This is my first car purchase, all on my own. It is (was) a Vauxhall Corsa and it’s ten years + with 110,000 miles on the clock. It’s been a brilliant car and if it’s possible to do so, I loved it very much. It did 30+ miles to the gallon and was easy to maintain. Now it’s been sold and will give someone else a few months or maybe a year or two of pleasure.
Goodbye little car. It’s been great knowing you… sob
Am I being overly sentimental? Do you get attached to your cars?
Oma
Getting old has its compensations, but also its draw-backs. I am nearly 63 years old and I am learning, slowly. For the last seven years or so I have been in transition and it hasn’t been easy. Far from it. I have had to let go of a lot of things. I no longer kid myself that I look ‘good for my age’. Once I realised that, I embraced the age that I am and went in a different direction. However, that didn’t quite suit me and it still doesn’t, if I’m honest.
A year or so ago I cut my long, auburn (dyed) hair and let it go grey. Not so important maybe, but it was to me. I looked in the mirror and someone else was peeking back at me. The face in the mirror looked sad, apologetic even. Had I done the right thing? Maybe I should have kept on dyeing that hair but what is the point. I didn’t like the grey roots poking through. No, that looked awful. I kept my hair short for a while, fiddling about with curlers to try and keep it looking lively. Then I gave up and had a perm. Looking in the mirror that day, I saw my Auntie Connie looking back. Damn it! Where is me in all this? Where have I gone?
Since then I’ve kept my hair grey and fought off the aches and pains which seem to increase weekly. I feel guilty that I wasn’t more sympathetic to my own mother. She went through this too, I tell myself.
I have stopped using make-up, except for a little lipstick. That does brighten my face up so I keep that; but I can’t wear mascara anymore because my eyelids have drooped and now if I apply mascara, it ends up on the lids as well as the lashes and it’s darned difficult to get off.
With the negative issues comes also a sense of satisfaction, almost a wisdom. I now know what the outcome will be if I do this or that. I know what to avoid doing, which is a big help.
What I do know, I would like to pass on to my children, but they don’t want to know. If they want to know something, they turn to the internet these days. That makes me feel superfluous.
It’s not all bad though. I have more freedom with my time. Freedom to do my crafting, to visit lovely places and time to watch my garden grow. I have time to listen if anyone wants to talk.
I am content.
Read and enjoy this poem, which I found in an old copy of Peoples’ Friend Magazine:
Just The Way I Am
by Pam Davies
My face will not be lifted
And my tummy not be tucked.
It’s quite enough to file my nails
And have my eyebrows plucked.
Wrinkles on my face relax,
They know I’m Botox-free;
They know they’re in no danger
And they suit the likes of me.
Bits of me have grown and bulge,
Bits of me recede;
Some bits hint at deprivation,
Others hint at greed.
But every bit can tell a tale.
Is marked by fun or strife;
They’re signs of all the highs and lows
That bless my thankful life.
I shall not seek a surgeon
To return me to my youth,
I’m happy just the way I am,
Contented with the truth!
Have a lovely Sunday everyone. Thank you to my faithful blogging friends for sticking with me. You know who you are! and thank you to my new followers. You are most welcome to journey along with me.
Oma
This was the scene a couple of weeks ago when the lorry arrived with all our stuff from America on it! There were two crates; you can see the first one opened and the second one is to its left. Larry is going to supervise the operation.
There were various items of furniture plus about fifty boxes of varying sizes to unpack. I have been very busy going through it all and am now down to two boxes, which I hope to tackle tomorrow. When it all first arrived we had a hard time finding room for the boxes. They were everywhere. Larry had done a great job of packing everything and nothing has broken. One or two knocks on the furniture told the story it its travels across 4,500 mile of land and ocean. Not one glass or piece of china was broken. Remarkable really.
All the boxes were numbered and packed with labels, e.g. U.K or North Carolina because a lot of our stuff went straight to L’s kids. They have gotten their inheritance early!
It has been a very busy week for my little grandson, Dylan who is two and a half years old now.
Last Friday he started Nursery School for the first time. For the last year or so he has been coming to me for the day on Fridays, but now that routine is set to change. Just like everything else in life; just as you get used to one routine, it changes for another. Having Dylan for the whole day has been a joy, but also very hard work because he is on the go all the time and at my age that is hard. I need a sleep in the afternoons or a rest at the very least. With a toddler around, that is nigh on impossible. I cannot believe how I coped all those years ago when I had my own three little boys. Did I really go through the whole day without a nap? Could I really carry one on each hip at the same time? I did, but I couldn’t do it now.
So in a way I am pleased that Dylan will be going to Nursery and yet in another way I am sad because it will be different.
