Age and Forgetfulness

Before I get to the age bit, a quick update: I've done float coat of the lime plaster on the wall in the extension, which I'm pretty pleased with.  It had to be done in two bits as I was unable to find the energy to do the whole thing in one day.  I'll tackle the final coats when I feel up to it!  Compare these photos with the original ones when I started (note the old square hatch in the middle).

It's not all I've done recently, but I have been a bit distracted because of recent events like my birthday, which seemed to last for four days last weekend.  It's not necessarily a great event to celebrate one's birthday.  OK, when you're young, each one is exciting, with presents, a party and possibly some sense of being closer to being a "grown-up".  I'm not sure when this sense of excitement ceased for me, but my latest birthday was, as they say, a BIG one with a zero at the end. My lovely family were wonderful and I had a great time with some great presents (see below).

It is obvious to me that I am getting old - after all, I'm retired!  I partly excuse myself as my early retirement was prompted by redundancy at 58.  I reckon I'm pretty fit - having then spent 17 months refurbishing this house I have become much fitter. I proved this last year when, needing some working trousers, I found an old pair of RAF trousers last worn in 1992, and they fitted!!!  I also have a sweet grandson, but I know some people who were grandparents before they were 40, so having a grandson doesn't make me old, does it?

Nevertheless, I myself find it hard to believe that subtracting year of birth from the current year somehow equals 60.  I've tried checking the arithmetic to make sure I've not miscalculated, but it's still 60.  A good number of friends at church were astonished when sharing some birthday cake last Sunday.  Actually it was two cakes, one a '6' and the other '0'; I cunningly shared out the '6' first, and then asked the latecomers to guess what number had appeared in front of the '0'.  Very gratifying to see the looks of astonishment on some faces who thought that a '5' was more appropriate.

One of the things that I notice about myself is increasing forgetfulness.  Whilst doing something, it is so easy to be asked to do something else, which you then totally forget.  I have developed techniques for coping with this, to make things stick in my memory, but even these are not infallible.  This happened to me the other day, when the rector asked me to give a message to Jane; I was in conversation with a group of friends and I actually replied that I would forget unless I took home something as a reminder of the task.  So then I forgot to take the reminder!

I also forget things like ideas for this blog - something comes into mind whilst plastering or painting, and by the time I am in a position to write it down, it has gone.  If you're lucky, you go back to the same place and somehow the same thoughts come back, but it doesn't always work.

Back to my birthday: the best present was the last one to arrive.  It was a hardbound book of this blog!  Apparently you can get this done at a well known high street chemist.  It is about 10 inches square, and has lots of photos from this blog (plus a few by Jane that I had not seen before), together with a selection of brief quotes (the better ones, probably selected by Suzi) telling the story of what has been done to this house.  What a thing to treasure!  Come the day that the internet crashes or Blogspot disappears, I will still have a wonderful memento.  Beat that, as they say.