Category: Ageing
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Indolence, indulgence and/or perseverance
Sometimes Kali cat is happy to rest on our laps, of an evening, when she’s fully fed and replete, warm and cosy with the fire blazing, and we’re quiet ourselves. She still hunts for small creatures, and gobbles them whole, all except the guts. But mostly she perseveres with her importunings: feed me; feed me…
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Joy of an autumn walk
As we ambled along homewards through the lush vegetation, my beloved exclaimed, ‘Oh I do love these woods!’ I felt so guilty that for so many long years we’ve been stuck high on the remote and moor-ish fellside where a deciduous woodland walk has not been feasible unless you get in the car and drive…
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This too shall pass . . . the joy of foreknowledge
Feeling just that extra bit stiff and sore this morning — my joints and muscles don’t really want to move around very much. We had our fourth Covid jab yesterday afternoon, the Moderna bi-valent one. I reckon our immune response to the immunological challenge is mobilising, from the lymph nodes draining the injection site, where…
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While we can, the joys of mobility . . .
One of the things about ageing is that easy mobility becomes compromised. Sometimes the ability to drive goes first, while often knees, hips, hamstrings, joints become compromised and a simple thing like a gentle walk becomes challenging. A reasonable expectation that our personal mobility is increasingly at risk is one of the primary factors in…
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With age, mellowness?
I took a call the other day from an old neighbour. We’d had a falling out over some promotion deal gone wrong, well over a decade ago, and I never expected to hear from him again. And yet there he was, on the other end of the line, chatting away as if . . .…
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A helping hand
When our big kitchen dining table broke the other day, I wasn’t sure it could be fixed. But after I’d squished under with our son and we looked at the broken culprit, a piece of wood stay that had sheared in half, I thought maybe we might be in with a chance. The screws holding…
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Camaraderie in commiseration
It’s not often, we find, that we meet someone who’s had a similar catering experience to the years in the hospitality sector that we’ve had. But yesterday we were privileged to chat with the owner of a local cake shop which had become what she called ‘a destination tea room’ to which people from a…
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Family togetherness . . .
We had a full house over the weekend: blow-up mattress, camping cushions in the living room, and three sets of familiars to accommodate in separate quarters. Kali cat lived in the conservatory from whence she could escape to the great outdoors; growing-up kittens Maui and Leo roamed from lounge to bedroom, enjoying their sequestered eating…
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The big picture . . .
Funerals are one particular point at which we stop, look back, and consider a life. The obituary is a condensed recitation of the deceased’s odyssey, and in my experience these small and intimate biographies, declaimed from the lectern above the casket, can convey surprising breadth and understanding of where the beloved has come from, how…
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Soft clean lines . . .
The soft lines of our hedgerows echo the undulations of the fellsides across the valley. This sight is such a joy, especially with the straggly hawthorns trimmed into a presentable state. This was work that was beyond my capacity, so we inveigled a local handyman to work throughout yesterday, to finish today, and to charm…
Roads to Joy 