WordPress Daily Prompt: Age-Old Questions

“Age is just a number,” says the well-worn adage. But is it a number you care about, or one you tend (or try) to ignore?

I planted my everlasting sweet pea seeds about twelve years ago. I wanted to add some colour to my privet hedge. I did and they grew every year, but no-one told me they were indestructible. Not that they have taken over, but they do tend to reach out and multiply. I cut them down every year, but they return with a vengeance. OK, I am going off at a tangent, but I did not want to punish you all with yet another photo of a golden oldie that is growing grey gracefully. When I come to think of it twelve years ago I was a youthful 55 years old, still a working woman and could run for the bus if necessary and this plant is everlasting.

I will be 68 years old in December, that is if you live in Switzerland you are already 68 years old, because I am living in my 68^th year. This is some sort of Swiss logic, which makes no sense to me. It would mean that when I was born I was already a year old, because I was living in my first year. The Swiss have a different way of working things out, and make you a year older than you actually are, but it is not important. You are as old as you feel. There are days when I feel that I am approaching the end phase, when I do not spring out of bed but first of all sit carefully on the edge and think about it. Shall I stand up and risk it, or shall I remain seated and wait until I have to move because nature is calling? These are the decisions that approach in the last third of your life and let us face it, whether it suits me or not, I have arrived.

All my life I was sort of waiting for something to happen, around the corner. I was a kid at school wanting to be a grown up. Eventually I left school, was grown up, at least old enough to earn my own way, and began to work. I got married (to a Swiss that made me immediately a year older than I was – see explanation in first paragraph), I gave birth to children. I was still a working woman, but without earning money, I was doing it all for the family, like washing, ironing, changing diapers, ironing, cooking etc.: all the things that are part of life. At the same time I was growing older.

One day I decided this was not enough, I was working for the “pleasure” of working, so I decided to work and earn money. I farmed the kids out to a day nursery and joined the working woman’s club. The kids grew up, became independent, no more day nursery, but I was still working. This was the second phase of my life, but I was looking forward to the third phase when I was retired, receive money from the state and my company without having to work for it. Mr. Swiss being a few years older than me arrived there a few years earlier than I did. He became a houseman and I did the last few years. Eventually we were both there. We had arrived at the last third and phase of our life: end station

At first you have fun; you do not have to rise in the morning to the tune of an alarm clock, alarm clocks are a thing of the past. To be quite honest today I do not even know how they work, but I have an iPhone that does it all for me when necessary.

You can retire in the evening when you want to. At last the days arrive when you can watch the late night film without falling asleep before the end. Yesterday we watched a film called “Transformers” about extra-terrestrial machines that adapted and changed in all sorts computer graphic. We changed channels after a human which was a machine tried to strange her boyfriend with her 2 meter steel tongue which suddenly appeared. Were we too old to understand or was it just a boring film. We changed channels to find the remake of King Kong, the film about the giant ape on an island that fell in love with a beautiful blond. Unfortunately the remake was so remade that there were cannibals, dinosaurs and t-rex type of animals and this went on for three hours. I gave up after the first ninety minutes. Mr. Swiss lasted longer, but only the first two hours. Were we too old or do we no longer understand modern film techniques.

Life is fun then one day you are working in the garden, pulling out some sort of weed (that you cannot smoke) and you notice your body no longer wants to return to an upright position. Just a little twinge you think, but the twinge might continue for a few days until a visit to the doctor is necessary for pain killing medicine.

Up to now you were helping your other half because he could no longer lift heavy objects, now both of you think about who helps who. Sightseeing trips to the local cemetery visiting ancestors, that you actually knew in life, become trips where you wonder where your little corner will be one day. Ok, let us not be morbid, there are other places to visit. Just around the corner to where I live there is a senior home for those that no longer can cope with an independent life. Now that might come in handy one day and the village also organises gymnastics for the older generation.

