janethamer

[janethamer]

Smudges on the Horizon

They began as smudges on the horizon; then they grew. People talked about blots on the landscape waved a few banners and considered fracking a viable alternative. Nevertheless the project continued and the blades were gradually put in place; on clear days they looked like extra-terrestrial armies on the move. Depending on the weather conditions they would disappear into the mist or look as though they were moving closer. She watched them grow from her window and marvelled at their simple complexity. They looked like larger versions of the seaside windmills that were clustered in the doorways of every shop along the front and responded to the same breath as the blowing out of birthday candles. The technology however told a different story, a much more powerful development in the research to save the planet. The blades once you were close to them made a fierce noise apparently. She resolved to take the trip once the season started and the boats were running again from the Marina. Three hours it took to the windmill field and back, even though looking across the water it seemed that you could almost swim there in no time at all. 

Living at the seaside, particularly in view of the sea was a strange experience. A seascape whatever the season was so full of poetry and fierce art. The summer season was always something to look forward to even though the visitors came in droves. She could never begrudge anyone the delight of a day by the seaside. However year after year watching the hordes of people, considering their needs and their capacity to consume, she worried for the planet. The debris on the beaches, the fumes from the motorbikes and cars that transported the trippers and sustained the lifestyles of the locals were adding constantly to the problem of pollution. She supported the green lobby and was horrified at the way the prospects of a barren future were being ignored. The debates raged and climate change vacillated up and down the political agenda. The timescale, maybe fifty years, was far too distant for some and much too close for others. The planet was burning its way to extinction but the economic lobby was proving too strong in its wilful blindness. Carbon footprints were necessary to maintain the exploiters and enable those that they were exploiting. Can’t stop flying, driving, laying waste to the forests, the economy would crash. And then came the virus. 

Countries responded to the pandemic with varying degrees of efficiency. Those who grasped the extent of the danger first sent their messages to the rest of the world. 

The world began to close down but the windmills stoically kept on turning. At night when the sky was clear the red warning lights would orchestrate their dance even after there were barely any planes in the sky to read the signals. The seas emptied and the odd vessel in the channel excited her interest as she marched up and down her hallway attempting to maintain some vestige of the fitness that echoed a lost era. The view from the window, of the changing horizon, offered some possibility of a return to a better time. A much better time it would need to be if the destruction of the virus was not going to be followed by the destruction of the planet. As the disease took hold and the vehicles retreated the birdsong was louder the air quality much improved. The world progressed slowly but inexorably through the shutdown. People realised that they could work from home in many capacities, freeing the roads and emptying the trains. There were those who couldn’t maintain their employment in their kitchens or front rooms and they were left vulnerable. Then people long scorned by the neo liberal status quo were suddenly deemed crucial to the running of daily lives. Key workers became the designated label. A little bit of kudos in a name designed to hide the hitherto patronising way in which they had been regarded by the elite. Unskilled, unworthy of a living wage had been the view of those who relied upon them without comprehending their value. All of a sudden immigrants who really should have ‘gone back to where they came from’ were tolerated and even applauded, for the time being at least. They were described as working on the front line in some jingoistic positioning of people previously vilified as ‘not like us.’ Anachronistically a country that had voted to close itself off from the rest of the world to maintain some kind of spurious sovereignty was suddenly forced to rely on ‘the kindness of strangers’ while staunchly not prepared to recognise the irony. The hostile environment created to distance ourselves from the rest of the world would it appeared be diluted as long as cannon fodder was required. The rhetoric suggesting a war footing became more and more sickening. The virus positioned as the enemy by a hapless government provided a smoke screen for the awful reality that they themselves were the enemy. Years of ideological austerity had left the country unprepared for the pandemic and the Dunkirk spirit was really the only flag that the murderers in power could wave. 

Unscrupulous politicians thought in their arrogance that they were not the target of the dreaded disease. They maintained their position. Herd immunity was the initial buzzword. The garden of their glorious country was in need of work; pruning and weeding in order to return it to its former glory whatever that might have been. They saw in it an opportunity to relieve themselves of the burden of their responsibilities particularly to the aged and the poor, those drains on their profits. Culling them would be the kindest thing all round, their lives had no purpose or value after all. One or two of the powers that be had, with the best of care, survived their mild versions of the illness. Positioned of course as near death experiences they imagined that this would bring people on side and help their plan to work. Heavily disguised they put in place supposedly emergency measures which were risible in mitigating the impact of their cavalier attitude. Meanwhile they maintained their plan to lop the branches, get rid of the weeds. Having used examples of their own brethren to bolster their empty rhetoric about all in it together and the virus being no respecter of person they were too blind to see that in destroying the weeds they were destroying the whole garden. 

The smug assumption about herd immunity was soon smashed by a resurgence and reinfection of those who had thought they had come through. Billionaires and big businesses anxious to get the money flowing again were soon confronted by the truth of their platitudes; the virus really was no respecter of person. Near death experiences were now becoming increasingly the final experience for those who had thought themselves above contagion. Once again the lockdown was ramped up and once again it proved far too little far too late. The streets which had momentarily buzzed were again emptied and the supply chains were reduced. As she sat in the window watching the sea she thought of the Neville Shute novel On the Beach with the submarine setting off in an empty world to follow a Morse message across the oceans. Supposedly a sign of life it was in reality the tangled chord of a curtain blind moving in the breeze across an abandoned Morse transmitter. 

