an Albion home game?  She said she didn’t know but that she had been searched three times in the last week. All I had seen was a pretty young, slight girl.  Now I saw that she had a mass of dreadlocks, topped by a handknitted, over-large green beanie and metal studs in her nose.  She, like me, had just got off the train and was pulling a larger case than mine as well hugging an over-full M & S carrier bag.

 

As we waited for the no 7, she told me that the police often pulled her over and searched her.  She thought it was because of her dreadlocks.  She thought maybe they suspected she had cannabis on her.  They had to meet their targets. She was more accepting of the situation than I would have been.  One of the times she was stopped was in Chichester, which is hardly a hotbed of terrorists or druggies.  She’d asked the policeman why he was searching her.  He didn’t reply.  She had been on her to work. She was a manager of a retail shop.  She said that the last time she was searched, she was carrying a copy of Orwell’s 1984 but the policeman didn’t get the irony.

 

I asked her ‘Do you wear your hair like that because you’re of the Rastafarian faith?’

 

‘No’, she said ‘I just like dreads.’

 

When the bus arrived we both got on and she sat on one of the flip-up seats at the side of the bus, with her suitcase in front of her.  When a young man got on with a child in a pushchair, she immediately got up to let him have her space. 

 

She was a delightful, polite young woman who liked making a fashion statement.  Possibly my would-be terrorist in the tube was nervous because he was on his way to a job interview?  Or maybe he was a terrorist but the older woman sitting smiling diagonally opposite, made him remember his mother and he changed his mind?  Who knows?

 

What I do know is that since 9/11, my and society’s perceptions have changed. We live, without realising it, within an environment of distrust.  Anyone who’s been in business knows that without trust, the business is unlikely to thrive.  It surely has to be the same for society.  Being responsible for my own safety is sensible.  Allowing society to make me paranoid is subversive.  There is little hope for the future of mankind if we don’t approach everyone we meet in life, with an open mind and a friendly smile.  Perception isn’t always reality.

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Why do we need plastic surgery?

01 February 2010

 

Last week there was a news story about Dame Helen Mirren who said, that at 64 she didn’t like looking in the mirror anymore.  She said she understood why so many women decided to go down the plastic route as they aged.  I felt sad when I read that.  Helen Mirren has always been, for me, a wonderful example of a woman who was happy with who she was and what she looked like right now, in the moment.

 

I think the reason we have problems with our appearance is the disconnect between the age we think we are in our heads, in my case 36, and the shock of seeing the face of an older person in the mirror, in my case my mother’s face.  It is tough to acknowledge loss of physical beauty. 

 

It’s tough for men too.  As a woman I’ve often thought ‘Oh it’s OK for blokes, they just look better as they age.’  Is that really true?  And is that what they think?  There has been significant growth in the demand for plastic surgery by men.  Why?   Well I think it’s for the same reason we women struggle with a perceived loss of looks.  We think that if we look younger, somehow we will be younger.

 

But it doesn’t work. I don’t believe plastic surgery is the answer.  Think of poor old Burt Reynolds who has ended up looking weirder rather than younger with his drastic plastic.   Contrast a photograph of Burt with the photograph of Clint Eastwood on the front cover of the Sunday Telegraph magazine yesterday.  Clint’s face is like an ordnance survey map of a steep hill.  It’s covered in lines, crevasses and random blemishes.  His eyes are more deep set than they used to be, but they still look at the reader with the same steely gaze. It’s a fascinating face that tells you this man has lived a long time and it’s probably best not to mess with him because you’ll end up the loser.

 

I’m as guilty as anyone else of looking in the mirror despairingly.  There are very few recent photographs of me where I think, “Penny you don’t look too bad.”  Our insecurities about our looks are making a lot of cosmetic surgeons very happy, but not us.  I’m waving a banner for not giving in and getting pumped full of poison or slicing your skin with a scalpel and having a surgeon yank it taut. 

 

I’m currently reading ‘The Blue Zones’: lessons for living longer from the people who’ve lived the longest.   Dan Buettner has travelled around the world finding pockets of people where a significant number are healthy contributing members who just happen to be over 100.  He was looking to define the common characteristics between all the communities.

 

The commonality was not about diet.  It was not about exercise.  It was about strong family and community ties.  It was about contentment, spirituality, having a purpose in life and keeping a sense of humour.

 

We really do all take ourselves far too seriously.  If Jordan loosened up, I reckon she’d be happier and people would stop hating her.  Although I suppose it’s difficult to loosen up when your face looks as though it’s set in concrete.

 

In Buettner’s book, in the section that looks at a community living on Okinawa, there is a sublime photograph.  It is of 102 year old Kamada smiling and holding her great, great grand-daughter on her lap.  Buettner asks her what the secret is to living healthily to 102?

 

Kamada replies: “I used to be very beautiful.  I had hair that came down to my waist.  It took me a long time to realize that beauty is within.  It comes from not worrying so much about your own problems.  Sometimes you can best take care of yourself by taking care of others.”

 

Beuttner asks her: “Anything else?”

 

“Eat your vegetables, have a positive outlook, be kind to people, and smile.”

 

What words of wisdom. 

 

Look in the mirror today and tell yourself ‘I am beautiful’ or ‘what a handsome devil I am’, because if you’re over 50 and OK with the world, then you are.

 

 

Reference: ‘The Blue Zones’, Dan Buettner, published by the National Geographic Society 2008.

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I want to write a lot in Lot

18 January 2010

 

 

I’ve always been attracted by place names.  I spent two weeks in Mooloolaba on the Australian coast purely on the basis of its marvellous name.  Quirky place names have never let me down.  Mooloolaba is a pretty little seaside town with wonderful beaches, friendly people and a decking boulevard that runs alongside the beach to the next town.  It provided a regular late afternoon walk which I shared with giant lizards; the sort you don’t see amongst the foliage until a family of them raises first a back leg, then a front leg, in unison.

 

I had 8 months living on Waiheke Island off the coast of Auckland.  I just love the name.  It rolls around your mouth like a ripe plum. You have to do a mini set of facial exercises just to say where you live.  It’s a brilliant island and is the place I would spend the rest of my days, if only I could persuade the rest of my family to follow me.  My friends there are writers, artists, dreamers who love food, good wine (there are 19 boutique vineyards on the island) and walking on the beach.  You pull the drawbridge up every night as the last ferry departs for downtown Auckland.