You are no longer Mrs. …., but OLD Mrs. ….. according to your acquaintences. Your colleagues seem to be disappearing from time to time, never to return. This is stage three of life, so make the most of it while you can. At the moment Darby and Joan (English expression for older couple like Mr. Swiss and I) are sitting outside on the porch enjoying a pleasant day. There were slimy patches of dead melted slugs in the garden, due to my efforts with salt which I cleared away this morning. Another job I should have left. It took my back half an hour to recover, but now we have a restful moment. Mr. Swiss is reading (on his iPad/Kindle of course) and I am writing my prize winning blog entry of the day on the computer.

Yes, we might be old, but we are online, we are cyber golden oldies and we move with the times. I was thinking about having a tattoo done last year, but after a discussion I was discouraged from the idea by a certain person. Mr. Swiss has become quite modern with his Bruce Willis hairstyle, although I think Bruce Willis chooses to have it like that and Mr. Swiss no longer has such a choice. I now have meche highlights in my hair, although like Mr. Swiss I did not choose them, they just arrived. I used to wear dresses, even skirts, but now I am very modern and stick to trousers, shorter or longer according to the season. Thank goodness for blue jeans, they are so ageless and come in all sizes.

All being well, I will return tomorrow with another episode in the life of a digital, cybernated online golden oldie if I do not have an attack of rheumatism in my keyboard fingers.

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WordPress Daily Prompt: This is Your Life

If you could read a book containing all that has happened and will ever happen in your life, would you? If you choose to read it, you must read it cover to cover.

Nick Niemand was a law abiding citizen. Never wanted to cause trouble and lived his life quietly and calmly. He was not a sportsman, just enjoyed watching football on the television and now and again might place a bet on a horse, but within range of his income. On Friday evening he would go to the local pub and meet up with a few friends. He had not yet met the right woman, but was in no hurry. His work at the local museum looking after the archives fulfilled him completely. It was interesting and he would often read books over the ancient civilisations if there was a special exhibition where he worked.

There was perhaps just one pasttime that he really enjoyed. Nick had a computer and had discovered blogging. What is blogging? It basically depends on how you approach a blog. Some like to show everyone what they have, who they are and generally spread their own opinions. Some may just enjoy writing and hope one day to be discovered as the writer of the year. Others may like to show their photographs. There are various reasons for blogging. Nick just liked to right down his thoughts, his daily events. He just liked to organise his life on his blogging platform.

One day there was a loud knock on Nick’s front door. Not just a tap, but a determined rap. As Nick was not really expecting a visitor, he rarely had visitors, he wondered who it could be. The postman had already delivered a few bills and he only came in the morning. It was now afternoon, but Nick opened the door. There was a tall man standing there holding a book in his arm. Nick was quite taken aback by his appearance. He was wearing a long black Winter coat with the collar turned up, and a black hat with a large rim. The face of the visitor was somewhat hidden in the shadow of the hat and collar, but Nick was drawn to the eyes of the visitor, like two black pin pricks surrounded by a very white and pasty complexion.

“Mr. Niemand personally?” said the stranger

“Yes” said Nick “can I help you?”

“No, but I am sure I can help you. You are the Nick Niemand who writes daily Blogs on our web platform, WordPress?”

“Yes that is correct. You work for WordPress?”

“You could say that, yes. I am one of the owners.”

Nick Niemand was impressed. An owner of WordPress was standing at his doorstep and talking about his blog.

“Mr. Niemand I believe you partake regularly in our Daily Prompt. From our observations it seems you have a very high participation and a high rate of Likes on your contributions. I am here for a reason. You have now been nominated as Blogger of the Year.”

Nick was quite taken aback, but he was no stupid.

“I think you are talking to the wrong man. I have often been nominated by various bloggers for various awards on your site, but I have to renominate ten other bloggers and write a few facts about myself and post the special icon on my site. Then the ten bloggers also have to nominate. It is a snowball scheme. We are all nominating. Eventually there are thousands of us nominating and no-one gets the award. I have never taken part in this meaningless competition.”