As life deteriorated the few outlets that retained limited stocks of food and other supplies became sights of riot and pillage before being wiped out. Supplies finally cut off, the people in their bolt holes became weaker and weaker. Clutching at remaining interactions on facetime and messaging people clung to each other in virtual reality. Then the networks went down. No more interaction no more cries for help just the gradual decline of all but the very wealthy. Squirrelled away in their bunkers where they had been surreptitiously stockpiling they sat down to watch their diminishing rations. They assumed that they would soon be back out to reclaim the world for their own selfishness and greed but the selfishness and greed wasn’t waiting outside it was in their cloistered hearts. Soon the arguments began. Rations squandered and injustices perceived they set about destroying themselves from the inside out. Factional disagreements raged and while they each plundered the stored provisions bewailing unfairness and theft on the part of anyone but themselves they failed to notice the generators stuttering. With no key workers to maintain the machinery their life support like mankind was gradually dying. Wrapped only in their sense of privilege and superiority they suffocated in their protective hives just as they would have done in the clutches of the virus. Outside the planet no longer belonged to them. Nature had come back into its own and life flourished in the pure air and swarmed under the clear oceans. Perhaps one day a creature would emerge to position itself at the top of the hierarchy again but in the meantime, watched only by the hollow eyes of crumbling humanity, the windmills continued to turn and the red lights continued to flash.

[janethamer]

In Vogue

I’m inclined to think that by and large fashion in any context is a bastard. It lures you in with desirable images and just when you have gone through all the contortions to require the look, it abandons you for something completely other. Growing up in the fifties we dressed like miniature versions of our mothers or even our grandmothers. I probably looked more middle aged when I was thirteen than I ever did through my middle years. The sixties were supposed to be liberating but we were constrained by the need to look like the Twigg or the Shrimp. When I failed to shoehorn myself into Twiggy sized jeans I felt so bad. It never occurred to me to consider that I simply wasn’t endowed with Twiggy sized genes. There was a bit of a respite in the seventies and the floaty and all-embracing hippy vibe. I maintain that the best of the swinging sixties was actually in the early seventies. The eighties saw the beginning of power dressing and the rise of the shoulder pad which was always a good look for reducing the look of your waist. I particularly loved Jill Gascoigne’s look in The Gentle Touch. I even tortured my dead straight hair into the gorgeous perm and with my shoulder pads and nipped in waist I flattered myself that I looked a bit like her. However with the rise and rise of serious marketing we were all encouraged to feel dissatisfied. Going to work on an egg was the tip of the iceberg. 

Now Social Media has moved us to a whole new level, bombarding us with carefully orchestrated images of other people’s perfect looks and perfect lives. How many people post their first version of a selfie? Probably not many. What sort of lives are those happy, seemingly perfect people actually leading? Obviously much better than ours but we don’t need to worry. If our lives are not really perfect then that same social media has a goldmine glowing with books and apps which will deliver perfection. If we only follow the instructions we can get it right. You see it is not just fashion that is a bastard it is the whole culture of achievable perfection and it is utterly exhausting. Furthermore science is suggesting to us now that we will be able to engineer our offspring’s perfection; so called designer babies. We could come up with the perfect shape and form but of course that would be on current parameters. You design the perfect Twigg but by the time she comes of age the Kardashian has taken over. 

I know we need to take some responsibility. We can help ourselves, make things better for ourselves, tackle problems; make the most of any opportunities. That has to be set however against the arbitrary nature of existence. If you want me to take full responsibility for my situation you have to give me a say from the outset. Impossible of course so let’s temper our judgement of ourselves with a recognition that there are influences and distractions that, try as we might, we can’t control. We may like to think if we work hard enough, eat right enough, exercise more than enough we can be perfect and forever young. Nice try but the fact is we can’t and anyway as Freddie says who wants to live forever?’ 

We have a political climate at the moment which is all about taking control. We only have to look at the shambles that is so irritatingly labelled Brexit to see how easy that is. Then there is the notion that if you get people into work they can control their lives, even when they are at the mercy of the call with an offer of some hours of work which may come only once or twice in a blue moon. If we are ill we talk about fighting about combating whatever disease has invaded us. The military language supporting the idea of a best person who will ultimately win and if you die you simply weren’t good enough. If you are struggling and suffering there may be things you can do but don’t let anyone kid you that it can all always be sorted. You have to be realistic and look squarely at expectations. Be reasonable and be clear. Sometimes we have to settle for the best way through, the sensible compromise and the kindest solution. Remember it is usually much easier to be kind to others than it is to be kind to yourself but remember also the airline advice; put your own oxygen mask on first.

[janethamer]

Seventy Two and Three Quarters

Old age stalks you. It gradually creeps up behind you and takes you hostage. There are scattered ransom notes in the media suggesting that you are a jammy baby boomer and should make way for new generations or that you are a drain on society with your benefits and your medical needs. Of course that doesn’t really refer to you. You are still up and running, filling in your taxes and paying your way. Such rhetoric only refers to people who are really old and totally dependent, not that that makes such rhetoric fair. Nevertheless you can’t escape. You see obituaries for people who are younger than you and people talk about them having had a good innings. A good innings?? I want a record breaking innings at the very least, assuming I can still wield the bat. I want to ignore the passage of time. Eventually you fall off the register for regular health checks for all those monstrous possibilities that will end your life and you suddenly realise you are in danger of dropping off the edge of the world. They don’t need to check you out anymore because you are on borrowed time. Three score years and ten what more do you want? Loads actually. Inside you are still 32, outside you are becoming invisible. I find that I have a conflict about that. I’m not mad about people offering me their seats on the bus or the tube, a sign that I’m old, but then when I am being jostled about and no one is bothered I think, old lady here, attention should be paid. In some contexts I begin to feel fragile. Being old has not diminished my contrariness but it is beginning to diminish my capabilities. 

