Up, not about

My father is out of hospital after several weeks.  He and my mother are together to celebrate their 65 wedding anniversary.    But their spirits are not up.  Mum is happier now that Dad is with her, but he's bed bound, not only can't get up and out of bed but can hardly turn himself in the bed.  His only comfort is listening to audio books.  Mum was eating with other people in the care home till he came out, and now her only company is him.
As aged Aunty E keeps saying "it's old age and dry rot!" And Mum and Dad feel rotten.
Nevertheless, their loyal younger friends in the parish gathered today for their anniversary mass, signed a card for them, iced a cake and sent sweet smelling jasmine.  Mum and Dad must have done something special to have so many people care.

Learning when you're 60

It's a bit disturbing to a newly turned 60 year old to read that Brain function can start declining 'as early as age 45'

My first reaction was that they would get that result if they tested only on civil servants, British civil servants - which is a bit rude of me to imagine that civil servants might start losing brain function earlier than other working people. But then seriously, when I looked at the age cohort - 45-70 over ten years - I had to wonder if perhaps these people were stuck in the same job, still employed after ten years, so had no reason to use their brains, never learned anything new. If you're 55 say, and have secure employment and a pension to retire on at sixty, then what motivation do you have to learn new skills, memorise new material, practise something new, when you can carry on doing what you've been doing for perhaps thirty years. And if you don't use it, then you lose it.

If you haven't played netball for years, then do you imagine that you can still run around like you used to? If you haven't spoken French for years, then can you remember all the vocabulary you used to have? Is it then surprising that the muscles you used to use to play games no longer work? Is it surprising that you've forgotten how to learn a language? NO!

Five years ago I struggled to learn new moves in tae kwon do. Five years ago I struggled to understand new theories and concepts in business and social science. I struggled to write academic papers, and I struggled to make new physical patterns. I still struggle. BUT, I know that I can learn them. I realised this when I started to dance and found that some of the movements I'd practised at tae kwon do were transferable to dancing. Ergo, since I've done a lot of learning in the last five years, some of the academic skills I've learned must transfer to other contexts.

I recommend life-long learning.

Old age

My father skyped me. My octogenarian parents are computer savvy. They were using word processors in the nineteen eighties and have been using email for years. They like using Skype, and my mother bought me a video camera so she could see me when she skypes.

But Dad said that his eyesight has got very much worse, very quickly over the last few weeks, and now he can't read a newspaper. When he eventually got his camera working on Skype, I could see him peering over it with his magnifying glass. I hope there are lots of web sites with big print that says, 'press here for automatic text reading.'

And he's grown a beard! Last time he had a beard was in the 1970s, though he had a red moustache in the 1950s. He looks good with his grey beard.