growing old disgracefully – first published 14 January 2013

Bad weather in January 2013 scuppered all my plans to get outside. Although I needed to get cracking with the Moonwalk training I ended up spending most of my time in the kitchen cooking. Once that was done I was bored, which led to a lot of thinking.

14 January 2013

It rained all day Staurday so I spent my time in the kitchen cooking rather than in the garden or out walking where I really wanted to be. This did mean I got to try out two new recipes though, home made granola, two different types, and mulligatawny soup. Sunday morning started off cold and bright and I was quite looking forward to trying out my granola until I remembered it was Sunday, and we always have a pain au chocolate treat for weekend breakfasts. Commando was already eating a big bowl of cereal by the time I got downstairs.

“You don’t want a pain au chocolate as well do you?” I asked hopefully.
“No, I’ve already got this,” he said, so I started towards the door, wondering which granola to have, “actually, go on then, I will have one.”
So I didn’t get to try the granola after all. It’s a strange state of affairs when I’m feeling peeved because I have to eat pain au chocolate.

Last night we watched The Vagina Monologues on TV. Commando and I were totally engrossed in the programme. It was funny and sad, poignant and thought provoking but the thing we both really loved were the clips of elderly women taking. They were brilliant, although I can’t imagine Mother ever talking like that or being so open about something she would have found disgusting and probably embarrassing.

Commando said, “those old ladies are brilliant.”
“That is exactly what I’m going to be like,” I told him. “I’m growing old disgracefully, it’s the only way to go.”
And I will. I don’t want to be an uptight, nice, genteel and very proper old lady. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Neither do I want to be a grumpy, miserable old lady, whining about the world. What I want is to be me, just older. Happy, quirky, a bit nuts, wandering off for stupid walks (if the body is still willing), shocking people from time to time and, most of all, not being conventional and boring. Sometimes I might be a bit grumpy as well, just for fun.

When I was young, women in their fifties were old ladies already. They had a uniform, tight binding girdles, dresses or skirts and blouses, nothing too bright or tight and, most of all the Queen Elizabeth perm and the once a week shampoo and set. They didn’t have lives outside their familes, they generally didn’t have jobs, unless, like Mother, they were widows and didn’t have a choice. They went to bingo once a week and sometimes went to Butlin’s on holiday but there was no wild abandoned dancing, solo trips to Corfu, or drinking the night away. These days fifty is still young. Or maybe that’s because I’m in my fifties. Women my age still wear skinny jeans and go to night clubs (not me, I hate the places), get drunk, swear (actually Mother swore like a trooper, but not the ‘F’ word or anything more shocking) and generally have a good time. And so it should be. Maybe my generation will all grow old disgracefully. Heaven help all the old men!

Taking advantage of the sunshine, I went for a stroll up the Big Hill for supplies. On the way out I had a quick check on the veggie seedlings I planted out last week. Would you believe most of them are now slug food. Seems like I didn’t build a veg plot at all, just a big slug restaurant. Apparently they don’t like beetroot though, every single Beetroot seedling is untouched. One of these days I’m going to get this slug problem figured out, either that or I’ll just grow lots of beetroot. In the herb trough the chives and garlic chives seem to be coming up which is good news, although there’s snow forecast so maybe not.

By the time I started walking back down the hill the blue sky was hatched with mares tail clouds, a sure sign the weather is changing and probably not for the better. As the afternoon wore on the clouds gathered. Oh well, maybe I will get to use my Yak Trax after all. The rest of the afternoon, between peering out at the sky periodically, was spent with more cooking, making dinners for the week. Then of course I had to clean the kitchen. This seems to be the pattern of my weekends at the moment, walk, shop, cook, clean.

Today I finally got to eat my granola. I stood in front of the cupboard for ages trying to make my mind up which one to try first. In the end I went for the one with cocoa nibs (I guess no one is totally surprised by that) it was crunchy, rich and nutty with just a hint of a chocolate aftertaste. Breakfast will never be the same again. It’s hard to believe it was so easy to make, why didn’t I think of doing this years ago? My little brain is bursting with ideas of things I could put in it.

Outside the French windows the sky was a uniform grey, the temperature hovering just above zero. Apparently, the rest of the UK is under a blanket of snow. I’m pretty sure the exclusion zone around Southampton is all down to the Yak Trax sitting in the bottom of my handbag. Unless I lose them, forget them or break them chances are there will be no ice or snow round these parts ever again. No need to thank me, just enjoy the nice unslippery pavements. Now I wonder what I can buy to get the temperature up? Maybe a nice Arctic jacket and some ski boots? It’d be like the Sahara round here if I did.

The plan was to get out in the garden and do some work but, just as I went to the door, the rain started falling and that put paid to that. So I ended up with rather more time on my hands than expected. As I was about to break out the Pump It Up, Commando Junior came in the door, home from his course, so that was the end of that. He finds me fairly comical when I’m just sitting in the chair, what he’d do if he had to watch me jumping around the gym like a loony doesn’t bear thinking about. He has a camera too and I imagine photos would be on Facebook before I’d even flopped, sweating, onto the sofa.

It’s not often I have the chance to be bored. I wandered from room to room looking for things to tidy but Commando had got there first and everything was tidy to within an inch of its life. There was a teeny bit of washing up so I did that, then I made lunch, mainly to provide a bit more washing up to do later.We had the mulligatawny soup. It was a resounding success, even Commando Junior loved it and he can usually find something to criticise. I asked him if there was anything I could do to improve it,

“Hmmmm,” he said rubbing his chin. “It was brilliant but, I don’t know, maybe it could do with more tomatoes.”
“It’s got a whole box of passata, that’s loads of tomatoes.”
“Well, maybe some sundried ones then.”
That boy is obsessed with sundried tomatoes at the moment. He said the same about the bolognese I made last week. Maybe I’ll make sundried tomato soup, just for him, mind you he’d probably say there weren’t enough tomatoes in it.

Then I was bored again. How do people with servants cope? What do they do all day? In the end, after a lot of procrastinating, I gave myself a manicure. As Joey on WLR said, you can’t snack with wet nail varnish. That was one of my favourite tips for what to do when the snack monster attacks and, believe me, it really works. I’ve learned so many things on this journey of mine. Little things, like the nail painting tip, big things, like how much difference regular exercise can make and massive things, like the importance of proper nutrition rather than falling for all the diet food, get thin quick gimmicks. All these things added together make a change in my life that, I hope, will keep me healthy forever. Well until I’m disgracefully old anyway.

Thinking about everything I’ve learned made me wonder what advice I’d give to myself if I had a time machine. After a lot of thought (I really did have too much time on my hands), I came up with three things. To my twenty year old self, I’d say, “You’re NOT fat! Stop all the stupid diets because diets make you fat!” To my thirty year old self, I’d say, “You’re still not fat but you’re heading that way, if you move a bit more are eat a bit less junk, you can stop it now before its too late. Go out for a walk, you’ll enjoy it.” To my forty year old self, I’d say, “You need to get a grip. Stop going looking for quick fixes and magic cures and get off the couch. You really will like walking if you get out and do it. You can lose this weight if you just believe you can do it and understand that it took a long time to put it on so it’ll take just as long to take it off again. The best years of your life are ahead of you and you won’t believe what you can do when you try.” What would you tell yourself if you had a time machine?