I used to be able to leap up on to the nearest chair to change a light bulb. Now my centre of gravity would seem to have moved and I have had to invest in a two step ladder to facilitate my climb to the ceiling or indeed the top shelves of the kitchen cupboards. I can still walk four or five miles a day at a reasonable pace in order to pacify the tyranny of my Fitbit but some days my knees creak and on some hills I have to take a breather. I catch sight from time to time of my stalker in shop windows. She is an old woman who looks vaguely familiar but I have no idea where she came from. She sits opposite me in the mirror of the hairdresser, looks sideways at me in the bathroom mirror and she is there in the occasional photograph on Facebook. I can see my mother in her and sometimes even my father but she can’t be me can she? Not now, not yet, she is me when I’m old. Echoes of the drama course at college when I was nineteen and had to draw with much hilarity and carmine sticks the old woman I would become. She’s nothing like that. I could laugh at that prospect when I was nineteen but to paraphrase Bob Monkhouse I’m not laughing now. Perhaps I should try the reverse, cake on the young face with theatrical cosmetics but I know it would take heavy duty plastic surgery to rejuvenate these features and even so it would look ridiculous if not downright scary. Then it seems that one morning I wake up and the old codger fairy has come in the night and lagged my midriff with layers of useless blubber. I’ve noticed over the years that one of nature’s crueller tricks endows women well past child bearing age with a bulge that looks like a six month pregnancy. 

There are glorious benefits of course. For me I can finally fulfil the dream of being able to devote uninterrupted time to reading a book that is unrelated to work. Furthermore I can stay in bed all morning to do so if I choose. Along with Him Indoors I can get codgers rates at the theatre and the cinema and we can go there in the afternoon in the middle of the week. I’m old enough now to really not give a shit about what people think. I could be cantankerous if I wanted to and no one could complain. I’m an old woman after all, that’s what we’re like especially if you believe the stereotypes. People should just make allowances, humour me perhaps, although that is certainly not what I want. Old people who behave as if they are entitled to behave badly really piss me off. I don’t want to do that I just want to stop time. I think that’s enough of growing old now. My inner age never seems to change but I’m increasingly hampered by my aging exterior. I want to power through my weaknesses and ignore my age but sometimes it’s not that easy. All the covers of the magazines that I walk past on my supermarket round are telling me that I could do it if only I followed the latest diet, slapped on the latest unction, became a slave to the latest fitness regime; really? Really? Even Cher was sceptical about turning back time. I’m beginning to think that while I don’t need to give in maybe I should just start to take care. Begin to accept my aged limitations whilst rejoicing in the knowledge that every day above ground is a good day especially if I can still walk the walk and enjoy reading the book.

[janethamer]

Mind the Gap

I know that travelling by train is an expensive and unreliable experience for those who need to get to work these days and there is no doubt that serious reform is needed and soon. I am no longer a regular commuter however so I can afford to think there is something about the whole experience that can be inspiring. A touch of I’m alright Jack you could rightly say but the engineering, the power, the development over time is just astonishing. Imagine the progress from the days of hesitant steam to the breathlessness of high speed travel. Growing up in the fifties a train journey was such an adventure. We stood on the platform as the leviathan belched its way into the station and opened up the possibilities of speedy travel. ‘Here today and in the middle of next week tomorrow’ as Kenneth Grahame’s Toad put it, was both scary and exciting to a small child. The corridor trains, the dusty upholstery, the string bag luggage racks were somehow exotic. I remember one adventure, with my sister and my Mum. The train was packed. We were returning from a day in London and Mum ushered us into a first class carriage. Half asleep we were just happy to sit down. I was about eight I think and my sister would have been five. Eventually the ticket inspector slid open the door and demanded our tickets. Mum proffered ours and explained that she knew we were in the wrong section but with two small, very tired children she had not been prepared to stand all the way to Birmingham. The inspector said if the gentleman whose carriage we were illegally sharing didn’t mind he would turn a blind eye. The gentleman didn’t mind. The gentleman was Pete Murray the actor and presenter; lovely man. 

A reminder of my childhood travel presented itself on a holiday trip across Europe some years ago when we boarded a wonderful train with old fashioned carriages and corridors. The stage from Munich to Venice was reminiscent of a fifties train journey albeit at a considerably higher speed. This time with the right tickets and an appetising picnic we sped through the changing landscapes over the wonders of the mountains and kept company with Italian travellers who shared their stories and showed an interest in ours. The young woman who was going for an interview at the university was probably glad of the diversion provided by couple of elderly English travellers who were happy to share their knowledge of Italian. Martin fully engaged in the exchange with me trying valiantly to follow it. I understand far more than I can actually contribute to a conversation. On that holiday we went from the past to the future taking another stage of the journey at the front of a train where we could see the driver and a control panel that looked more appropriate to space travel than rail. We waited on platforms with young backpackers who were wonderfully solicitous of a couple of old codgers and their wheelie suitcases, even to the point of taking other seats when we had mistakenly taken theirs. We were a living travelogue enjoying the kindness of strangers, passing through countries and varied terrains without having to do anything more than sit back and enjoy the view. 

