Is there no-one in my family that can act their age? enough dealing with the kids; you expect your octogenarian parents to set an example although I don’t know why. Me, I take any opportunity going to spend free time catching up on sleep or laying around with a book. I have to force myself to be active. The only term in today’s language that I’m really drawn to is ‘chilling out’. It makes dossing about seem infinitely more acceptable. I work full-time at an age when I should’ve been rescued from such purgatory….paying the price of being a feminist for all those years. I swim 3 or 4 times a week and seem to spend a lot of time driving from here to there and meeting myself on the way back. I’m entitled to relax so why don’t my mother and father feel the same?
My mum is not too bad but must be thoroughly exhausted by my dad who likes to have ‘a project’. Not that he ever uses this terminology. He’s just always looking for the next big thing and an accompanying excuse. It used to be my son who offered all the opportunities for an active life. Now he’s grown up, they’ve moved on to my eleven year old grandson: kite-flying, tree houses; go-karting. Eighty-three years old and he’s go-karting after a round of golf! Then wondering why he’s tired. Re-furbishing the house which is always immaculate; re-painting walls that are already pristine; painting portraits of the village community; and changing the bolt on the upstairs’ bathroom door.
That last one doesn’t sound too energetic. As long as you don’t manage to lock yourself inside. It’s a wonder my mother heard him; sitting downstairs engrossed in her embroidery, it’s a wonder she chose to. He was definitely trapped but made an escape by clambering out of the bathroom window onto the flat roof. Mother was dispatched to the garage to locate and carry back a ladder which she duly propped against the front of the house in order that he could clamber down. Can I just remind you they’re 80 and 83? ‘Your mother has a lot of trouble these days with her arthritis’ he says in passing. ‘Some days she has a real problem mixing the cement’.
My mum is not too bad but must be thoroughly exhausted by my dad who likes to have ‘a project’. Not that he ever uses this terminology. He’s just always looking for the next big thing and an accompanying excuse. It used to be my son who offered all the opportunities for an active life. Now he’s grown up, they’ve moved on to my eleven year old grandson: kite-flying, tree houses; go-karting. Eighty-three years old and he’s go-karting after a round of golf! Then wondering why he’s tired. Re-furbishing the house which is always immaculate; re-painting walls that are already pristine; painting portraits of the village community; and changing the bolt on the upstairs’ bathroom door.
That last one doesn’t sound too energetic. As long as you don’t manage to lock yourself inside. It’s a wonder my mother heard him; sitting downstairs engrossed in her embroidery, it’s a wonder she chose to. He was definitely trapped but made an escape by clambering out of the bathroom window onto the flat roof. Mother was dispatched to the garage to locate and carry back a ladder which she duly propped against the front of the house in order that he could clamber down. Can I just remind you they’re 80 and 83? ‘Your mother has a lot of trouble these days with her arthritis’ he says in passing. ‘Some days she has a real problem mixing the cement’.
Hi Alison
ReplyDeletePlease don't start talking about Xmas
it is so depressing
Ho Ho Ho
ReplyDelete