In recent years, we have all become conscious of the hidden army of people known as ‘carers’ (‘caregivers’ in the US).

These are the people who look after a frail (or confused) family member or friend. They may be daughters (or sons) looking after an elderly parent or, perhaps, a sibling. Or they may be spouses looking after one another.

Parents of disabled children are also described in this light. These are frequently older women, but they can be of any age or either gender. Even children under 18 sometimes find themselves in this role.

You may well know someone in this circumstance, or it may be you. We all feel for them, as caregiving is a difficult situation. It can take over one’s entire life, especially if the carer is living with the person they care for and get little respite.

The carer I knew best

I became aware of the existence of carers when I was relatively young, because my husband’s favourite aunt was one. She had found herself in the traditional role (in England) of the youngest daughter who never married but stayed home to look after her increasingly frail mother.

She was not relieved of those responsibilities until her mother died, when she was already in her late 40s and rather worn down.

In her case, perhaps unusually, she blossomed soon after. She married a very nice older widower and began to substitute regular visits to church to equally regular visits to the pub.

They moved to a new house and she had a good life for many years until he suffered a stroke and she became a carer all over again.

Semi-carers

But there is another category of people who are not the principal carer and so are almost completely overlooked – namely, what I would call ‘semi-’ or ‘supplementary’ carers. These are an even larger group of people whose lives are affected by someone who is physically or mentally ill or disabled.

Despite my familiarity with the pressures of being a principal carer, it never occurred to me that many other people can also be caught up in the web created by illness and disability.

This awakening came when my daughter-in-law was diagnosed with cancer not long after her baby son was born. (I hasten to say she is fine now.)

Of course, my son had to take on all sorts of responsibilities not normally expected of a young husband and father. But so, too, did many other family members.

My husband and I became very active baby-sitters and general helpers-out. We set up our house with all the accoutrements of babyhood – baby bed, highchair, baby clothes and so forth, so that he could come to us on short notice.

It was tiring and affected all sorts of decisions, such as whether to travel far from home. When I mentioned it to my doctor, he said immediately, “Yes, cancer affects the whole family – that is well known.”

In retrospect, it was not difficult to provide the help that we did, but it was difficult never knowing when we could be needed. Whatever our plans for the day, a phone call could arrive at any time asking us to come now. Your own life gets put slightly ’on hold’.

Indeed, I am not asking for sympathy, as being required to help to look after a small baby is a mixed blessing. Yes, it put pressures on us that had not existed before, but it also brought the pleasures of caring for a baby again. And it made us much closer to that grandchild, which has lasted over the years.

The wide impact of illness

But my experience made me stop and think about how many people are so affected. Not simply by cancer, but by any form of long-lasting illness or disability.

Perhaps there is a need to provide food for a family, where the mother can no longer cook, or take on the role of driving the ill person to hospital appointments.

There can be a need to keep the household going in all sorts of ways, such as general provisioning or sorting out bills. Not to mention helping with the children, including the simple problem of getting them to school.

There is no ‘system’ to sort out these issues. Some countries provide more state help than others, such as paid carers who come in to help with washing and dressing. But when you remove one person from the equation of running a family, you immediately set up needs for all kinds of help.

Older women

In these situations, there are always some family members (or friends) who are more willing to step in to help than others. Indeed, it is common for people to assume that where someone competent is on the case, there is no need to offer more help.

This, of course, puts more pressure on those who are willing to help and can be the source of considerable family tensions.

And it is often we, older women, who find ourselves doing what we can. Perhaps it is because we have more time and fewer responsibilities of our own, especially if our children are grown up and we are no longer working.

But what starts as ‘just helping out a bit’ can easily escalate into doing more and more. And we do have other things we want to do.

Does this all sound familiar? If you had such a request, are you someone who says, “Yes, of course,” without even thinking about it? These are fundamental issues, concerning how we feel about ourselves and our role in our families.

Semi-carers are not put upon in heavy ways. It is just normal, day-to-day activities that need to be factored into whatever plans there were before.

I would not go so far as to say they deserve some form of recognition, but if you have friends in this circumstance, I would urge you to acknowledge their contribution.

A version of this article can be found in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on growing older (see getbook.at/Stands-on-Head)

It was first published on SixtyandMe.com

People everywhere are fascinated by sex. I am not the first to say so. We wonder what other people do and when and what it means to them. And some wonder how long it continues.

When I was in my 20s, I naively thought that sex was only for the young. It simply did not occur to me that people over 40 continued with such activities.

