A CHILDLESS WANDER ROUND THE MULBERRY BUSH

YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!

Me and her in our garden. She's in default position of 'tummy please!'. Good we don't all do it...

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 I’m nodding at you all as I speak, for those at the back.  Wakey wakey! 

So, what am I going to talk about after a lifetime away from the Macbook which had to literally creak into operation mode. I bet little mechanical elbows were being shoved as the inner workings rolled.  A bit like my inner workings of a morning.  

Where have we been, anyway? Nowhere particularly.  What have we done? Nothing much.  And there you have it.  The sheer negativity of Justmeandlilley as we mumble and stumble our way through our ageing lives.  Her, not so much, me - very much.  How in the whodoyerflip do we take so very, very long to simply - I don’t know - butter the toast of a day? Wash-up, check the garden (what for? A stray and clearly without satnav, terrorist? Lurking behind the out of control bamboo thing?). Ha, ha, ha!  No, we just dawdle our way around the ‘cleaning’ (I say ‘cleaning’). See, all this is the thing I seem to have stumbled into - as subject matter for today.  And the next three months so make it last.  

We’re aimless and I can hardly blame the dog.  It’s me and I have worried that I’m going a bit thingy - you know - fuddled.  I know perfectly well what folk on here and everywhere else will say - go join, start this/that/the other, go to Church (done that and never again, thank you).

The mention of Church triggers me into a crazy rant and yet I embrace it. I will tell you all another time another day….a story, you say? Blimey they’re lining up aren’t they? 

An afternoon stroll along 'somewhere near Woodhall Spa' but can't remember where. A footpath where cows were so we didn't continue our meander. Needless to say..

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 So, back in the room and - oh, all of the things I really should do and could do. So, I went to the Docs instead for several things. (An aside:  how are we supposed to turn up with just one thing for Doctor to spend two minutes discussing?  I’ve always got several things so I try to strangulate them into one big thing.  He knows. He definitely knows but he takes it on the chin and treats me like the elderly I am.  And I don’t mind.  It’s better than being ignored or shuffled off).  I will just say that sometimes this ‘elderly’ thing can work in your favour.  You must up-play it.  Don’t go over the top and be like some West End extra from Oliver.  Do a sort of reverse elderly - pretend to try hard to not be old - whilst being old.  Just a little tip for GP visits there. You’re welcome…

Anyway, where was I? Five minutes in and we’ve not even started have we?  

What I was going to say, before I went off piste again, was the following - my head.  Where it takes itself, how it’s triggered.  I can tell you how it’s triggered and it’s not babies in prams.***

They - our wishes change as we age.  We change as we age - don’t we? I’m almost 76 remember so I’ll do the majoring on ageing. Painfully shy as a child and yet - I was the one who started the rounders games or relay races at school lunch breaks.  I was the one who organised the school concert once where we all dressed up as celebrities like The Beatles ( I know, I know but we did), daft comedy skits but they were funny.  My Dad used to say to me and my Mum  ‘ you should be a comedian, shouldn’t she Jean?’  No chance in those days.  You left school, you went straight into a job - any job - and you kept working.  And I, for one, loved it.  But you can dream, can’t you?  Maybe if I’d had more confidence as a teen I might have gone, like Dick Whittington, to the great and mighty London. As it was then, a glorious city. It’s not now but I won’t touch that subject.  All the things you could, maybe should, have done.  

Listen, I always did alright.  Work, work more work but if you loved it, whatever it was, you didn’t mind - too much.  Met your future husband/partner (a brief pause whilst I explain my ignorance of today’s sex stuff.  I can’t keep up and don’t want to because I  - ummm - don’t care).   Whatever you say is fine but I’m not bovvered.  Glad you can express yourself.  

I’m working up to saying this - watching the tele the other night it occurred to me that we have made marvellous inroads with our subject matter.  And I know - you all know - said subject matter changes course as we age.  First of all it’s the baby thing and that is one of the most painful to have to deal with.  So painful.  I won’t do all the many ages of childless in-between bits as I move up (or down) to the oldies.  Me.  Many of you.  We of the Ageing, proper Ageing.  Over 50s? Nobbut a youngster. You should be Jive Talking down your local Inn.  My word it’s not easy to be childless, grandchildless at any age but I’m sorry to tell you it moves up a gear as you go into the fast and last lane of over (well over) sixties plus. That’s when you want your families round you, even if it’s a Zoom call.  And I don’t have one. 

On one of our favourite walks around a place called Weston Fields, Lincolnshire and we love it there. The wide open spaces of this county are big skies and big landscapes. It's flat and it's endless....