 

Now I feel pulled to Lot in south-west France.  It’s a region rather a town.  I’m looking for somewhere to go which is quiet, visually beautiful and where I have no excuse not to write.  I like to go where I know at least one person locally – just in case there’s a power cut and I can’t find the fuse box.  I have found a gite attached to the home of some people I knew in another lifetime and close to another couple of friends who I haven seen for far too long.  I think I probably will write a lot in Lot.

 

My major challenge will be driving on the wrong side of the road.  I can reach my French hamlet by plane and train but will need a car occasionally. The last time I drove a car in Europe, I was 21, just married and it was a Triumph Spitfire.  The last time I drove a car at all was when I left New Zealand in 2008.  Living on Brighton seafront, I don’t need a car; it’s an unnecessary expense, parking in Brighton is hopeless and I live close enough to walk into town.

 

I had 4 writing months in Spain last year, could stroll into the local harbour and was surrounded by friends who would let me join them as an extra passenger if they were going farther afield.  I did think about hiring a car to drive to Seville or Granada but, oh I don’t know, the days slipped by as they do in Spain and manana never came.  The local Spanish newspaper advertised driving lessons for new ex-pats which seemed to me to be very sensible, to learn not only the road code differences and get used to going what felt like the wrong way around a roundabout, but also to learn some of the Spanish driving customs, like rarely indicating and assuming double parking is just fine.

 

I’m encouraged by a report in today’s ‘Times’ newspaper which says older drivers are not a risk on the road.  The Institute of Advanced Motorists found that motorists over 70 were involved in 4 percent of crashes, whereas teenagers and drivers in their 20s were involved in 34 per cent.  Well, at 65 I’m not quite 70 but I think I am a reasonably good driver.  I’m sure I can manage French roads - so Lot, I like the sound of you a lot…here I come…..

http://www.timesonline.co.uk

 

 

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Living on less

06 January 2010

A snowy, cold day. The snow is lightweight in Brighton and blown about by the wind.  A good day to stay in and catch up with reading the weekend's 'Guardian'.  There is an article by a young journalist, Katherine Hibbert, who set herself the challenge to live without money for a year.  She achieved her aim by scavenging food from rubbish bags, living in a squat furnished with chairs and chattels she found in tips.  Some of the things she found, she sold on 'Gumtree' (she obviously had a computer if nothing else) and made money for basics like toothpaste and loo rolls. The interesting point she makes at the end of her article is that she did get by, with a little help from friends and strangers, on no income.  We really don't need that much to exist happily.  Katherine ends her article by saying she feels more optimistic about life now than when she started her challenge.

Like Katherine, I've come to cherish living with less.  As we go through life, we accumulate more and more 'stuff'.  We bury ourselves under mounds of the kids' toys, books, chairs, tables, food mixers and all those things that we keep just in case - the old power drill when we've bought a new one, the end bit of the kitchen bench we had fitted, balls of wool leftover from knitting that poncho in 1978.  On and on until we have no room for the car in the garage and 'stuff' is pushed into corners or shoved up into lofts and cupboard doors have to be pushed tight to keep everything inside.

At one point in my life I lived in my Dad's house with all the detritus of his life.  My mother had died years before and Dad had kept all her 'stuff', ornaments, linen, drawers of bits and pieces just as they were when she was alive.  When he eventually died I was left surrounded by their history.  It took me two years before I could move any of it on.  It felt like a betrayal of their memory.  I couldn't do anything with it and I couldn't walk away from it. I was stuck.  What helped me was to think about what their 'stuff' actually was. I started to see it as 'energy'. Mum's brass frog, Dad's collection of model cars - they were bags of atoms and energy. My parents had enjoyed them and now it was time for someone else to enjoy them. Selling their kitchen ware or china on e-bay or giving Dad's art books to a amateur painter friend became like gifting a small part of them, their energy.

I decluttered for them and then I decluttered for myself.  Sold almost everything I owned, including property.  For the past 3 years I've lived a nomadic lifestyle, unencumbered by 'stuff'.  I still have some personal 'stuff', photographs, a chair I used to sit in to nurse the girls, a silver baby shoe that belonged to my son.  It's in boxes in a friend's loft and a little bit on Waiheke Island.  Like Katherine I've got used to not owning much.  Part of why I decluttered my life was because I didn't want to inflict the problem of 'what to do with my mother's stuff' onto my children after I'm gone.  Part of it was to see if I enjoyed living with very little. 

I've found it liberating.  I'm now considering buying a small flat in Brighton. I looked around a possible empty property yesterday and was imagining how it would look furnished, what sort of curtains I would buy and where my Victorian nursing chair would sit once it arrived from New Zealand.  Alongside that nesting feeling. I also felt an inner resistance not to go back into accumulation mode.   I do know I am happier with less.  Perhaps it's because the more I have, the more responsibility I take on to look after it, insure it, polish it, wash it, restore it - I suspect at heart, I am irresponsible.  We will see what happens.

Young Katherine Hibbert has written a book about her experiences: 'Free: Adventures on the Margins of a Wasteful Society' published by Ebury Press.

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Time to commit to your dream

30 December 2009

 

I love a New Year.  It’s like turning the first page of a new exercise book or the first step in the garden after a heavy fall of snow.  It’s a blank canvas on which to paint a year of my life.

 

There’s a point in your life when you realise that there are probably not as many ‘new years’ ahead as there have been in the past.  Now is the time to live the dream you’ve cherished, whether it’s learning to play the saxophone or climb Mount Everest – now is the time to do it.

 

Committing to a New Year resolution that is linked to a long held dream is more important at 50, 60 and 70.  At 20, 25, 30 you felt you had all the time in the world in front of you to make mistakes, change your mind, put that dream on the back burner because of the family, your career or paying the mortgage.

 

This is one of the most wonderful benefits of getting older.  It offers freedom with a touch of pressure to make your dream happen or at least give it a damn good try.

 

Here are some tips to help you make that promise to yourself and then make it come true:

 

• Make a resolution about something you really want to do, not what you feel you should do.  Free up your soul and go for it.

 

• Write it down.  I don’t know why but somehow changes are more likely to become realities if you write them down.

 

• Your resolution can take all year to achieve. What you do need to do is time- frame monthly baby steps towards achieving your goal.

 

• Be flexible about your resolution. If your resolution is to live in Paris for three months but life works out that you can only manage a month, heigh ho – you’ve still achieved living in Paris.

 

• Track your progress every week, every month.  Something has to happen to move you along to achieve your dream resolution. Keep the momentum moving.