This was nothing to do with any connection to child-bearing, but simply to the assumption that only the young had an appetite for – or interest in – sexual relationships.

As we age, we learn more – about this as well as everything else. There is, of course, much more research now.

Surveys will tell you about the extent of sexual activity at different ages. But few of these involve people over 70. And we are often reluctant to raise the issue with people we know.

The story of my parents

Of all the stories I tell about my family, the one which always gains immediate attention is one about my father.

My parents lived in an independent apartment in a retirement community in central Pennsylvania. They moved in when they were both roughly 80 and died within three months of each other, 10 years later. That was nearly 20 years ago.

After about five years, my mother developed vascular dementia. This is, of course, every married person’s worst fear. The husband or wife is no longer what they once were, but you are still married. And it is harder and harder to cope with the sheer physical demands.

My mother remained in the family apartment for well over a year, with a caretaker having been hired to help with her daily needs.

But eventually, it was too much for my father to manage and it was agreed that she would move to the Assisted Living section of the community. She was looked after, but he could pop in several times a day to see her.

He rarely complained, at least to me. It was just something that had happened.

An affair begins at 90

In the meantime, his eyesight had worsened, and he was losing one of his great pleasures – reading. He listened to a lot of audiobooks (and complained that there was no easy way to find the place where you fell asleep).

He had a friend, a somewhat younger woman, who came in to read to him. He was terribly pleased about this and talked about it – and her – quite frequently in our regular phone calls.

I should have seen it coming. When a man starts mentioning a woman (or vice versa) quite often, it tends to mean that something more than friendship is involved. But it just didn’t occur to me.

My daughter suggested that it was a possibility and I thought, no, that is unlikely. Not because the thought upset me, but they just seemed too old.

I went to visit around the time of his 90^th birthday, when we were holding a party for him. Soon after I arrived, he sat down and clearly wanted to communicate something to me.

He had never sought very intimate discussions, but this time was different. He mentioned the name of the woman, who I had not yet met, and said he wanted me to know that they had become ‘an item’. I remember thinking the word was odd.

He was very clear. This was not ‘simply kissing and cuddling’, it was the real thing. Indeed, he said his doctor thought it was terrific for his health. There was no mention of love, but that did not seem important. The key thing was that he was happy. And he was. He was then 90 and she was 83.

I was surprised, but also delighted. Whatever my views about fidelity in marriage, they do not extend to the time when one partner is effectively no longer there. I made this very clear and could see him visibly relax.

He had wanted me to know but had been frightened of my reaction. He said his worst fear was that some other resident would tell my mother, but it did not look like that had happened. He still continued to visit her as before.

My father and his lady friend never moved in together, although perhaps they stayed in each other’s apartments when I was not there. I did not press for such details.

She continued to be a regular presence in his life until he died. Indeed, the night he died, she went to the hospital and sat with his body for a long time.

When do people stop having sex?

I don’t know when – and if – people stop having sex. I suspect there is a lot of it about. Certainly, in the retirement community, it was common for couples to spring up quite quickly after the death of a partner.

But I do know about my father. And when I tell this story, I have never heard a reaction other than “what a wonderful story” or “so, there’s hope then”. I’m sure he would be delighted for you to know.

A version of this article can be found in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on growing older (see getbook.at/Stands-on-Head)

It was first published on SixtyandMe.com

We all have watershed moments in the course of our lives. Days when, from then on, things become notably different. The day you left home, the day you got married (or moved in together), the day you had your first child – all days signifying something important, and probably good, was happening in your life.

Most of us have also experienced watershed moments that signified a loss. The day a relationship finally came to an end. The move to a new and less desirable house. The death of a friend or – more so – a spouse.

Out of curiosity, I looked up the genesis of the word ‘watershed’. It seems that it was originally a geographical term for a place where water coming off a mountain divided into two separate rivers, in other words, a turning point.

And that is exactly what it feels like, when your life is either enhanced or diminished by some change.

A grandson in our lives

My husband and I have been very close to one of our two grandsons by the accident of circumstances. His mother was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer when he was eight months old, her husband (my son) was trying to complete a Ph.D., and they needed a lot of help – and fast. (She eventually recovered, I am happy to say, and is now cancer-free.)

We cobbled together a number of people to look after the baby, including the other grandmother who came from the US for the purpose, two outsiders and myself. And, somehow, we dealt with his various needs for the next months and more.

My husband and I bought a baby bed, a highchair, a pile of nappies (diapers) and all the accoutrements of babyhood so that he could come to our house on short notice. Which he did perhaps once a week or so. Sometimes more.

