On becomimg eighty

 

On becoming eighty

It is often said that particular dates are just that; dates arbitrarily allocated in the river of time. For all that we give particular dates a great symbolic importance. So it is that I give importance to passing my eightieth birthday.

When I was young eighty was extreme old age. I don’t think I had any relatives who were over eighty. I don’t think that I thought of my life as a whole and if I ever did I certainly never thought about reaching this grand old age. In general in this blog I haven’t written much about myself. I have tended  more to write about subjects which interest me and about which I know something which I hope is of some interest to others. So at this milestone in my life I hope I can be excused for devoting myself to my life.

The first thing to say is that I don’t particularly feel eighty. I am conscious of slowing down and becoming quite a bit physically restricted. My balance is poor and led to a recent incident where I lost my balance, fell and suffered a minor injury. This was while visiting my bookclub co-ordinators house. I struck my head, suffered a minor scalp wound which bled quite copiously as head wounds do. A colleague in the group was alarmed, called emergency services and quite convinced them I was seriously injured.  She was so convincing that an ambulance came from Wolverhampton to Lichfield by which time the bleeding had stopped and, although shaky, I was relatively OK. In fact I was quite embarrassed by all the fuss. I was checked over, my wife collected me, and I felt no particular ill effects.

This incident does reinforce my caution about falling. It was a fall while visiting Camberley about 15 years ago which led to a broken hip and prolonged issues I do not wish to repeat. To add to my fears my cousin, recently deceased ,suffered two bad falls separated by a couple of years which led firstly to her being housebound and then hospitalised before she died. Although well into her nineties this was an unhappy time for her.

Thinking about relatives she was the last surviving cousin on my mothers side. I was the youngest but this is a sobering thought.. My children are now middle aged; it gives me a shock to hear my son at fifty looking  into early retirement and changing direction.

In terms of changing direction I have been persuaded by Annette that our present house is now far too large and that we should move to what was our holiday flat This means moving from a substantial house into a two bedroom flat. The effect is not of moving a quart into a pint pot bur rather into a thimble. I have been a hobbyist and collector ( Annette says a hoarder! ) and in preparation for moving we are brutally slimming down.

The actual day started with my card from Annette being a photo collage from childhood to the present day. One was a photo where I’m with childhood friends and also a rather mysterious older girl ( Rachel Quimby ? ). I think its possible she was baby sitter for my friends who were second cousins Janet and Susan. An unexpected pleasure was a card from my niece, Clare. I’m very pleased that I’m the person in our family to keep in touch with her as she is estranged from her father who has mental health issues.

In the evening I attended our Hopwas book club. To my surprise they knew it was my birthday ( from Facebook ) and had brought a sponge cake which we had with our coffee. It was pleasant to see they were surprised that I was eighty

The day after, on Saturday ,we met up for a high tea with Frances and family. Frances had bought a balloon saying 80, a box of chocs and something in a bottle which was as she put it “ a balloon anchor “. The tea was too much and we got a “doggie bag” of uneaten cake for Ben. Since we lived in our  Oxford house,  just travelling back at weekends, when Frances was a teenager we have a special link from that time  I was working for Castrol at Pangbourne. It is hard to imagine that she is nearing her silver wedding. I’m still slightly puzzled that her daughter Alice has now decided to call herself Jaden on Whatsapp.

I feel very fortunate to have such wonderful children and grandchildren. My daughters are both very capable managers after strong academic backgrounds, both got firsts at university. My son successfully battled cancer as a student but just managed a degree. He has been working remotely as an IT networks specialist for about ten years. He managed a very successful family transition  to North Yorkshire and our move will be about five miles away to our former holiday flat in Whitby.

I would be less than honest if I didn’t admit to doubts about our move. Annette is keen to leave what has become far too large a property.  We came here 35 years ago when our circumstances with the children still at school were totally different. We will be making an entirely new type of life and I’m hoping we have the flexibility and resilience to be successful.