Nowadays having disposed of the car, we travel everywhere by public transport and it is such a great facility. Amongst other things there is the opportunity to read a book without feeling I should be doing something else, but there are so many other pluses. I particularly love the Gatwick Express, the multi-lingual announcements taking me right back to those continental trains and past adventures. I love indulging in high and low speed voyeurism. I love passing through commuter stations boasting bike racks and car parks reflecting all those lives jumping off from there to temporarily take place somewhere else. I even love the intrusion of conversations on the ubiquitous mobiles. The oral tapestry of communication representing everything from the loud manager ticking off some poor minion who has blundered - to be fair mate, your fellow passengers are not impressed. Glances exchanged by the carriage occupants confirm that they think the disturbance is neither clever nor funny. Then there are the conversations about the location of the pre-prepared evening meal and the optimum time to put it in the oven. Depending on the time of travel, people all around are leaving or returning to somewhere able to maintain constant and comforting contact from a distance. Whatever did we do before the mobile phone? I’m so nosey. I’m also drawn to the images on peoples’ phones or tablets. I try not to get too close but if the person next to me is clearly watching an interesting film or catching up on one of my favourite TV programmes I find myself wondering if I had my splitter with me, would I hear myself asking to join in. 

A gem of an experience was when we were traveling to the 2012 Olympics to watch our granddaughter playing for GB in the wheelchair basketball. We were interrogated by a group who, accompanied by a couple of carers, were taking a trip to the seaside. Having regaled us with their plans they demanded to know ours. Within two minutes the whole carriage was being challenged to support the team and particularly our number 9, Jude Hamer. When we left the train with much waving and shouting from our traveling companions we were approached by a couple who asked if they could follow us since they had tickets for the game and weren’t sure where they were going; an altogether lovely experience. 

Leaving London for Brighton, a journey I make several times a year, the landscape is fascinating. All those buildings, rise amazingly high out of Blackfriars giving way to lower rises with their balconies each with its own story; the determined cyclist, the family jumble of children’s toys, the careful arrangement of fashionable wicker, the flourishing blooms of the frustrated gardener, the everyday clothes horse of drying laundry or the detritus that is no longer needed but has nowhere else to go. Imagine what stories each of those spaces could tell, every open door or lighted window a poem waiting to be written. The apartments give way to terraces each with their own backyard. The same variety is here although writ larger. Behind sloping fences there are the seemingly abandoned gardens, green mould devouring up turned white plastic chairs, outgrown kiddies’ scooters, even in one particularly chaotic space a couple of abandoned beer kegs. Others are ordered tidy yards with tidy furniture professionally covered against the winter. A Buddha sits in a window calling calm and order out of the chaos of nature and then suddenly a yard groaning with piled up rags and debris insulting the determination of its neighbours to organise and control their world. Each space has its own history, lengthy or brief. 

Out into the open countryside there is the revolving palate of the seasons. Winter or summer pedestrians rush through the towns trying to escape the cold and the rain or languid walkers taking it slow and steady in the heat while you sit unobserved in warmed or air-conditioned comfort, in the cocoon that is your train carriage. There are so many landscapes, rural and urban, to be viewed and enjoyed from the windows of a train I don’t think I will ever tire of the possibilities. Even when things slow down or delays impose upon the journey as long as I have a view or a conversation to join or a book to read I’m more than ok with the train.

[janethamer]

My Inner Hyacinth

Breaking News....we have recently acquired a new vacuum cleaner. Having finally given up on the cordless one, which was fine on wooden floors but beyond mediocre on the carpet in our current abode, we went for a more heavy-duty model. It’s a whirlwind of a machine absorbing the dust even where there is no dust. This acquisition coincided with a piece in the weekend magazine about the relative cleanliness of the average home, I should never have turned the page. We are surrounded by life-threatening bugs and dirt even in environments that appear to be clean and tidy. The horror the horror! I was suddenly visualising the advert for whatever it was, where peoples’ sneezes and germs were represented by writhing wormy masses on every surface, nowhere was safe from the contamination and we were paddling in its invisible threat. I couldn’t look at a door handle or a work surface without cringing. Now that I no longer had the excuse of full time employment I began to think perhaps I should get involved with some serious housekeeping. I have always had an uneasy relationship with the washing, tidying, cooking conventions and expectations. Born at the end of the war my early years were spent in a climate where women were being conditioned back to the chores and the kitchen sink after the strange liberation provided by their war efforts. I watched my Mum adopt the regime that her mother had lived by, a weekly timetable of cleaning and cooking and general drudgery. Monday was always washing day and as a youngster I used to love standing on a kitchen stool and ladling the laundry with big wooden tongs into the rollers that squeezed out the water. There was a strict discipline and timetable to household chores and you could identify the days of the week by the tasks ticked off the list. Maturing in the seventies as a fully paid up member of the feminist movement I talked the talk but somehow still felt I should do the laundry. On reflection that could have been because I always thought I did the better job. The cooking I was happy to relinquish. The cleaning generally was in limbo. Bathroom and kitchen were important, the rest I considered simply in terms of bottom lines. If someone called unexpectedly, on our general untidiness I could always say that we had been burgled and the police had told us not to move anything. There has always however, been a Hyacinth in me; of the Bucket variety. It surfaced decades ago when I was at college sharing a flat with two friends. We took it in turns to be responsible for the general up keep of the place on a weekly basis. Eventually they confronted me saying that I was driving them mad when it was my week on duty. Apparently I watched them like a hawk, plumping cushions the minute they moved, snatching their plates when they had hardly finished eating in order to do the washing up. They said that I even adjusted the furniture if they had inadvertently moved a chair when sitting down or getting up. They were afraid to touch anything in case they put it back in the wrong place. Obviously it was a total exaggeration but I had to admit that I found their sloppiness annoying. Strangely when they were on duty I didn’t have a problem as long as the plates and cutlery were clean and the bath wasn’t scummy. We were all always responsible for our own rooms of course. Mine was very well ordered. Sharing whether it is with a flatmate or a spouse obviously requires compromise and over time I submerged my inner Hyacinth for the sake of peace. I continued to colour code my wardrobe because that just made sense but I stopped expecting things to remain untouched elsewhere when I had done the work. Living with an untidy spouse for over forty years has been a challenge. He has a perfect system for both papers and clothes, you just leave them wherever you last used them. Jackets and scarves pile up on the back of chairs and papers and books cover every surface. It’s not how I would do it. It’s not how I like it. Sorting the clothing is easy but any interference with the paperwork is usually catastrophic. Everything goes missing!!! He knew where everything was until I interfered, moving things. This was bearable when we had designated rooms and I could shut the door on the chaos but downsized I live in the domestic equivalent of The City, The City, same room different sides. The table and the floor in the dining end covered in books and papers the sitting and relaxing end well-ordered and relatively uncluttered. Introduce the whirlwind of a new gadget into this uneasy truce and the potential doesn’t bear thinking about. Housework is such a total bastard. As soon as it’s finished it needs doing again. I’ve often felt as I was hanging up the newly washed laundry that I could just as easily put it back in the laundry basket and cut out the middle man. Total order works for Show Homes but not for real life. As for the hygiene don’t we need our peck of dirt to support our immune systems? Articles about the dangers of a dirty home are probably secretly sponsored by businesses that sell us the disinfectant equivalent of sledgehammers to crack nuts and god knows what they do to our environment and our lungs. Realising the stress and responsibility of maintaining my initial enthusiasm for the new machine and doing a proper job, I’m putting my Hyacinth back in her sterile cage. Limiting my use of the beast but I’m still going to savour the result of a weekly onslaught before the dust starts to settle again.