 

• Most importantly - reward yourself.  As each month goes by and you’ve achieved what you set out to achieve that month, buy yourself a new dress or jacket; give yourself a day of reading books or watching TV.  Whatever feels decadent for you.  You’ve earned it.

 

It’s taken me a long time to understand that old adage: ‘This is not a rehearsal’.  This really is it, my one life - and as another year passes, a new year gifts me with an opportunity to make the changes I’ve always wanted to make.  It’s not about money or having enough time. It’s not about having the right qualifications or responsibilities for other people. It’s about being me and being grateful for being alive.  It’s about having fun in the year ahead, loving what I do and being with the people I love and who love me.

 

 

WISHING YOU SUCCESS WITH YOUR RESOLUTION IN 2010!

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Penny x

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Family fun at Christmas and the power of ‘no’

23 December 2009

 Up in London last weekend to celebrate my son’s birthday.  We are not a family who live in each other’s pockets.  We do our own thing most of the time.  But we are always there for each other when we need to be, and as importantly, we are good at having fun together.

 

This year’s celebrations included ice skating on a rink set up in the moat of the Tower of London.  An inspired venue, skating beneath those majestic pale grey towers.  I looked up at the battlements and almost saw the ghosts of Henry the Eighth and his, soon to be beheaded, wife Anne Bolyn looking down as the skaters careered around the rink.

 

My daughter had bought tickets for all of us.  The day was crisp and clear.  A dazzling sun shone.  It was the kind of day when London looks greener, bluer, creamier than usual.  The Thames sparkled in the distance and it felt as though this was the best capitol in the world.

 

I’ve never been skating before. The only time I tried skiing I went backwards and landed in a heap.  Balancing on two narrow ridges of steel and moving forward sounded enticing, fun and something a magnificent ager should probably be trying.  “I’ll make my mind up when we get there”, I said.  I really thought I could do this, yes I would do this.

 

The birthday boy had been a skate boarder and roller blader in his youth.  He was always going to be dashing across the ice with ease.  The others had skied or been on ice or roller skates before.  I was the only one with no experience at all but I was still going to have a go even when we were in the queue to pick up our skates.

 

Then I thought ‘no’.  I’m doing this to prove a point rather than it being something I want to do.  The family teased me and chicken noises were made when I decided I would be official photographer instead of venturing onto the ice.  Am I being chicken or sensible?  I’m not sure it was either. My philosophy is never to let age stop me doing anything but you know, I didn’t want to do this enough to risk breaking a bone just before christmas. Like I don’t have any inclination to parachute from an aeroplane or climb a mountain which has nothing to do with my age; it just doesn’t appeal.  I don’t even watch ice skating as a sport and I’ve never been interested in doing it before, so why would I start now? 

 

It was the right decision for me.  The doors opened to let the next session begin.  The ice was soon crowded with people.  There were good, not so good, nervous and ‘I’m going to spend an hour clinging onto the barrier surrounding the rink’ skaters of all ages who ventured onto the ice.  It is a marvellous family activity, parents with children, older skaters holding hands going round together, young couples helping each other stagger round and teenagers with no fear, showing off and skating too fast for the number of skaters on the rink.

 

Standing outside the barrier, I took photos of the family, their smiles and laughter.  I provided a focal point where they could all take a breather or show off their skating skills hurtling towards me and I got coffees and hot chocolates ready for them coming off the ice.  We all had a jolly time, me included.   Always be a Magnificent Ager in everything you do.  That includes changing your mind and never being afraid to say ‘no’ even at Christmas.

 

I wish everyone, especially everyone over 50, a very “MERRY CHRISTMAS” and a year of exciting possibilities ahead.

 

 

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Only Connect

22 December 2009

 Last week I had a disappointment.  Not a huge one, not a life-threatening one, not a ‘this will change my life forever’ disappointment.  It was more a ‘well I think it’s a good idea but I just don’t have the means to make it happen’ disappointment.

 

The idea was about creating a web space on which you could record all medical details relating to your baby son or daughter and compile their life story, first footprint, video etc, as they grew up.  I wanted the opinion of a doctor I met last year at a conference I organised in New Zealand.  To talk to the incredibly busy doctor, I had to make a connection to Dubai.  The organisation of our conference call entailed a backwards and forwards conversation with his PA, Michelle, who was based in Australia.

 

I didn’t know Michelle.  We had never met.  We did not even speak to each other. But over a series of only a few e-mails, we made a 'connection'.  When I finally talked to my doctor, he was not that enthusiastic. As he works with Microsoft and I had hoped he might help me, this was a bit of a blow.

 

Afterwards I sent Michelle a final e-mail thanking her for all her help in setting up the call and letting her know that this was one idea that was probably not going to fly.  She e-mailed back and ended her message with: “keep believing and you will succeed.”

 

It was such an amazing gift of inspiration from someone I had never met.  I had been feeling down and she lifted me up with six words.  I share this with you because sometimes I feel that the internet: e-mails, twitter, face-book, linkedin, is such a second-rate form of communication with another human being.  What I’ve realised is that you can make a connection with anyone through the internet.  Someone on the other side of the world can come into your life and make you smile. 

 

We influence every person we meet by how we relate to them.  So in these last hurried days of the lead up to Christmas, take time to smile ‘thank-you’ at the check-out girl at the supermarket, give up your seat on a crowded bus to someone who’s standing with a child or someone even older than you are, let the next driver out from that side road - and relax.  Because the only thing that really matters at Christmas is that we ‘connect’ with our family and friends – and strangers.   So thank you Michelle for your Christmas gift from Australia. 

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Spend it or Save it?

15 December 2009

I've never been brilliant at money management.  On the other hand I've always got by without any huge debts and sometimes I've made good property investments.  But money management has never been what I would call a fun activity. I'm planning to change that.

My current financial reality is that I'm investing in myself by taking time out to focus on writing my books and articles.  This means there is significantly more money going out than there is coming in.  This is a new experience for me.  I've always managed to keep on, if not an always in the black direction, at least an even keel with the books balancing at the end of the year.  And I've always been able to create more wealth by taking on additional contract project work.  Now I have made the decision to change my life's direction, this past year of coping with insufficient funds was beginning to worry me.

So I decided to spend even more money and I've got a financial coach.  The longer I live the more I believe that people come into your life for a reason.  Simonne Gnessen of 'Wise Monkey Financial Coaching' was a speaker at a Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce business event.  She had 20 minutes to talk to us about our money beliefs, our strategies for the future and how coaching could help.  It was a taster session for her business.  There were three speakers at the event but it was Simonne that I found myself  sitting next to on the bus going home.  It turns out she lives just down the road and round the corner from me.  Synchronicity, serendipity, celestine prophecy - I don't know how it works, I just know that it does.

