Feeling a bit Novemberish

 

"Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath but the view is much better!”  ~Ingrid Bergman

Someone recently suggested to my Mother that she has a hearing aid, to which she replied "I don't want to look like an old granny" she's 86! 

The problem is that we don't accept that we are getting old and one of the reasons is that although we look older we still feel young. How many people have you heard say "I don't feel any older in my head than I did 30/40 years ago" apparently, it’s called our subjective age or SA.

Good grief! what chance have we got!

My kids are constantly telling me that I have told them something already and I am sure that my hearing is deteriorating. Here is an example of a recent conversation that we had in the car:

Me to Ellie (who was in the back of the car with me) "there's a really nice cafe down there that we must try."

Tim (who was driving) " no my love, this is the right way."

Me; (still in the back of the car) " did you just call me Mother!?

"Paris is always a good idea"-Sabrina

My recent trip to Paris was wonderful, Paris was a mass of tourists and rugby supporters dressed as Leprechauns, the weather was stunning and there was not a bed bug in sight!

I even love the train ride into Paris, first of all there’s a glimpse of the golden roof of the Château de Versaille that glints in the sun and then ten minutes later there’s the first view of the Eiffel Tower, which never fails to take my breath away. I am lucky to be going back next week to see the Christmas tree in the Galeries Lafayette.

I might be getting old and deaf but I am still get very excited by anything to do with Christmas especially a Christmas decoration display. There’s a garden centre near Caen that has a huge Christmas section, it is so big it divides decorations into colours in their own grottos.

Feeling a bit Novemberish

When asked how she is, my Sister Roz sometimes remarks " a bit Novemberish" and we all know exactly what she means!

The storm last week caused a power cut in a lot of Normandy, we were out for two days and some were out for even longer. There is a lot to be said about living in rural Normandy but power cuts are not one of them. They don't happen that often thank goodness and why do you still try to turn on a light when you walk into a room! It’s instinctive I suppose. 

We are going to be a bit more organised next time, ie, have the torch charged and plenty of candles to hand, I also have a power bank for my mobile phone which I will make sure is charged next time.

The problem is that you don’t know if it’s just your house that is out and as we live in a wood we can’t just look out of the window to see if the neighbours are out too (one of the benefits of living in South London). So there I was driving around in the storm to see if my neighbours had lights on- they didn’t so I knew it wasn’t just us and went back home where the fire was lit and candles were burning. Tins, that’s the answer, lots of tins; as we have a gas hob and you can always find a tin of something lurking at the back of a cupboard- in our case it was a chicken korma!

 

Anyway, keep safe, warm and let’s be grateful for where we are and what we have.