I’ll start with my face cream. At almost 82 my skin has lost a lot of elasticity. There are quite a few creases and even a couple of crevices here and there. When I wake up in the morning, it often looks worse than the night before. I tend to sleep with my face partially buried in my pillow which leads to marks from the pillow case engraved on my face for part of the day. Sometimes I awake to find that I have been sleeping with my hand between my face and the pillow, so I have the imprints of my fingers on one or other of my cheeks. My face cream doesn’t hide any of the marks on my face but it does make the skin more supple. The face cream I’ve used for years is called Steam Cream. It is made in Japan and comes in lovely little decorative tins. I have a collection of around 30 of these little tins.

Next is my dog, Lola. She isn’t really ‘an object’ to me, more a companion. She can be funny, sweet, annoying, surprisingly loud if she sees the four red setters walking past our window, and often very clever. I have taught her to  ‘wait’ – to wait at the kerb when we arrive at a crossing point, to wait before going out of the door and to wait during our bedtime ritual when I sing « Little Lola had a farm E-I-E-I-O » holding out a sweet. She sits in front of my hand, often looking above or to the side of the sweetie hand, and when I’ve finished singing, she waits until I hold out my hand and say ‘okay’, then will eat the tiny sweetie. The last song is about the EensyWeensy Spider climbing up the spout. When the rain has done its best to wash away the spider and the sun has dried up all the rain, the little spider climbs right back up the spout and Lola has the last sweetie (still very teensy) then lies down readying herself for final cuddles and sleep.

The final object is my iPad. From my iPad I keep in contact with my family and friends via email, Viber, Messages, WhatsApp (if I have my phone on), and I order my shopping – (since I gave up driving I have deliveries of essentials once a week). I also watch tv, catch up with the newspapers, doom scroll, have a quick peek at Facebook, BlueSky, X, and Substack. When I’ve read my fill of the news, I check weather reports, I might spend some time reading a book, write a blog post, check my bank account, and look for interesting lots on Auction sites. I used to attend 2 classes a week on Zoom but our local authority has put an end to most of the painting classes.

There are lots of other objects in my life that I would hate to give up but the objects above are the ones I rely upon most.