We exchanged business cards.  I kept hers in my purse. Then two weeks ago an e-mail popped up in my inbox from Wise Monkey Financial Coaching. Simonne had been more efficient than me and obviously added my details to her contacts email list. She was doing a mail-out offering three coaching sessions for the price of two - limited time offer - good marketing ploy.  It was the 'nudge' I needed.

I've had my first two sessions with Simonne. What any good coaching does is help the client clarify thoughts and beliefs. Talking it through with Simonne in a structured way has affirmed that it's alright for me to self-invest for another year.  We've agreed that this year is going to be one of financial learning for me and a year of living on less, which is a challenge I find bizarrely exciting.  I've always had an interest in stocks and shares but have never been brave enough to do more than dip a toe into the stock market waters.  This coming year, I'm going to put myself on a training course to familiarise myself with the terminology, to understand the options and play just a little.  I'm going to read the Financial Times regularly and imagine I have a million pounds invested.  I'm going to choose companies and read their annual reports, get to know their management, and watch their share price.  It will be fun.

On the budgeting side, I did when my girls were little, have to live on no income for a while.  We had three months on state benefits and I couldn't cope with it at all.  It didn't feel right. I got a low-paid office job and the girls went next door to my lovely neighbour after school until I came home.  One of the values I will always be grateful to my parents for, is that its important to stand on your own two feet.  Interestingly all the latest research shows that 'resilience' is a key attribute for a happy old age.  It's a good attribute throughout one's life.  'Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again' as Frank Sinatra would sing.

When I had little money, bills to pay and children to bring up as a single parent, one of the things I learned is that having no money can bring freedom.  There's less decision making because there's less choice because there's less money.  No money means no holidays for example - great! That was one one less thing I needed to worry about.  It doesn't mean I have to give up everything.  I love being generous and I love spending.  I can still do both those things, just at a smaller level.

So my primary money goal for the coming year is to turn wealth creation and management into fun.  To do that I'm going to:

-  manage on a smaller budget and enjoy the challenge
-  find a financial software package which is fun - has to have colours and visuals, pie charts and set targets
-  learn more about investing and dabble in the stock market
-  relish the freedom gained by giving up choices about any 'nice to have but I can do without', decisions like holidays
-  relax into a simple life for the next 12 months.

Wow - all of that sounds so good.  I can't wait to get going. My life, like everyone elses, is a journey.  The financial coaching has affirmed my commitment to a path of 'magnificent ageing'.  I'm going to find out what that means, write about it, speak about it and support other people to embrace it.  Starting a new business is always hard but so far life is pushing the right people in front of me.  All I have to do is see them standing there.

I'm grateful, looking forward to the year ahead and will enjoy wandering the perfume counters to find a less expensive but equally pleasing version of Chanel no 5 - there's got to be one.

Simonne's website is at: www.financial-coaching.co.uk

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The Future is Going to have to Change

03 December 2009

Sheila Hancock, author and actress, was one of the speakers at the recent launch of a new report on ageing.  She looked amazing.  She's taller than I imagined and has that ramrod posture that actresses are taught at drama school. She dresses like a model.  She wore what looked like a Misonni top and long skirt, very slinky in cream with purple zig zag stripes. Her hair is grey/white and cut in an edgy very modern style.  At 76, she looks more beautiful than she ever did when she was younger.  She's definitely a Magnificent Ager and I'm hoping she'll talk to me about my book.  Beauty is always increased if it's accompanied with passion and this woman is passionate about ageing with energy and dignity. 

I was invited to the launch of a report from the Institute of Public Policy and Research called 'Getting On: Wellbeing in later life'.  Most of the audience were representatives of charities and government agencies like Age Concern and the Alzheimers Society.  The speakers included academics like Professor Sarah Harper from the Oxford Institute of Ageing and there was Nigel Waterson MP who is Shadow Minister for Older People and Jim McCormick who pulled the report together.

I've recorded the whole session as research for my book and I'll share some of the insights that emerged as I listen back to the tape and transcribe it.  The presentations were a mix of surprising statistics and opinions, some personal and some based research, about where society is now and what needs to change.

Sheila Hancock said she had received thousands of letters since she wrote her two books (references below.  I've only read 'Just Me' which was an honest account of her journey back to herself after John Thaw died - a good read).  She described a 'hidden pool of grief out there' amongst people who had lost partners and felt they couldn't burden families and friends with their ongoing sense of loss.  There was also an overwhelming feeling from the letters that a lot of old people were isolated and sidelined.  She said that 'age is only discussed these days when it's a problem'.  It need not be like that she suggested.  She didn't want to be patronised as an older person.  She wanted to be part of society with something to contribute.

I do a presentation to organisations about the myths of ageing.  To illustrate what I mean, I throw up names of famous people and ask the audience to identify how they old they are.  Most people put celebrities as younger than they actually are.. Celebrities, actors and musicians are constantly in the media spotlight and first and foremost we judge them by how good we think they are at what they do. Their age is immaterial.  Twiggy fronts the M & S television advertising and we just think how superb she looks, not "I'm looking at an old woman of 60".  Yet I remember that on my 60th birthday, there was a newspaper headline that shouted 'OAP mugged' which was a story about a similar 60 year old and I remember thinking that's how they would describe me in a news story!  It didn't feel good.

One of the surprises that came out at the Launch was when 'old' formerly begins now.  There are now 'young olds' 50-70 and 'older olds' who are 70-90.  Lord knows how we are categorised after that - 'just about alive olds'?  Being 'old' now starts at 50 and for some academic research, 'old' is being considered after you've reached your 40th birthday! I can hear the sharp intake of breath from any 39 year olds reading this....

Because we are living longer, being 'old' is spread from 40 - 100!  The capabilities and needs of 40 and 50 year olds compared to those of 90 and 100 year olds are vastly different yet we are all lumped together in one ever decreasing line.  We talk about children, teenagers, twenty somethings, thirty and forty year olds.  They are segmented in decades but once you are over 50, you are 'old'. You are just a varying degree of 'old'.  I think we need some funny alternative suggestions here but I've got to go out and order the christmas turkey now.  I've have run out of blogging time, so that will have to wait....any suggestions gratefully received.

The future has to change.  That was Sheila's rallying call.  The older generation of the future will be a very different type of 'old' and society needs to gear up to deal with what's on the horizon.