“That is part of our public relations Mr. Niemand. I am here with our unique annual reward and prize. You have won a book. Not just a book, but in this book you can read what has happened in your life up to now and what will happen. The complete truth is in this book.”

“You are making a joke Mr…….. I do not believe you have mentioned your name.”

“Judge is my name, Mr. William Judge.”

“What is the trick Mr. Judge.”

“There will be more to come Mr. Niemand. There is no trick, but you have to read the book from cover to cover to obtain full value from the prize.”

Nick Niemand thought it over and decided “Yes”. He had never won anything, even his horses lost in the races. Now he had won a book, and a very stately large book it was. Bound in black leather with large red letters proclaiming “Nick Niemand, the Story of your Life”

“I must now go Mr. Niemand. I have a Daily Prompt to organise for tomorrow. Here is your book, may you find all you expect in the book, but do not forget you must read it from cover to cover. Only then will you discover the real truth about your Life and what it holds for you.”

It was then that Mr. Judge handed the book to Nick and disappeared. Not really disappeared, but it was a very misty Autumn day and a cloud of mist seemed to suddenly engulf Mr. Judge.

That evening Nick started reading the book, thinking not all at once, but when he had time. Mr. Judge could not know how he was reading the book, he had gone.

It soon happened that Nick got very much engulfed in the book. It was about his life and then came a chapter “The Future”. Time was passing. He had been reading for many hours, the clock struck twelve, midnight and Nick closed the book. He had finished reading. He made his way to his bedroom. He approached his cupboard and took out a leather case at the bottom of the cupboard, opened it and took its contents in his hand. It was a revolver fully loaded.

He released the catch, placed the gun to the side of his head and pulled the trigger.

Life Goes On

Despite all this football that seems to be taking up most of my life in the evenings at the moment, I have been a bit absent in the blog section so can now perhaps do a bit of catching up.

I am at the moment not a working woman but a recovering woman. After a breakdown last week, I am off work until the summer holidays and afterwards on 50%. I have the "burn out" syndrome and would not recommend it to anyone. At the moment I am trying to come to grips with my situation. You don't notice it coming, but probably others do. I feel like one of my cats at the moment, sleeping at every possible opportunity.

However, I have my camera, my computer and can take it easy at home and according to doctor's orders I should get out and about and not retire between my four walls. I even think the football helps me to take my mind off things in the evening.

I noticed in town that at the moment it is our so-called May market. I avoid such things myself, not really enjoying crowds of merry makers with their children, but I happened to be there during a week-day when things were quiet so took a couple of photos.

Otherwise the weather is not showing itself from the best side lately - Rainy and miserable.

I heard today that the complete lawn on the football pitch in our town of Basel is being replaced express. There was a cloudburst last week at one of the matches and the footballers played on with the result that the complete lawn was kaput afterwards. The lawn is being imported in a semi frozen state from Austria and will be layed in time for the next game. We had our lawn replaced in our garden something like that, but it was done by the local gardner in four hours and was nice and fresh.

And now to watch the Teutonic war against Austria this evening. As a Swiss I supposed I should support Germany, after all Gessler was an Austrian and he tried to kill William Tell. Let's see what happens.

Coughing the day away

Do you ever have those nights when you don’t sleep so well. You have a shoulder that hurts every time you move your arm, most of the night is spent coughing and sneezing and on top of all you have to crawl out of the bed in the morning at 06.00 to make sure you are at work by 07.15. I had to see the specialist at the hospital at 08.00, so I brought my son to work at 07.00, went back home for a shower and then drove off to the hospital. Luckily the roads were ok, although since early in the morning we had heard horror stories about icy roads and one accident after the other, one person being killed. Yes Switzerland might be the fairy tale country of mountains, snow and winter sports but it has the other side where the cold temperatures take over and you just don’t know what to expect when you go out in the morning.