With Larry’s arrival and Dylan’s first trip to Nursery School, we have put away the cot and all the bedding including the mattress. It is up for sale (sadly) and so is his push-chair (reluctantly). Ah, I hear you say, but you have another grandson (Sam)…. what about him? Isn’t he coming to stay at Oma’s? Well no, is the answer to that. I don’t expect to see nearly as much of Sam as I have of Dylan. Sam and his parents live fifteen miles away so he won’t be popping in nearly so often. I think of him every day and in some ways I wish I saw more of him, but again, it’s hard work, entertaining family and babies and I have to admit, I’m just not up to it anymore.
For the last two and a half years I have played at mummies and babies a little bit. It was wonderful to have a cot around again and a pushcahir and all the other paraphernalia that comes with a baby, but now I’m ready to move on. Larry is here and soon his ‘stuff’ will arrive from America and we need every bit of spare space we can get in the cottage. I’m not very good at empty nests. I never have been. My nature is to collect things, not to give them away.
Dylan went to Nursery with his daddy and the first session was just for an hour and a half. Soon he will be going for a day and a half each week, which is probably plenty for a child so young. After his session at Nursery he came here for the rest of the day and I noted that he was a bit disturbed. For the first half hour he curled up in a ball by the front door and wouldn’t talk to anybody or do anything. We were expecting a delivery of a large package so eventually he had to move to allow the men to get through the door so that made him move to the sofa. After that he steadily got out of the sulks but truly he was upset and I felt sorry for him. He is a sociable child and he needs to mix with other children, but it must have been hard for him – about the same as for one of us going to work for the very first time. Everybody is new, there are lots of people about, the noise is probably a bit deafening and all in all it makes for a stressful environment. I’m sure that once he gets used to it, he will be fine, but for the moment, he is out of his comfort zone for sure.
Last night there was a development, nothing to do with the Nursery. Dylan developed breathing difficulties in the middle of the night and his parents took him to the A and E (Accident and Emergency) department of the local hospital. There he was thoroughly checked out, given oxygen and steroid medicine and eventually went home at 5 a.m. It must have been very traumatic for him as it was for his anxious parents. Today they are all resting and getting over it! However, it is a wake up call. His mum suffers with asthma so maybe Dylan will have a tendency to that sort of thing. At the hospital, croup was diagnosed. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again! So frightening for all concerned.
So, life does not always go smoothly, does it and the lesson to learn is that each day is precious and we need to remember that.
Bless you Dylan, get well soon. You are so very loved by us all xxx
Oma
Here in the northern hemisphere we are facing the hardest months of the year so here is a little sparkle to warm our thoughts on a cold winter’s day.
Leave your cares and woes behind, buy yourself some flowers, put your feet up with a good book and relax.
All of us experience change in our lives. Change is the one constant in our lives. There are changes that we look forward to and change that we fear. However, one thing is for sure. Things will not stay the same no matter how much we would like them too. When a life change occurs, we have two choices in how to respond. We can despair that a change has come and assume that things will be worse, or we can look with excitement at the new possibilities that the change presents.
From: www.familyfriendpoems.com
Those of you who know me well know that I have had some extreme changes in my life. I think perhaps we all have. It’s just that our own personal changes are brighter in colour to ourselves and the effects stick in our memories and won’t go away.
I’ve always thought how easy it is to see where other people go wrong in their life decisions but almost impossible to see your own bloomers!!! Here are some more bloomers for you:
When I was a little girl, my mother used to sing a song for me. It was called ‘Que Sera Sera’, what will be will be. Listen to it here:
I used to think she made it up, then one day I heard Doris Day sing it. Now when I hear that song I always think of my mum and the memories come back… At this time of the year it is good to do a little ‘letting-go’. I have been sorting out my wardrobe, putting aside clothes which I don’t wear very often. I find it very hard to do because I like all my things, but I keep telling myself that once I’ve made the space there will be room in the wardrobe when the weather changes as it surely will.
For myself I find it hard that my children have grown up and now lead their own lives. I crave for the times that they were all at home and we shared the ups and downs of lives. I know I am very lucky that I still have my children and they live near me, two very close, one a bit further away but it’s not the same as when you all live under the same roof, is it.
I always look forward to each New Year in trepidation. Will it be a good year? or not so good? Will I keep my health or have issues to deal with? Should I do those things which I have putting off NOW? or put them off a little longer?
In the past I have been guilty of ‘making things happen’ a little too much. Perhaps I should take a step back this year and let things take their course? As Doris Day so cherrilly sings, ‘What will be, will be.’
How are your New Year’s resolutions getting on?
Oma 