Professor Sarah Harper was another brilliant speaker.  She gave us lots of stats and I'll share more of them as I listen to the recordings.  One thought to leave you with, was that based on her ageing research, not just in the UK but around the world, she predicts that by the end of the century, half the world's population will be over 60.  Even closer in time - looking at Asia's population with people living longer and falling fertility, by 2035 there will be more older people than younger for the first time in Asian history.

Society needs to rethink how it feels about, treats and uses older people.  How can wisdom and experience be utilised more?  How do we nurture a new way of thinking and valuing an inter-generational society which may include 4 or 5 generations living together.  It's all exciting if you're in my age category and it's made me wake up this morning and decide I will live until at least 100 so I can be a part of the huge positive changes coming up fast.

I'm now off to skip to the shops - as I'm in the 'young old' category still.

References:  'The Two of Us' and 'Just Me' are both by Sheila Hancock and published by Bloomsbury

'Getting On: Wellbeing in later life' report, along with a whole lot of other fascinating reports, is on the ippr website: http://www.ippr.org.uk

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My Voice is back and I am 36 again

25 November 2009

I sat covered in a blanket last Saturday morning and hissed into the phone.  "I can't speak.  I've got laryngitis. I'm here feeling sad, ill and alone. Right now I could do with a husband to look after me."  My friend ringing from New Zealand was the only person who phoned me last weekend and after valiantly trying for a few minutes, she said "I can't understand you.  I'll phone you when you're better."

The worst thing about being a little bit sick, which is what laryngitis is all about, is that you have plenty of time to feel sorry for yourself.  And of course when you feel sorry for yourself, you are boring to other people who can only sympathise for so long, especially if they can't make out what you're saying.  Outside my flat window I watched majestic waves crash onto the end of the Marina harbour.  The bushes on the strip in front of the house bent sideways in gale force winds.  Dismal inside, dismal outside.

The day before I had been this other person.  I'd been out to dinner with friends.  We'd laughed, talked about a potential piece of software I'm designing, discussed the merits of cruising as a holiday vacation, shared a meal and bottle of wine and generally had a fun time.  I was 36, full of ideas with a bright future and a zest for living.

12 hours later I was 85.  I felt I was in an episode of "Dr Who".  I had been zapped by an ageing gun.  Everything ached. When I coughed my throat stung, when I tried to speak, I squeaked like a pensioner mouse. 

I tried to rally. "If you want to be happy, be" Leo Tolstoy is quoted as saying.  I wrapped myself up warmly, stuck on a woolley hat to keep my head warm (my mother still whispers in my ear) battled the winds and marched down to ASDA in the marina.  I decided that if I was going to be sick, let's do it in style.  If no-one else was going to spoil me, I will spoil myself.

When I'm well I march into ASDA with a smile and a shopping list.  I know the aisles so well now that I can zip through and out through the serve yourself tills.  I get a frisson of delight when I'm clever enough to whizz bar codes past the electronic reader and pay with a debit card, collecting an addtional £20 on the way - 'cash back?' - of course, always, let's have some.  I have a bet with myself that I can get through the whole procedure without that screen that asks you to call an assistant for help.  I can be in and out in 10 minutes flat.

Unfortunately last Saturday afternoon ASDA filled the store with zombies.  There were twice the number of people that usually shop there and everyone was moving in slow motion.  I couldn't find the magazines I wanted.  The grapes looked  shrivelled and there was no manuka honey (a clinically proven New Zealand remedy for just about everything). My plan was that to cheer myself up, I would watch TV on the sofa non-stop all the rest of the afternoon and evening eating an ASDA special ready meal, cold white chocolate puddings and with a magazine to dip into when there was nothing I fancied on TV.  And to make myself feel even better, I would buy a pair of sparkling diamond earrings for £3.00 to wear while I was doing all this loafing around.  It was a good plan which did make me feel better until I got upstairs in ASDA, found the sparkling earrings and looked in the mirror to see if they suited.

Staring back at me, wild and watery-eyed, was this pale, elderly, at least 93 years old, wraith, hair streaming back from having battled gales, (never a good look for me), every wrinkle in the world standing out in high relief like a map of the Andes.  I looked around to see if I could see someone else who was me but no this was it.  I trudged back up the hill to the flat.  By now it was raining as well as gale force winds.  There is little more ageing than illness.  I bent double against the wind and wondered what happens to a botoxed and knife sculptured face when it gets ill - does it also age? 

I gave in.  Sometimes its best to.  We can't be positive all the time.  Some days I do just feel my age and worse than that, I feel older than my age.  Being sick for me means I  get to experience the energy levels I may have to put up with when I am 10 or 20 years older.  Last weekend I felt nostalgic for the 'being ill' of past times, for my children when they were younger bringing mummy a cup of tea in bed, for either of my husbands making sure I had everything I needed before they left for work, listening for my mother coming up the stairs, bringing me warm milk, toast and the latest Brer Rabbit book to read to me while I was not feeling well.

I'd never seen the Disney movie 'Pocahontas' so I watched that in the early evening, tears splashing into my white chocolate pudding when she sang about painting with all the colours of the wind and thinking she's obviously never lived on Brighton seafront when there's a force 8 gale raging outside.

This too shall pass as it says in the bible (I think?) and it did and today (Wednesday) I've woken up with the gift of speech.  The good fairy of health has waved her magic wand and I feel pretty much back to normal.  Every day is a learning lesson and I've learned this weekend that, to paraphrase Tolstoy, there are some times when: "If you want to be miserable, be."

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Time to stand back and refocus

12 November 2009

I was up at 7 this morning and walking on the beach.  A man passed me with an excitable puppy who strained at his lead to say hello.   A lone jogger ran along the promenade.  Waves crashed on the pebbles, almost reaching me before clawing back into icy foam to try again.  A dazzling sun shone in my face before drifting behind rain clouds.

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours meeting with a possible work colleague in the Metro Deco teashop, which is not far from where I live in Brighton.  It's my favourite teashop.  It's full of flamboyant furniture, most of which is for sale, and equally flamboyant characters including marvellous Maggie, mine host.  I sat on a gold rococo arm chair covered in leopard spot print.

My new friend and possible work colleague, is an independent freelancer just like me.  We discussed ways in which we might join forces and market our skills to organisations.  We thought about how we could add value to companies going through a recession.  We talked about developing a service product that addressed the needs of employees coming up to retirement.  We decided that one idea might be to survey companies to see what their top three current issues were and follow up with solutions.  Maybe we could do that by telephone?