As he grew into a toddler and small child, our house was constantly responding to his changing needs, but it was always ready for a visit. The baby clothes became children’s clothes. We always had his favourite food of the moment.

His presence was the norm

My son’s old room became the grandson’s room and even my son’s place at our dining room table became his place. His little slippers were always in our front hall.

He felt completely at home in our house.

And then when he was six, his parents decided that the best primary school for his needs was one that was a ten-minute walk from our house (and 45 minutes by bus from their flat). To make their lives easier, we agreed that he could stay over with us on one night a week (and sometimes more). And we looked after him after school on other days, as needed.

To make a long story short, this child has been part of our day-to-day lives for 11 years. Some of this time was hard work – getting him up for school on days when I dearly wanted to lie in bed, going up the hill to collect him on cold and rainy days, seeing to his needs when I had other more pressing projects and so forth.

But taken as a whole, it has been both fun and deeply fulfilling. He is a very loving child, lively and interesting to talk to and full of opinions.

He has filled our house with his enthusiasms. He has kept us on our toes. And in some strange way, he has kept us young. Grandchildren do.

Our watershed moment

And suddenly, it is coming to an end. Several weeks ago, he finished at the nearby primary school. More drastically, the parents are going to live abroad for a year (with him) for an academic secondment. They leave shortly.

This lively grandson will no longer be coming to our house every week. Indeed, he won’t be coming at all for a year. His slippers are no longer in our front hall.

This is sadness enough.

But I realised that when they return, life will not go back to the old arrangements. The by-then adolescent will go to a local secondary school, where he will undoubtedly get caught up with friends, after-school activities and homework – all in his local area.

He will come to see us from time to time, of course, but he will no longer have that easy relationship that comes from seeing each other several times a week. We may feel close – I certainly hope that we do – but it won’t be in the same quotidian way.

I must quickly add that this is all right and good for him. Living abroad will be a terrific experience. He needs to grow up and find his own way. It was bound to happen.

But it is definitely a watershed moment for us. I watched him being driven home from our house for the last time in a while, smiling in the back seat of the car.

There was more than a slight lump in my throat.

This article was first published by Sixtyandme.com (see https://sixtyandme.com/watershed-moments/)

A lot of people, I find, have a close friend who does not make sense. Someone who just doesn’t ‘fit’ with other aspects of their life, and no one from outside can quite understand why they are friends at all.

Such friendships can be especially meaningful and sometimes surprising. Often, these are started at school, where the personalities of those involved were unformed and their subsequent life trajectories very different.

My young friend

My friend of this type was a young man with not long to live. I met him through work when I was close to 50 and he was just under 30. He was German, I was American, both living in London, although we first met at a conference in Belgium.

More significantly, he was a gay man, and I was a married woman with two children. He had grown up poor in a mining town in Germany and had taken up nursing when he left school at 16 because the only real alternative was becoming a miner. I came from a professional family in New York and had three degrees.

And he had been living with AIDS for five years, whereas I knew nothing about the disease. He was, indeed, highly active in the HIV/AIDS community, seen as something of a leader amongst them. I liked to keep to myself and never led anybody anywhere.

What did we see in each other?

I saw a very bright, sensitive but troubled man, who liked to reflect on deeper issues. I guess he saw some of the same qualities in me, although I never asked him. We certainly had similar temperaments, mixing reflectiveness with a sense of humour.

He also liked to challenge himself and those around him – and I found that a very inspiring (and somehow intimate) quality.

I also learned that his mother had died when he was 18 months old, and he claimed he had been looking for her (in some unspecified way) all his life. He was friends with a number of older women, of whom I was one. None of us knew each other.

Doing things together

We used to meet fairly often, mostly for lunch, although he did come to my house on several occasions.

At one lunch, we first planned what was to become a joint book based on interviews with people with AIDS and HIV, taking place at an international conference he was organising.

As is the case with Covid-19 today, the world was awash with statistics regarding the numbers diagnosed, but I was unaware of many personal stories. I knew that these can have a bigger impact on people than statistics. This strengthened our friendship and proved an important milestone for me in creating books based around interviews.

A special lunch

And there was a particularly poignant lunch. Towards the end of his life, he was in and out of hospital with various ailments and I would visit him there. On one occasion, he said, I thought jokingly, “Let’s have lunch next week.” I said sure, with a smile. But he meant it. And told me so.

The following week, I turned up at the hospital, finding him very frail and attached to a drip, but in his street clothes. It did not seem remotely feasible to take him outside, but he said he had cleared the venture with the staff.