[janethamer]

Old Bag Badge

Last week Fitbit informed me that I had gained my Italy badge for walking the length of the country which is apparently 736 miles; definitely one for the pub quiz. It’s obviously a good time for badges because I think I have finally completed my Old Bag Badge. I’ve been working on it for some time since I retired. I settled for the comfy shoes fairly early on thanks to my lovely Skechers, three pairs and counting. Obviously I couldn’t have walked the length of Italy without supportive footwear. I still have a couple of pairs of killer heels but when I wear them I marvel at the idea that I used to wear them every day. Last time I broke out the lovely heels I worried that I might fall off them. 

On busy buses and trains I find myself delighted when someone offers me a seat rather than thinking huffily ‘Do I look old?’ I’ll go further and confess annoyance at teenagers sitting determinedly consulting their mobile phones while I balance precariously in the aisle. I don’t actually say anything but it’s only a matter of time. 

I feel old when boarding or alighting from buses. I used to sway quite happily around bends and absorb the bounces and cambers of each stage, now, when leaving I wait until the stop is seconds away before I stand ready to disembark. I’m not so nimble when using taxis either, hauling myself into the high ones and levering myself out of the ordinary saloon and thinking all the time how did this happen, where did the alacrity go? 

I do the standard walking into a room and wondering what I was looking for but to be fair that is not really anything new. I’ve also started writing shopping lists. Pen and pad always at hand in the kitchen so that as soon as anything runs out it is added to the list. Him indoors is slowly coming round to the system rather than asking after the purchasing has been completed whether I got X or Y. Mundane shopping is my daily area so that I can add to my steps and get my free newspaper from Waitrose. 

We have become fans of afternoon television. Not the endlessly jolly adverts for funeral plans and promises of vouchers or a pen. I’ve got a pen and I don’t need any vouchers. I know I’m going to die, don’t keep reminding me, just get Lovejoy on or Pie in the Sky. Lovely reminders of past Sunday evenings before the relentless return to recalcitrant school kids and the weekly timetable. 

I smile at people who catch my eye in the street. We sometimes exchange greetings and move on feeling slightly uplifted by the encounter. I enter into random conversations on the bus and in the supermarket, not always with old codgers like myself. Sometimes it’s with young mums or dads with their tiddlers and we exchange three way pleasantries about nothing in particular but we feel good about the engagement. Most recently I had a delightful conversation on leaving the supermarket with a young woman who like me was wheeling a shopping trolley. We extolled the virtues of said vehicle, sharing the fact that it used just to be an old lady’s accessory and now there appears to be no age barrier in the face of their carbon neutrality and plastic bag reduction. The day after this particular conversation I was delighted to see a young man entering the shop with his albeit subdued dark brown trolley, unlike mine adorned as it is with somewhat garish pictures of fruit and veg. 

I have become invisible, particularly when trying to order drinks at a bar, although to be fair you probably only have to be female for that. I feel my invisibility most noticeably when navigating crowded pavements however. I’m tempted at times to keep moving in the face of some mindless juggernaut of a person or persons coming in the opposite direction but I always stop or swerve at the last minute feeling sure that they would mow me down and trample me underfoot. Frequently it is people on mobile phones moving relentlessly and zombified towards me with no sense of time or space. I could do a whole ‘don’t get me started’ on mobile phones. Dads or mums in charge of pushchairs with lively toddlers looking for interaction and confronted by the parental distraction of the ubiquitous mobile. People on trains who conduct loud conversations Dom Joly style covering everything from their eta and where to meet through what’s in the fridge to the embarrassment of bollockings of employees or colleagues. I’m guilty of some of these I know but hopefully not at the top of my voice and not protracted. 