I came away fired up with enthusiasm.  When I got home I added this latest idea to my list of possible projects to provide an income while I work on my books.  Then I looked again at the list and a woeful feeling of deja vu came over me.  I now have 9 projects plus two books and at least two articles to work on.  They are not all going to happen. I've lost my focus and am feeling overwhelmed.  This has happened to me before.  I take on too much work and end up working 7 days a week to finish everything. It's every freelancer's achilles heel which whispers in my ear (if you can have your heel whispering in your ear, probably not): 'If I don't do this, no-one may ever ask me to work for them again'.

I've taken a year off to decide a way forward for myself that will be fulfilling and reward me. I want a lifestyle that enables me to continue travelling and living around the world. I want to be a published author. It's the first time in 35 years that I've had space to think.  The result has been good.  I do have a focus and a passion.

My main vehicle for change is the book 'Magnificent Ageing'.  Then why haven't I written a word of it in the past three weeks? Because I've taken my eye off the ball.  I've let myself be seduced by other possible projects, other potential collaborations.

I've been a project manager for many years.  I never had any problems getting the next project because I grew a reputation for delivering everything, and a bit more, that I said I would.  There is satisfaction in starting something, seeing it through and completing projects on time and within budget.  Yet now I find I am stepping into puddles of maybe this, maybe that, ooh, that direction looks good, on the other hand this way could be better and of course there is whatever there is just round the corner and out of sight.

Today I stood back and refocussed.  My passion needs articulation.  I need, first and foremost, before I do anything else, to complete my book.  My book is the cornerstone of my business and the rest of my life. 

That's the conclusion I came to walking on the beach this morning.  Well that, and that I'm going to celebrate my lack of income and renewed focus, by buying one of those golden thrones to remind me what a magnificent woman I am.

As Henry David Thoreau said: "Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined."

or alternatively as Donald Trump says:  "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?"

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What are we remembering on Remembrance Day?

09 November 2009

I feel about wars the same way I feel about the recent postal strike.  They should never happen and the fact that they do happen is because of flawed leadership.  It seems to me that wars, men (in the main) killing and maiming each other, and strikes (again mainly men), which withdraw labour and cause hardship to service or product users, are antiquated, old fashioned ways of settling a diversion of viewpoints.

Some of the statistics that emerged from the TV commentary on the remembrance service and march past over the weekend, were truly mind-blowing.  For example, 84,000 men died on the Normandy beaches at the D-day landings.  I ask myself why we don't learn that, apart from any other rationale, wars just don't work as a means of settling anything in the long-term.

Violence breeds violence.  In New Zealand there was much controversy when a Green MP brought a bill about parents not smacking children.  The basic premise for her bill was that all smacking does is teach children to smack others.  Every bit of international research shows that violent adults are more likely to have been brought up in violent homes.  Politicians talk about breaking the cycle of violence within society.  Then we seem to throw all that considered, empirical evidence out of the window and march into foreign countries, all guns blazing, on sometimes the flimsiest of evidence eg, Tony Blair's gripe about the supposed 'weapons of mass destruction' rationale for invading Iraq.

So why do I take time out to watch Saturday evening's Festival of Remembrance and the service yesterday every year?  There is a difference between challenging why anyone would want to go to war when there have to be better and more sophisticated ways of settling disputes, and showing respect to those who have lost their lives or been injured in conflict.

My mother used to always attend our local remembrance service, and the Remembrance Festival on TV was one of the few times when she insisted she had her own way over our family viewing.  As a teenager I remember moaning because on the other channel (there were only three in those days) there was some fatuous game show or comedy on that I would have preferred seeing, just as there was this weekend with the 'X-Factor' show. As a teenager I also remember that at 11.00 am on Remembrance Sunday, all traffic and people stopped in the streets and on the pavements as a mark of respect to the fallen.  I didn't understand why.  I thought in my naieve youth, when war was over, it was best forgotten, don't look to the past, look to the future.  The future was all that counted to me.

As I grew older that viewpoint changed.  Respect for those who have given their lives, honouring the dead, having quiet reflective time to remember someone loved and now lost, is even more important in a world that appears to spin faster every year. Being part of a national reflective ritual, grounds our sense of compassion and our realisation of what it is to be honourable and brave.

Reflection on one's life and the people who have influenced it is one of the many benefits of growing older.  I believe that all of us who have managed to live to a certain age are, and continue to be, heroes in our own way. Someone who has lived through 6 or 7 decades of personal, professional and societal conflict and pageant has earned respect from those younger.

Every old boy I have ever seen interviewed, who has been in and remembers the horrors of  war, invariably ends with saying what a waste it was and how he would never want anyone else to go through the experience.  Our politicians and leaders globally should listen to this wisdom before making decisions to cause more carnage.

On a lighter note I do wonder whether men ever grow up?  I shook my head in smiling disbelief at the antics of some of the old soldiers queuing up in readiness for their march past the cenotaph.  An earnest young female reporter was interviewing an equally earnest soldier 'expert'.  In the background, the old soldiers noticed the camera and started waving, shouting, thumbs up, and doing that one arm, one leg thing that a comedian called Harry someone or other used to do using the side of a glass shop window.  As I was chortling at the schoolboy humour, the expert soldier chap did explain that as well as a huge camaraderie in the ranks yesterday, lots of hip flasks being passed around.  Ah - that explains it.  Good on 'em!

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The Shipping Forecast was Gabbled

06 November 2009

This morning I woke up early, around 5.25 am.  It's cold, I'm sleepy and I reach over to press the BBC Radio Four button on my radio. I roll over, heave the duvet over one shoulder and snuggle down anticipating the dulcet tones of the weather reader and the ever delightful shipping forecast to lull me back to another half-hour of delicious half awake, half asleep primal doze before facing a new day.

"And now the shipping forecast" says the female link announcer.  I sigh happily.  30 seconds into the forecast, I am frowning.  The shipping forecast is being gabbled in a jerky, stuttery way by a young male voice with a northern accent who sounds as though he's standing in front of a classroom reading his project essay.  He slithers around "west by west", hesitates then corrects to "west by south" and gallops on to tell me this relates to sea conditions around the 'Merle' of Kintyre!  I am now wide awake and on tenterhooks to hear whether he makes it to the end.  I am very pleased that I am not on a boat bobbing somewhere around Viking North Utsire.

