One of my weird paintings! There are another three at the end of the post.

There are quite a few elephants in this painting but most are hiding. c Oct. 2017.

Here I sit, pleased to have made it to seventy-five but really wishing I was somewhat younger.

At seventy-five (and, to be honest, also at seventy-four) I have begun to feel my age, not mentally (in my mind I’m still a teen-ager!) but physically. I find it difficult to walk to the station which is only twelve minutes’ walk away, not because of knees or feet but because of breathing – or rather, the inability to get my breath as I walk.

I’ve never been a great exerciser, which is probably one reason why I find it so difficult now. Back when I was eight, nine and ten, I was the person who was last in a race. I’ve always been short with short, slightly chubby legs (now, not so slight!) and I assume this was the reason for my lack of speed. At school I hated p.e. (phys ed, gym, games, whatever you call it where you live). My only real exercise, as a teenager was dancing. I could happily dance to pop songs for hours and still enjoy it today (although I fear it’s rather ‘granny-dancing’ now😧)

In my twenties and thirties I probably took the 10,000 steps that are recommended nowadays because I had a young daughter and didn’t drive – if it was within walking distance, I walked. When I finally got a car and my driving licence, I drove but still did some walking, when necessary! In my forties and fifties I walked with a group – sometimes ending up in a pub for lunch and driving home. Also in my fifties, my beautiful grand-daughter was born and I did a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with her as her mum was not at all well for several years after she was born. I used to take the train to London every week, collect Chloe from nursery or school, walk to the swimming pool, perhaps, or just walk back to her house and play, cook her and myself a meal and then stay overnight and take her to nursery/school the next morning. Her first school wasn’t too far from home but during the years she was in the later junior classes, it was a mile or more to walk – downhill on the way but uphill back to the station, and home.

When Chloe went to secondary school she was old enough to go on her own though on days when her mum couldn’t be home in the evening, I would try to be there and then when she was around sixteen I would only have granny duty if her mum was away at a conference for a couple of weeks. By that time I was in my sixties and things were going downhill, physically. Both of my knees started playing up, I got appendicitis, I had a sudden partial hearing loss, started getting carpal tunnel problems in both wrists and my hair, never a very interesting colour anyway, decided to go white.

When I was sixty-three, Julian and I decided to close our business and retire to the seaside. We live a ten minute walk from the beach (downhill) and a five minute walk from a shop or two or fifteen minutes from more shops. We chose this house because we really liked it, because there was room for our hand-made bookcases in the lounge and because, if there came a time when we couldn’t drive to the shops, we could at least walk for the bare essentials. I can still walk the five minutes to the nearby set of shops though it takes me ten minutes, nowadays, and I can walk to the beach, but coming home I take a bus to the end of the road.

Old age (and there’s no way around it, I am old) has brought with it little skin tags, warts, moles, annoying pains for no reason, arthritis in previously healthy joints, white hair, annoying wheezes, glasses (only for reading and sewing, though!), sore feet (which, mysteriously, have grown by a whole size!) and breathlessness BUT I am alive and have enjoyed almost every single thing that has happened to me (unlike my sister, Judy, who didn’t even get to forty-six).

Like all old people, I’ve seen a lot of my friends die before me – not all of them older than I am, though mostly – and I do think about dying (though not for a while yet, I hope!) The thought doesn’t really bother me much, nor does it scare me. I would rather live (in a reasonably healthy way) for another ten to twenty years during which I can carry on painting my weird paintings, feed the birds (mostly gulls and pigeons but with the occasional sparrow, blackbird and wren, even some goldfinches the other day!), do the occasional bit of weeding, pruning and picking, sit in the sun, eat great food, drink the occasional glass or two of dry white wine, watch a soap on telly, read some books, do the occasional jigsaw or word puzzle, go to the cinema, talk to friends and neighbours, sit on the beach, browse for something new to wear, and all the things people of any age like to do.

I would love to win the lottery so I could help Chloe buy a house in London and so that I could employ someone to do all the jobs I hate (cleaning, cooking, planning meals) but, I suppose it’s not likely to happen and I will have to wash the pans, clean the floor and vacuum sometimes – always remembering Quentin Crisp pointing out that after a few years, the dust on the furniture doesn’t get any worse!

Above,  another three of my weird paintings. They are all quite large (maybe 2′ x 2’6) and painted in the last six months or so. The top one doesn’t have a name, nor does the middle one. The third one is called, ‘Foraging’ as it looks, to me, like a strange being looking for food in a strange landscape. (Told you they are weird!)