Oh, My Days!

There's a lot of chat these days of 'living in the moment' and there is, I have learned, a lot to be said for avoiding making plans and just drifting with the days as they come along. The last two weeks have been peppered with appointments - dentist, hygienist, chimney sweep, hairdresser, trying to escape my sciatic back, all that kind of malarkey - but I shall wake up tomorrow with nothing on the calendar for the next two weeks AT ALL! A broad plain of nothing planned stretches out before me and it is going to be marvellous! Actually, the days of 'Nothing Planned' started on Friday evening. Drifting through the weekend, then, has proved most productive. I have read two books - 'Dear Mrs Bird' which was a delightful novel I picked up in the library - and 'Confessions of a Bookseller', the sequel to 'The Diary of a Bookseller.' Both of these are by the bookseller, Shaun Bythell, who owns Scotland's second largest second hand book shop. H...

Yes, I know I was probably not walking with my usually jauntiness because of the pain in my back, but was there really any reason for the young slip of a lad behind the counter at the garden centre restaurant to whisper to me, ‘And don’t forget your free cup of tea and apple crumble’ before applying an ‘Over 60s’ discount to the lunch that Andy and I had on Monday? Was there? Really?? Maybe he was confused by my white hair? Maybe he needed to go to Specsavers? Maybe he was just a social inept who ought to get his facts right before flinging his ageist attitude into my day and making me feel thoroughly depressed? Or maybe I am being over-sensitive? That’s probably more it, yes? I mean, here I am approaching 54 years of age and I should be thankful that I have this incident to relate in all its comedic glory. Many people never get to be mistaken for over 60. My sister, for example, was only 22 when she died, and my father only 56. Cystic fibrosis claimed two of my cousins in their 20s....

Suffering a hideous bout of sciatica, aren’t I? Sheesh but it’s taking my breath away. At least, I am 99% certain it to be sciatica. Andy the Vet has examined me and accounted for my symptoms and believes it to be true, also. That’s good enough for me. It started last weekend and is, I think, the result of spending a lot of time balanced on a bar stool in the kitchen listening to my friend chatting away and twisting my back ever so slightly in her direction in order to engage properly in the conversational body language etiquette and not make it look like we were two random strangers sitting next to each other and holding two unrelated conversations. Anyway, it’s not been a great week on the body front, but it does strengthen my resolve to work on my health and fitness even more now that I am approaching birthday number 54 and cannot get away with still thinking I am thirty something. The brain might be fooled, but the body has other ideas and I think times like this are a whimper fo...

Today I am feeling Kitchen Smug. I feel entitled to do so because yesterday I emptied ALL the kitchen cupboards (and cleaned them!) and was ruthless in my sorting out of EVERYTHING and my subsequent rearrangement of EVERYTHING and the fact I now have an empty cupboard and drawer! Bring on Christmas! I have space for Christmas!! Who mentioned Christmas? Not me....ssshhhhhhh...... Not only did I purge the kitchen, I went through my clothes, the dresser in the dining room and the living room sideboard. And all the book shelves. And I am pleased to report that my target of getting rid of 101 bits of 'stuff' currently stands at 106, and there are 5 bags awaiting delivery to the charity shop and a bin bag of unsalvageable 'stuff' in the refuse bin. It has been very satisfying. At first I didn't think I was going to achieve anywhere near the magic 101, but once I discovered we had six spatulas (six! 6!! Who has 6 spatulas for heaven's sake? I've never bought a ...

Three things are happening today: 1) the electricity is going off between the hours of 9 a.m and 4 p.m because Western Power are topping out trees near power lines. The electricity was on when the tree topping team arrived at the end of July to top out three of our trees so why they need to switch it off today, I have no idea. Live dangerously, that’s what I say. Well, actually I don’t, because I am not a natural risk taker but hey! Tough men who shimmy up ladders with tree topping equipment?  Different level of fish living dangerously, surely? Anyway, because of the non-appearance of electricity chez nous for 7 hours (ish) there will be no electricity dependent activities for me : spray tanning, playing Grand Theft Auto, spot welding - all out of the window. I could sit and read and knit all day but that won’t do my back any good, ditto hitting the shops and my bank balance. So... 2)...I have planned a MASSIVE declutter! I shall be having it out with all the drawers, cupboards...