I do not have a cut-glass accent. In England I'm asked if I'm Australian and in New Zealand, my other home, I'm described as a Pom. The move to a general acceptance of regional accents in broadcasting has been positive overall.  We are a diverse nation and that should be reflected in the voices we listen to but I have difficulty in lowering standards on clarity and professionalism.  I don't like sloppy newsreading and the shipping forecast at 5.30 am this morning on Radio Four was sloppy.

Years ago, when I worked for BBC Radio Brighton, we presenters were visited regularly by a wonderful voice coach, a semi-retired newsreader called David someone or other, (His name will doubtless come to me in the middle of the day).  I used to look forward to my two hours with this dear, polite man once every so many months.  He had a remarkable ear for accents and astounded me one day, by locating exactly the area I was brought up in, not just that I grew up in North London rather than South London but the exact bit of North London, almost to the street. 

In those days the BBC carried out a training regime that ensured its newsreaders and presenters reached a standard of speech articulation that supported its overall global credibility as a reliable news source.  We were regularly sent pronunciation packs for new political stars or geographical places that emerged as news-worthy.  We were encouraged to speak well, clearly and with a minimum of regional accent.  I still have somewhere a small navy BBC booklet of guidelines on pronunciation.

Do standards matter?  Standards change as society changes and it's right that they do but in my opinion there are some things that are sacrosanct.  The Greenwich pips on the hour, the lilting theme tune of the World Service, the National Anthem played at the end of the day's broadcasting and a slow, clear reading, preferably in a deep-toned male or female voice, of the shipping forecast. 

The shipping forecast is a poem.  It is rhythmic, comforting, soporific, stablising. It's like warm, sweet custard dripping from a wooden spoon.  When all else is falling around our ears, there is (or was) always the shipping forecast, never changing in its delivery, never faltering in beautifully spoken english.  Yes standards in some things will always matter.  Have a smooth, well-articulated day.

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My first Christmas card

04 November 2009

Yesterday I received my first christmas card.  It came from my Auntie Pauline in Leamington Spa and has a santa and a christmas tree on the front.  Inside she wishes me a Merry Christmas and "every happiness for New Year 2010".  This year she has beaten my 89 year old ex-mother-in-law who traditionally is the person who drops the flag on our family christmases.

I always find my heart pounds a little faster when I receive my first card, especially at the beginning of November which to me is still autumn. How can it suddenly be christmas?  Wasn't I just up in London at the weekend walking alongside the Thames admiring the still full trees of orange and red leaves.  Yes the leaves were fluttering down and around me in that charming way that you think you only see in movies but it does actually happen, but there were a few hundred more to drop before you could say that the plane trees outside the Tate Modern looked like winter had arrived. 

Our family has made a decision about this christmas which will make a dramatic change to how we enjoy the day. For various reasons we are all, like Alistair Darling, feeling a bit stretched financially this year.  We've decided to limit christmas presents to a value of no more than £10.  It's going to be a challenge as normally it's always been a bit of a competition and I tend to buy one more extra for everyone in case they've bought something of more value that I gave - which after all is not supposed to be the point of it all.

Every year we all go a little mad.  We spend more than we can afford on presents.  We buy for more people than we really need to buy for which means that my second cousin, twice removed gets my present and thinks 'oh shit now I have to buy her one'.  In January, the credit card statements drop like evil demons through the letter-box to remind us that "oh yes" as Churchill the dog would say, "we've done it again."  Then it takes at least three months of stringent trying to claw back expenses on other treats, that we would have enjoyed much more than sending a parcel to second cousin twice removed Freda. 

None of it makes sense and whatever I buy my daughters, they will exchange anyway.  I never quite get the right handbag, cosmetics, sweater (what's wrong with pink spangley angora?) or slippers (I thought chicken slippers would make you smile?).  No this time christmas will take ingenuity to find something a bit cheeky, a bit different and something that if you don't like it, someone buying it from the 'Rescue Greyhounds Need Your Help' shop in January will appreciate.  No-one can feel offended if you really didn't want a potato peeler with a brightly coloured grinning head that bounces as you peel. 

I stopped sending hundreds of cards last year.  I only send to elderly relatives and friends (so Auntie Pauline will get one) and people who live a long way away that I like to write to at christmas - not I hasten to add - one of those awful round robin typed letters that tells you how well the family is doing - Trevor is now out of rehab, Uncle Jim's leg is mending after his parachute drop and Letitia has stopped begging on the street and is a 'nice' flat with 12 other eco-warriors and one bathroom.  No I think christmas letters have to be hand-written, preferably with a fountain pen, and only for the person to whom they are sent. 

Once we agreed the £10 decision, I started looking forward to christmas.  Just as many pressies around the tree, the same turkey and vegetarian meat loaf for those of us who have a fondness for live turkeys, old fashioned games like charades, a walk on the beach with the dogs, a doze in front of the telly.   Perfick!   Now which charity cards did I buy last christmas?  I think it was alzheimers but I can't quite remember.......

 

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Freebies

28 October 2009

 My cousin, Muriel, came down from the rugged north-east to the balmy south-east last week for a few days.  Although nothing takes precedence over her enthusiasm for Sunderland football team (why-aye hinny), she is partial to a night out at a 'show'.  We did two theatres and a cinema trip while she was down and each time she paid full price and I was given a privileged discount for being old!  Hurrah!

When I turned 60, I remember being dismayed by the offers of free loft insulation and exhortations to claim my senior rail card. I didn't feel old, why was I being offered all this stuff, I could pay for myself!

Well I'm over all that being precious about my age.  I've reframed, turned it to an expectation, a reward for having successfully lived this long without getting into too much trouble and an opportunity to grab even more of life.

I was looking on the London Freedom Bus Pass site and reading the comments by older travellers.  Not only does the Freedom pass, which includes underground, overground and some rail train services, offer greater independence to people who for various reasons may want to give up using cars; when I read what seniors were doing, it was further education courses, meeting up with friends from different parts of London, going dancing - all kinds of activities where money was being spent and contributing to the community.

The Freedom Pass makes economic sense as well as supporting mental and physical health as people are encouraged off sofas, away from the telly and out into a social environment.  Wouldn't it be a good idea if, maybe for a small fee, all of us living outside the metropolis could sign up for a Freedom Pass so that when we visit London, we can travel around freely (in both senses of the word) - perhaps I'll write to Boris and suggest that.