The doc at the hospital asked how do you feel, which is a stupid question really, I mean that’s his job to find out how I feel. I did tell him that I had a cough, a cold and felt like I was on death’s door (well not the bit about death’s door, I mean I felt like it, but didn’t tell him in case he wanted to keep me in). He reassured me that everything was ok, so all I have to do now is to get the bill paid by the insurance - no problem, but the bill will probably be over one thousand francs, and I have to pay 10% myself.

Afterwards I made my way to work, as I got there a bit later my first action was to make a cup of coffee to give me a homely feeling. I then had a nice surprise which put my trust back into the human race. From a company I have to do a lot of work for somewhere in Bavaria, I got a new years present – bottle of wine and DVD with a nice colourful calendar. Well that doesn’t happen every day. Otherwise it was a busy day, but spurred on by the thought that I only have two years, eleven months and two weeks, I got through things as usual.

When I arrived home my three cats all ran to meet me purring loudly. Well not really, but it sounds good. They were all sleeping in three different places. And now for a quiet evening watching tv – a German police thriller and afterwards the daily 30 minutes on the BBC of The Eastenders which is quite full of suspense at the moment. Shirley found out that Vinnie has a daughter and that the car he had actually belonged to someone else. Since Tanya found out that Max had had an affair with his teenage daughter in law, she threw him out. Good luck to her, but a couple of weeks before Max delivered him and Tanya’s third child in the living room as the ambulance didn’t arrive on time. These things never seem to happen in real life.

So I am now off for an evenings tv and probably will cough my way through another night.

Back to work

Since 3rd January I have been back at work after almost two weeks holiday. Was I looking forward to getting back to the old routine - no, not really, absolutely not, I did not want to go back to work. Although we were suffering a bit from overcrowding at home due to the fact that No. 2 son was at home, I still enjoyed the days at home. Although No. 2 son was more saying goodbye and hello when he was at home, catching up on his friends and his billiard talents in the local hall. He is here until Sunday. Mr. Swiss is retired, No. 1 son also had a holiday, so it was Mrs. Anglo Swiss that was off to work. One advantage was that No. 1 son still had his holiday so I did not have to play chauffeur in the morning and I did stay a bit longer in the feathers.

I eventually arrived at work, tired but no so happy. There were still a few people who had taken the remainder of the week off, but we were enough to carry on the good work. Unfortunately if you work in export there are some countries that do not recognise Christmas and even have their new year a couple of weeks later, meaning that whilst we were celebrating, eating drinking and making the most of things, those countries were hard at work and couldn't wait for the machinery to start churning in our company and deliver some goods. I was actually hoping that there had perhaps been a flood in the company, an electric breakdown, or perhaps an enormous virus had attacked the computer laying it lame for the next month. No such luck, everything was up and running perfectly. I was running more or less perfectly and so was our coffee machine, thank goodness.

I was not sorry when the lunch break arrived as I was off to the local supermarket hunting for some food. Luckily the weather remained more or less under control, no snow, although it was cold and let's face it you don't get a view like this from every car park belonging to a shopping centre.

After filling the car boot with some trophies I made my way back to work. This afternoon, Friday, was a nice feeling knowing that at the end of the afternoon I had my freedom once again for the next two days. Things were fairly quiet at work and we managed to get everything done. Towards evening when I looked out of the window I noticed that nature was again playing one of its tricks on us and organised a nice sunset. Having my camera with me I naturally chose to take advantage of the situation, not heeding the remarks from my boss about I should have been a papparazzi photographer. My colleague opened the window and here is one of the results, although he said I should hurry up as it was getting cold.

As can be seen, we are situated in an industrial area and the railway lines from Zürich to Geneva pass by. The Swiss like to keep all the industry together, it doesn't spoil the perfect Swiss picture that way.

And that was more or less the start to "normal" life. We had one little bit of excitement this evening when someone (not me) managed to empty a full mug of coffee over the table in the living room - but the situation was soon brought under control with a few Swiss German words that I will not repeat and a roll of kitchen paper.

And now back to something normal (this evening's tv programme - again an episode of my favourite soap, the East Enders - thank goodness for cable tv, or satellite or whatever, we get 3 BBC programmes).