I felt like I was ticking most of the boxes and then when my daughter tweeted that finding herself on Sunday morning outside Marks and Spencer waiting for it to open she realised that she was middle aged I knew I had made it. Send me my badge.

[janethamer]

Park Life

In spite of the cold there are serious whispers of spring as we come to the end of this early Easter. It lifts my spirits at the thought of the summer to come.

I love park life. Our local park, it's a wonderful place. Mid-afternoon the schools tip out and families make straight for the park. Kids of all ages racket their way on to the grass and into the trees to release the tensions of classroom discipline and frustration. Mums and dads with nippers park themselves outside the cafe and chat alongside the pushchairs while the older kids run rings around each other. Occasionally they admonish them to 'play nice’ or 'come and have some of your drink' but mostly they sit in front of their coffee and brace themselves for the evening with a toddler and a fractious six year old and the endless preparation for the next day's round.

The occasional skate boarder enters the fray and attempts the complex manoeuvre that almost always ends in a feeble attempt to pretend that they meant to halt the board. The scooters compete around the pathways varying in competence from the cool twelve year old dudes to the tiddlers hanging on to their handlebars while gran or grandad pulls them along; a much quicker route towards Countdown and tea.

Dog walkers arrive and release a Crufts worth of pets into the mix. Small yappy type dogs threatening bemused husky types, retired greyhounds chasing cautiously in memories of past glories. The bigger boys and girls arrive and dominate the abandoned bowling green kicking their footballs and competing in fantasy leagues in preparation for future glories. Further up the hill three sisters play keepie uppie under the watchful eye of their dad, taking it in turns to grab his attention and in between throwing themselves down onto the picnic rug to drink juice out of a box. Top of the incline a group compete, squealing and rolling down the slope and on arriving at the bottom setting off immediately back to the top to repeat the hilarious process. Such abandon is so invigorating.

In amongst the trees and bushes other children play elaborate games of house, opening pretend doors to each other and offering phantom cups of tea. Others build different dens, headquarters from which to plan the next battle. They post lookouts in the branches of the trees, eyes peeled for any possible marauders. They play like we used to play in the 'good old days'. Don't tell me kids spend all their time in front of the computer screen, they are still out here in the green spaces.

Reading of cash strapped councils selling off parks and playing fields to make ends meet fills me with sadness. Oh how we must protect these green spaces and seek to create more of them. Spaces for everyone, for families, for the strollers and the serious joggers tuned in and sweating in a vain attempt to keep age at bay and ensure endless good health. For us two old codgers sitting on benches that are dedicated to those long gone. Watching the life and the activity on seating named for people who loved the vitality of these oases in the city. They are glorious spaces. We must cherish them.

[janethamer]

A Bit Fit

Father Christmas bought me a Fitbit. He knew my Jawbone was on its last legs and I was looking for a replacement. It had started throwing regular strops when the exclamation mark would appear and it would refuse stubbornly to tell me how many steps I had done, and in stepping terms there is nothing worse! Even though I know how far I have travelled I need the screen to tell me precisely how many steps I have taken; ridiculous I know. I have my whole neighbourhood measured out in parcels of steps. I know exactly which route to take if I need to top up at the end of the day, two thousand this way, fifteen hundred that but whatever the option I still need that little gizmo to confirm what I know, I especially need it to register and light up at ten thousand steps. With the battery life failing there was nothing worse than covering several miles and returning to find that the gizmo had died or worse still, was still on charge in the kitchen where I had left it. I feel in this day and age I ought to be able to phone it and input the unrecorded steppage but of course it would be impervious to my frustration, spitefully determined to register zero. So it was goodbye Jawbone, hallo Fitbit.

My new wristband is a sweet shade of fuchsia and an absolute tyrant. Be careful what you wish for. It measures my every step, calorie, heartbeat and it nudges me if I don’t keep moving. It tells me the time and tracks my sleep patterns. It even buzzes when my phone is about to ring. I wonder if it knows what I am thinking. The only thing it doesn’t do is wake me up with a cup of tea in the morning. It is like a constant nag on my wrist. Sometimes it goes for the gentle nudge suggesting that I get up and move around, at other times it does the full on belligerence. Have you moved in the last hour? No I’ve been fuming at the Daily Politics. Take me for a walk. What, now? It’s halfway through Father Brown, all the evidence points to the wife but I think it is the brother-in- law! Now is not the time to go for a walk. Sometimes living with the insistence of this appendage is a bit like owning an incontinent dog. I find myself in bizarre conversations with it. Ok I’m on my feet or you are just going to have to wait, all in good time.

I don’t know what is standard for a codger of my age but I’m locked into the ten thousand and it seems quite a long way, some days more than others. On days when the weather means it is a toss-up between going the distance or catching pneumonia I look to increase the target over the next day or two. I nevertheless feel guilty about any daily deficit. I console myself with the notion that the weekly tally is what really matters, that is the sensible view to take but I still have pangs of regret about my weakness. In the weeks after my new acquisition I found myself increasingly in thrall to the badgerings of my fuchsia miniature cattle prod getting more and more stressed by its hourly buzzing on my wrist. Have you moved in the last hour? Yes of course I reached out for my cup of tea, I walked three paces to turn on the TV at the plug, then I opened the window, fourteen steps, satisfied??? I suppose I could turn off the alerts but then how would I know whether to feel smug or guilty?