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I was ruminating over my past working life and how lucky I’ve been to have had a fair few jobs but every one bought laughter, memories, friends (at the time), learning.  A hell of a social life.  You get to 70 plus and who wants to know?  I’m lucky I guess as I have a couple of good, younger friends (all with families) who seem to enjoy my company. At least they say they do? My lovely cousins (cousin and hubby actually but same thing)  who’ve moved a few miles nearer and (I’ll say this here because I’m pretty sure they don’t read this. Mind you, who the hell does?) i have been thinking about moving closer to them.  Not  in any way to bother them (good grief - anyone who knows me knows I’m the worst person for communications) but just - knowing they are there.  We go back many centuries. 

I like it where I am but so many families and kids.  And I’ve discovered I don’t really like today’s kids very much.  Sorry to big mouth but - what’s wrong with them? Seriously - is there actually something wrong with them?  They don’t enunciate they just scream.  They can swear like a builder’s navvy but actually speak?  When you think about it - there they are thinking stuff about us oldies and here we oldies are thinking they’re ‘not laike wot we were Mavis’.  And it almost makes my world shrink - again. 

Me and her spend a great deal of time just the two of us and I believe that is a song?  I always knew I’d end up being like this - if you will.  I knew like a premonition. I won’t/can’t change.  Although I worry about Lilley and her lack of doggie friends I should also be worrying about me.  So, of course, I have a stackful of glossy folders extolling the various slightly posh apartments for sale for older folk. They allow dogs which is the first and only thing that matters.  But will she have run of the lush gardens so that when I open the French doors she can charge off to do her exploring and organising?   I doubt it.  She’ll need to be on a  lead and she’s a freedom loving girl. 

Meaning business as we stride out. She's always checking me - what for, is what I want to know?

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But I do find it scary of a night, occasionally. I don’t know what it’s like in your necks of the woods or planet but I’ve found that nowadays is not like the old back-a-days. Folk made sure of knowing you.  Today’s younger people shut their doors and you never see anyone. Or everyone sticks to their families.  I sometimes look back and think I’ve landed somewhere no one told me I was going to land.  Of course I never expected to be ageing without children. 

So I’ve got used to or over the loneliness of this life.  In spite of my utterings above I really didn’t expect to end up so very alone.  I blame myself entirely.  For moving from places I shouldn’t have moved from.  But, you see, there’s a whole book on that subject and I don’t know if or when I’ld be up for telling it.  Or even allowed.  Yes, it is that extreme.  I will say this (and going a tad off piste) don’t always dismiss or diss the so-called truth tellers as nutters or conspiracy theorists.  We’ll see, won’t we? 

I guess I’m not exactly subject centre-ing today.  I’ve just read through and realise I’ve been shunting about like the proverbial honey bee dipping for nectar.  That’s it.  That’s what I’m doing.  Shunting about like some mad flower fairy trying to find which fragrance attracts whereby I can land for ‘food’. Emotional food.  I found a tangy, subject-matter taste here - is it because I am childless?  Working so hard to make contacts. Losing confidence as me and her do our walks and talks - to folk passing by as we wander.  Oft times I think those folk will be going home to their partners, children or grandchildren - zooming or in person.  And me and her will go home alone to no one.  Like many of you. I had a very bad thought the other night as I watched the News on tele.  Geldoff’s Band Aid concert was on TV  being repeated for its anniversary.  I remembered it first time round, watching avidly and loving the music and energy.  Silently weeping at the terrible suffering in Ethiopia as BBC’s Michael Buerk’s short, very famous film was shown, backed by The Cars music - Drive. Do you remember? Poor little babies dying in their mothers’ arms from starvation and disease. Band Aid day switched from the UK to the U. S concerts. Dang it was good. I watched  it in my little bungalow with my dog and cats.  Friends called round or phoned and some stayed so we watched together. Before long a party was being had. Those days, those days…

Anyway where I was going with this was this -  most of those poor African women had tribal families and I envied them for a family. Did you get that? The Cars emotional music was playing and I was envying starving people for having children and a family, or a tribe.  Was there something psychopathic about me I didn’t know about?  I’ve done that before tho’.  Where some folk have had a terrible tragedy happen but, thankfully, their family and neighbours have gathered and offered arms to hold them.  Not me. Always ‘family alone’.  At least they have their tribe or their sons, daughters for warmth, I’d be thinking. Do you see my perspective?  It might sound twisted but it has logic.  

I’m old and that’s not the bit that bothers me.  It’s not even the dying bit. 

I’m old with no one but a dog. No one - without children, you see.  Paying, probably,  for a professional phone call once a day to check I’m still on planet living. 

It goes quick doesn’t it?  This living lark. Goes quick.  Like Elton, I’m still standing but the long sleep gets closer. But that’s not the bit that scares me.  

Who will know?  That’s what scares me. 

Childless, you see.  Ageing; invisible. 

Who the hell will know? 

You can see how it might all end, can't you? Right here with this appalling image of an old woman asleep on the sofa. The dog worrying I've died in my sleep. I know she does - worry I'm dead and she won't get dinner.

Despair looks like this. Slinging yourself off the nearest park bench is her only hope now......

See ya folks! Love you all.