It started me thinking about freebies for us seniors.  I've probably only scratched the surface of what's out there.  My top freebies have to be:

1  Free Bus Pass
2  Seniors Rail Card
3  Discount on cinema seats
4  Discount on theatre tickets

There is a website about freebies: https//www.50plusfreebies.co.uk.  It's a bit of a chaotic website but there are some interesting possibilities like there's a free solicitor's service for wills, and internet dating freebies.

I'd be interested to hear about any freebies that you've experienced.  Or any websites you could recommend?  We are a bunch of wise, wonderful people and we deserve the best - and with the added bonus of a discount.

Happy Living.......

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A Wonderful Happy Weekend

12 October 2009

 ....and me cooking Boeuf Bourguignon a La Julia Child.  This dish has 45 steps, is very fiddly and takes forever but  it's worth it!  Has to be one of my all-time great cooking achievements.  I went to see the movie 'Julie and Julia' with my visiting Kiwi friend Ruth the week before last.  It's an 'easy to watch' movie and Meryl Streep is very funny and extraordinarily tall (how do they do that?).  One of the dishes that went wrong was BB but it did look good so I downloaded the recipe from the internet and off I went.  

We had a wonderful family lunch in Brighton with her brother coming down from London and Godparents driving over from Chichester.  Between us, we couldn't quite remember whether they were godparents but they should be as they've so much a part of my childrens' lives as they've grown up.  A definite benefit of growing older is that you can bend your personal history to suit the memory you prefer.  Hurrah!

At the end of the day, when everyone had gone, I sat on the sofa and reflected that there are few feelings so warming as a happy day spent with family and close friends.  'Perfick!' as David Jason used to say in 'Darling Buds of May'......

A busy week coming up. 

PS:  If you've signed up for the newsletter, could you please sign up again?  My lovely website designer, Chris of Moocow Media, had a bit of a glitch getting this working smoothly.  He's retested the link so it should work.  It would be good if someone else could try it.

Have a happy week.

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MBTs and wobble

09 October 2009

It's important to retain a good sense of balance as we get older.  Not just balance in our lives but balance on our feet.  Falling over is not good for us oldies.  We break elbows, wrists, hips and we take longer to mend.  So I'm interested to see whether a new kind of trainer on the market improves my balance.  I've invested (and I use that word deliberately because they are too expensive to be anything else) in a pair of MBT trainers.  There was an article in the Daily Express yesterday about a different make of trainer but they all work on the same principle. 

Your foot sits over what feels like a tennis ball and, at first you feel as though you are walking on your toes.  The idea is that you have to balance slightly and that pushes you into a good posture and tones up your leg muscles and bum.  They're also supposed to reduce cellulite,  help you lose weight and reduce stress on joints.  For short people like me they have the added advantage of raising me up another inch - hurrah!

According to the blurb in the leaflet in the shoe box, they're swiss designed and make you walk like a masai.  Walking around ASDA in Brighton Marina like a swiss masai warrior kind of appeals to me?   I'll let you know how I get on.  I have yet to watch the DVD that comes with the shoes - yes I will have to learn to walk all over again.

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Something Wonderful

28 September 2009

 

Travelling to London I now ‘get’ what an ipod is about! 

 

I returned to Brighton from St Pancras a couple of weekends ago via Capitol Connect rail.  It was a crowded commuter train.  I had the misfortune to sit next to a young man with wires sticking out of his ears.  He sat zombie-like, looking straight ahead for the whole journey.  A high pitched whine emanated from his head. It sounded like an angry bee screaming with a pounding headache.  By the time I got to Brighton, we both had headaches. 

 

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.  For my next train journey to London, I pulled out my ipod.  It was given to me by my daughter two Christmases ago and was still in its gift box.  My son-in-law had loaded it with songs and music he knew I liked - and some he thought I might like. 

 

Occasionally I have pulled it out of its box and played music though my laptop but most of the time, it’s stayed asleep in its plastic cocoon.  On Friday morning I caught an early train to London for a masterclass day with supercoach Michael Neil.  He urges that at the beginning of each day, we think, say out loud, that ‘today something wonderful is going to happen’.  Well it worked for me on Friday.

 

The first ‘wonderful’ was a crisp, clear sunny autumn morning, a pale pink and blue sky and a quiet, uncrowded train, this time Southern Rail to Victoria, that wafted through the countryside.

 

The second was that Southern Rail have upgraded their carriages since the last time I used the service.  The new carriages are so classy, I had to check with a fellow passenger that I wasn’t in first class by mistake.  The seats even have ergonomic lumbar support – brilliant! 

 

My biggest ‘wonderful’, and I hadn’t even got to London, was listening to music on my ipod watching early morning mist hanging a foot above Sussex fields as they slipped by.  It was an unbelievably stunning morning, the colours were a Monet palette of soft hues and rippling sunshine through trees.

 

I listened, for the first time, to an artist called Nick Drake accompanied by an acoustic guitar singing:

 

“Fame is but a fruit tree,

Life is but a memory,

Happened long ago

Sounds so easy just to let it go on by

Til you stop and wonder why you never wondered why.”

 

A handsome Italian boy got up from his seat and came over to ask me if the next stop is Gatwick airport?  Yes, I say, it is, that’s the stop for the airport.  Thank you, he says.  Then as the train pulls into Gatwick station, he stands up, pulls his backpack down from the luggage rack, smiles at me in acknowledgement and blows a kiss from his hand to me.  What a perfect way to start the day. 

 

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This is my first blog

18 September 2009

The day after I hit my 60^th birthday a leaflet came in the post giving me a discount on a Stannah Stairlift.  Looking back it could, I suppose, have been coincidence but unlikely.  They probably send them out regularly to all 60 year olds from electoral roll information.  I know it made me depressed.

 

Not that I have anything against stair-lifts.  What saddened me was the assumption that I was now so old I probably needed mechanical help to get me from one floor to the next, an assumption that was doubly wrong because I lived in a bungalow at the time.

 

Over the following months I began to feel aches in my joints, walk more slowly and generally act as though this was the beginning of the end.  Except it wasn’t.  It gradually dawned on me that how I approached ageing was down to me, how fit I kept myself, how brave I was, what I decided to do with the rest of my life, what I expected of myself.

 

Inside my head I have always been 32.  If I acknowledged that age – what difference would it make to the way I approached being 61?

 

My coaching and recruitment experience has taught me that individuals can change the way they think, the way they present themselves and the way they look at life every day.  The only caveat is that he or she has to be prepared to put the work in to achieve the change. 

 

So that’s what I am trying to do.  I’m a living, walking one-woman experiment to see if I can achieve living the life I want to live.  The magic is working.  It can work for you too. 

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