Sunday, January 04, 2015

Taking a tip from my daughters

Yesterday was my 68th birthday. Normally I get a handful of cards, a few e-cards, a couple of messages and phone calls from my daughters and that is it.

Actually, it has never been any different. The proximity to Christmas and New Year meant that I never got many cards even when I was younger. As for presents, well most people have no money after Christmas to buy presents and so I used to get combined presents. “This is for Christmas and your birthday”.  Somehow that never seemed fair because most people I knew, who had birthdays later in the year, got separate presents.

I noticed that my girls always advertised their birthdays on Facebook and so collected lots of messages and cards as a result.  This year I decided to give that a whirl and it worked; I had cards, e-cards and messages galore.

At about 11am our door bell rang. I suspect that was our neighbour Sheila calling to offer her best wishes. Unfortunately, I could not find my slippers and by the time I did, the person had gone. If it was you Sheila, I do apologise and thank you for the kind thought.

My message on Facebook said I had woken to realise that in two years time I would be 70 – a bit of a milestone as anyone who has reached that age will tell you. As my oldest daughter pointed out though, that year she will be 40 and she didn’t want to be reminded of that fact.

Well Jemma, I can tell you that reaching 40 is not the big deal that some make it out to be. It certainly is nothing to fear. You don’t suddenly need a stick to walk with nor a hearing aid to listen to the television. Your teeth don’t start to fall out and people don’t stand up to let you sit down on buses. Reaching 70 though is different, your children still think you can do things the way you did in your 40s and you just can’t. Everything takes longer to achieve, a fact that they don’t seem to appreciate. It is only when you reach 80 that people start to realise you are getting old, make you cups of tea and dust you off.

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