I had an interesting conversation with my daughter about the situation, she who had advised Father Christmas about the best choice of gizmo. Her advice to me was to understand that the technology is my servant, I don't have to be a slave to it. Good thinking I told her. The next week she set up the family and friends weekly challenge. I didn’t have to accept the challenge of course; as if! I had no idea I was so competitive. I watch the leader board every day. I rejoice when I am temporarily at the top even though I know that it is only due to our different daily progress, my steps being generally completed while everyone else is trapped at work. I get fed up when everyone overtakes me at the end of the day recognising that walking in my sleep would be the only way to maintain an edge. Nevertheless it is great for encouraging me to step up to my daily target.

I allow myself time off at the weekend. Sunday is a day apart. On Sunday we usually stroll down to the sea and come back via the Grand Hotel for a lunchtime glass and some olives. On a typical Sunday my steps don't go much beyond five thousand and I'm cool with that or at least I was until the group set up a weekend challenge! I don't have to accept, servant not slave remember. So here I am Sunday evening bottom of the leader board and nine steps short of my ten thousand, a gentle stroll to the fridge should do it.

[janethamer]

Outside In

Dark early evening I circle the squares and terraces completing my steps, entertained by glimpses of lives behind the lighted windows. Stopping to give some money to the drawn young woman huddled outside the Co-op I consider her situation in comparison to the myriad lives that the windows appear to reveal. 

There are some who would have us believe that she has made some kind of bizarre lifestyle choice. That she sits in cold and discomfort accepting the pity or opprobrium of passers-by because that is what she likes. They imagine that she could get a job but she chooses in her idleness to fleece the unsuspecting public, two pence at a time. They will tell you that she probably makes shed loads of money on that pavement and then gets a cab back to her penthouse flat. Don't give her a penny of your hard earned money because she is undoubtedly a fraud. Even if such bizarre nonsense was remotely possible who would choose such a way to earn a living? 

The windows fascinate me on my stepping out. There is such variety. Basement bedsits with their haphazard chaos of make do and mend below lofty apartments with self-conscious back drops of Farrow and Ball, setting off their aggressively co-ordinated plushness and style. Family homes littered with toys and laundry, sit alongside closed offices with subdued lighting to deter the burglars. All of this a choir to comfort and security, some notes more fulsome than others but the tune is the same one of hearth and home and safety. What would be your lifestyle alternative to that? How could anyone imagine that the cold damp frightened bundle in the doorway, under the bridge or out on the street would not swap in a heartbeat for somewhere safe and warm however meagre? 

I walk past these social contradictions and feel the cold of the homeless seeping into my bones but knowing that at the next corner I will see our lighted rooms and the heated luxury of a door to open and then close; surely everyone is entitled to that? 

Now the extreme weather has swept in and the advice is to stay indoors, travelling only if absolutely necessary. Every step outside freezes the breath and the icy pavements threaten stability. The rough sleepers disappear into the paltry shelter of sleeping bags and salvaged plastic sheeting drifting slowly into hypothermia. Twitter reports calls to remove the homeless trying to shelter in corridors alongside council messages about shelters available to all who are in need. No one should be sleeping rough at any time but certainly in the desperate conditions of the worst weather in years, doors need to be opened not closed.

[janethamer]

The Long Trousers

My change of lifestyle is reflected in my wardrobe. In the past the smart jackets and tailored trousers or pencil skirts took up the bulk of the space. The casual wear was relatively limited. The shoe rack contained a row of heels of various killer varieties, styles which compensated for me being as my sister-in-law once described a ‘short arse’. They were shoes that reinforced my confidence when dealing with burly or sullen fifteen year olds, it’s hard to play Miss Trunchbull when you are confronting a badly knotted tie or worse having to crane your neck. Then later addressing rooms full of stressed and over-burdened teachers of English looking for someone to blame for endless change and pressure, a degree of elevation made all the difference.

Now the balance is completely different. The employment is relinquished and the car, transport that made the killer heels possible, has gone, surplus to requirements. No point in maintaining it in the city when you can walk everywhere and public transport is efficient if needs must. I’ve swapped my car for a shopping trolley and my heels for walking shoes. Most days I set out in my joggers and hoodie and my favourite pair of Sketchers, the outdoor equivalent of pjs and slippers. I can do my daily ten thousands steps in comfort if not in style, although I do always add the swish of a colourful scarf from my sizeable collection. I’ve kept some of the jackets but they tend now to be teamed with 'NYD’ jeans rather than the tailored trousers, most of them were too long without the killer heels. I tried shortening them at first but soon realised that the effect, depending on the style of said trousers was counter-productive, without the height I might as well have put a sign round my neck, ‘short arse!’

Now that my daily timetable is my own, an important part of every day is the completion of those ten thousand steps in order to maintain a degree of fitness in my old age. The air on the coast here is invigorating but in the winter it dictates a degree of sartorial common sense which has me channelling various versions of Paddington and the Michelin Man. Headgear is an essential and I have a couple of quite stylish trilby hats but they only come out on very still days; relatively rare occasions especially on the seafront. In the wind a soft brimmed version, which in silhouette favours the look of Paddington’s hat, is the headgear of choice. Its main quality being that it can be pulled firmly down to resist even the strongest wind. I look a fool perhaps but not as big a fool as I would look chasing my hat hopelessly along the promenade.

The chill, always increased by the wind, demands a variety of outer garments and varying degrees of layering, hence on really cold days the Michelin Man. I see it as a clear sign of my aging that a hat and gloves have become winter essentials. In my youth I would have been far too worried about the look of my hair to flatten it with a hat. I would contemplate double pneumonia over a hair out of place any day.

On rainy days the birdcage umbrella comes into play, transparent of course so I can see where I’m going but safely domed against the wind. It took me several abandoned versions when I first moved down here before I realised that an ordinary umbrella was no match for the coastal onslaught of the winter months. I feel as if I am walking under a cheese dish but at least I don’t come home with a tangle of bent and broken spokes.

