Boo boo in select company

Boo boo in select company
Something to say?

Tuesday 4 February 2020

The Age Expert

I've been wondering over a year or so, if I should start a separate blog about things connected with ageing. After all, at eighty-five (almost) I could safely say I have some experience. 

  For instance, today I am thinking about the ways in which age diminishes perfectly harmless people like me. I have been thinking for a long time about visiting a close friend who has been ill. So I am going from room to room in my house asking my son and my daughter as to who might be able to drive me there. And here's the crux: they are nice Indian children who wouldn't dream of saying 'no' to this request. Then I see them peering anxiously at their diaries and deadlines and I'm not sure I like this dependence.

  Two years ago I would have taken a train from East Croydon and fumbled my way to Sheen Court. But today, I know my balance getting in and out of anything (trains, cars, toilets et al) is suspect. I have fallen only once till now -- that was the day I decided to wear a sari after ages. I get this occasional urge to assert my Indian beginnings. So I am stepping out of my front door and as front doors go, it is a grandma trap. Two or three different levels and steps to manage. (Now that I know, I negotiate with the door and the steps before I commit myself and my stick.)  My slippers came off my feet and I tumbled, ingloriously, into the flowerbed and the Pyrecantha.

My friend, Michael, who was giving me a lift to the Croydon Writers' monthly meeting had a good laugh after he had hauled me up. 'Being fat saved you.' he said, not unkindly, when it turned out I hadn't broken any bones. Just the argument with the recalcitrant Pyrecantha, a few scratches and bruises to nurse for a few weeks after.

I meander -- another old age illness: Now I am not allowed to drive. My socially ultra- conscious children remind me that I shall be a menace on the road with my uncertain levels of spatial awareness. They've got a point, but another little sliver has been broken away from my life.

I contemplate my long-ago life when I drove a Landrover in the interior of Sierra Leone where the roads were so bad the pie dogs slept in the middle of the road. Vehicles tended to to drive on the strips of soil on either side to avoid the rutted middle. It took five hours to reach Freetown from Makeni and nine to Kabale in the North. The distances were small, but oh, the roads!

Uber is a blessing when I can afford it, but I am a little wary of it. I have a tame taxi service that is also expensive, but I know my usual taxi driver who I request.

I am not giving up -- I shall consider how to get my freedom of movement back, if only in my head.


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