In the summer months it is easier to maintain some degree of elegance but most days still in sensible shoes. Sandals only come out when the distance to be covered is relatively small. I have yet to discover a stylish open-toed walking variety that doesn’t eventually chafe and if you are going to keep walking you have to have comfortable feet.    

I have saved a couple of heels and smart trews along with some pretty but impractical sandals for special occasions where a taxi is an option. Generally however the charity shop has recycled my previous sartorial existence and day to day I am moving comfortably on.  

[janethamer]

Retired, unhurt

I finally have nothing to do. For the first time in decades I have no deadlines to meet and no work dates in the calendar. Since the age of five, some sixty six years ago, I have been more or less governed by bells. First as a pupil and then as a teacher. Even when freelance and self-employed I was still in the thrall of other people’s bells or deadlines and now suddenly I am bell free. Now it seems that although this next phase of my life has actually been long planned, I am totally unstructured and I'm not sure I know how to be that.

I wake in the morning and make tea which I take back to bed and drink while I read a book or the newspaper. It is such a luxury and I still feel almost as guilty as I did when I had deadlines to meet, when snatched time reading a book in the morning meant another hour’s work at the end of the day. I watch Pie in the Sky or some other old Sunday night favourite on Drama and it is still associated with the end of the weekend and an early start for work in the morning even though it is Tuesday afternoon. I plan routes for my ten thousand steps without factoring in where I need to be at any given time. Official retirement, it's what we used to long for in the years when we were young and stressed and overworked but not something which we necessarily planned for or practised. Obviously we were required to put the financial structures in place but perhaps we should have done a bit more in terms of lifestyle rehearsal before we clocked off or accepted the gold watch or the M&S vouchers. Jenny Joseph warned us in her poem but did we listen?

I feel like I have entered the next training scheme unprepared, the next life course which is about grasping nettles when you are no longer required or expected to grasp them. I have to completely reconfigure my view of working outside of remuneration. I do work. I vacuum the carpet occasionally, I do the laundry and the washing up. I shop but I don’t cook, that’s man’s work in our household. I write and that is my main occupation but so far my deadlines are self-imposed. I want to bring to this next stage of my life all the determination and enthusiasm I have given to all the stages so far. I'm going to laze about with the same focus as I worked. I’m looking forward to our stroll down to the cricket ground where the two of us can take our chairs and sit in the sun watching a game that is new to me and a total revelation. Having been part of the rather watch paint dry brigade for decades I have become a complete convert. I had no idea it was so compelling. I'm determined to fill the diary with theatres and galleries and obviously some lunches, with the same rigour that I applied to my working diary. I'm going to finish my novel and start the next one; reading as well as writing, and I'm going to beat the living daylights out of old age. I'm going to structure my now unstructured life, create new timetables, respond to other bells but I might just put my feet up and have another cup of tea before I start.

[janethamer]

Bag for life

Ok so it’s official; I am old. I’ve had my suspicions for some considerable time. Late fifties I started looking at comfortable shoes in shop windows. Then at sixty I added a golden ticket to my wallet in the form of a senior citizen’s bus pass. The usual clichés followed, twelve year old policemen checking my bag at the football. Young people offering me a seat on the tube, God bless them. Fifteen year old doctors attributing my creaky knee to my age and then finally the park run, or walk in my case due to said creaky knee, where I finished first in my category because there was no one else in the over seventies.

I began to find myself drawn to magazine articles that gave advice on how to dress and present oneself across the decades. Many of them didn’t go beyond sixty, presumably after that decade you would be dead or totally invisible. Some of them just covered general principles after the age of fifty. Long hair was a total non-starter but since I haven’t had long hair since I was thirty I was ok there. Skirt lengths were a real issue particularly around the knees but since I only possess one skirt and that is ankle length, that box was ticked. There was some stuff about colours too but I didn’t take much notice of that. I’ve always gone for the black or navy core pieces with statement colours in accessories, so easy to ring the changes, match your mood. It was the stuff about sleeves that brought me up short or rather the anathema of elderly upper arms. Apparently the entire population would recoil in horror at the sight of the uncovered arms of a senior citizen. Imagine the mayhem in the shopping mall with everyone stampeding towards the exits while a brave security guy draped his jacket around the old lady’s shoulders before ushering her into the waiting police car. 

Then shopping for clothes I caught myself considering the kind of lightweight cover ups I would need for the warm weather or party gear, muslin tops, linen or lacey blouses. Choosing a couple of possibilities I caught sight of my elderly self in a full length mirror and I considered in horror what the fuck I was doing?’ In my twenties, promoted to a new school and on the second day of the job I was summoned to the Head’s office to be reprimanded for my wearing of a trouser suit. It was not allowed and during the course of the exchange I was advised that a woman in trousers was not normal. Obviously not a good point in my burgeoning career to take on the establishment but I did. I was smart and respectfully tailored and in the days of mini-skirts and the huddles of pubescent young men under the open staircases waiting to catch a glimpse of knicker in between lessons I considered that my attire was eminently sensible. The senior team after discussion agreed that tailored trouser suits were acceptable for female members of staff. I was unphased then and now I was considering being dictated to by some faceless ageist fashionista. I put the long sleeved blouses back on the rack and removing my jacket took my exposed arms out into the sunshine and the horror of the crowd. Nobody died, nobody even noticed me or if they did they didn’t say a word and the sun felt good on my skin confirming that there is life in the old bag yet.