We chatted for a bit and then, being a trained nurse, he unplugged himself from the drip and said, grinning, “Let’s go.”

It was a beautiful October day, sunny and crisp. There was a good restaurant nearby, and we headed toward it very slowly.

He was incredibly exuberant about the beauty of the day, conveying to me that feeling for ordinary life that can only come to someone long confined to a hospital bed. Some people stared – he was covered in Kaposi’s Sarcoma lesions – but he carried on with dignity.

We ordered lunch and talked about all sorts of things of no great importance. I remember him exclaiming at the presentation of the food – and eating much of it, although his hunger was necessarily limited. I simply marvelled that we were there at all.

And when we had finished, we walked slowly, and somewhat sadly, back to the hospital, where he climbed onto his bed and re-attached his drip.

His death

He died about two months later. I sat with him for a long time on the day he died, although I went home and was replaced by another female friend by the time he died.

A few months later, yet another older female friend and I scattered his ashes in the sea outside of Brighton, as had been his wish. We watched the carnations she had bought float slowly away, went for a brief tea and headed home full of unspoken thoughts.

I will never forget either day.

As winter slowly turns into spring, most people turn their thoughts to warmer weather, flowers in the park and, probably, the birds and the bees. These are all good things to welcome, in my view.

But what I really like in the late spring, right up to the summer solstice (21 June) and beyond, are the long light evenings. Taking a walk when it is officially night-time – 9 p.m., say, but it feels like a slightly odd daytime – is very special. Even better when it is a warm evening.

There is something very soft and peaceful about such an evening. I find it very calming. And it feels like a bonus in your day, a little ‘extra time’ that is not usually available.

Winter nights

Let us go back a step. The opposite of a summer light evening is the winter period around the solstice (21 December) when the nights are long and intrude heavily into the day.

Some people love the winter evenings ‘drawing in’, but not me. I am very, very uncomfortable at this time of year – from mid-November to late January or so in London, where I live.

It can become dark well before 4 o’clock in the afternoon – indeed, at the exact point of the winter solstice, the sun goes down before then and dusk comes even earlier.

Although the streetlights come on, I find it hard to see where I am. Often, the air is murky, which makes it worse. Yet this is a time when we need to be out and about doing things.

I feel disoriented and uneasy. I invariably arrive home in a bad mood.

And I worry especially for those older children who are making their way home in the dark. Many are wearing dark coats and trousers and they are certainly not very visible to drivers when crossing the street at this time.

Summer nights

But let us come back to the late spring and summer, when I can see clearly and have no worries for the safety of children.

The precise length of the day on the summer solstice differs according to where you live, of course. In England (which is further north than many people think), the days can be very long.

In London, my research tells me, the sun rises at roughly 4.40 a.m. and sets at roughly 9.20 p.m. at the height of the solstice, but of course, it can remain light for much longer. Even at 10.00 p.m., the sky is not completely dark.

In New York, to give one comparison, the sun rises almost an hour later and sets nearly an hour earlier. This gives New Yorkers a long day as well, but not as long.

But the real point here is that it is lovely for all of us. If the day has been hot, you can go for a walk in the gentle air of the evening. Or you can sit in the garden with friends. Or the park.

The atmosphere is completely different from that of the day. It is evening but not evening. I find it magical.

Light mornings

Those readers who were watching carefully – or who, like me, don’t sleep well through the night – may note that another effect of the summer solstice is a lot of very early light.

In London, you can wake up to sunshine well before 5 o’clock. This can be a problem if you need darkness to sleep.

But for me, it is a small price to pay for the long languorous evenings. I consider that to be our prize for putting up with the winter darkness.

Sun standing still

The word solstice means the sun standing still in Latin. It seems like a small pause before the change of the sun’s seasonal movement.

That makes sense to me. And it is a time when we can all stand still and ponder.

By the time you are in your mid-70s and there has been no major health crisis, you know you have been lucky. If you have a spouse (or partner) and ‘you’ means both of you, you know you have been doubly lucky.

Now aged 79 and my husband aged 80, I have been saying to friends for a few years that we can reasonably expect a metaphorical block of concrete to fall on our heads at any time. No certainty of when or where, but it is definitely getting more possible.

Cancer? Heart attack? A nasty fall? Or, worse, some form of dementia?

Our own form of bad luck

And then that block did fall.

A few weeks ago, on Easter Friday evening, we were chatting about nothing in particular when my husband said that his eyes were blurry. It had just happened, there were no other symptoms, but it didn’t feel right.

Phone calls to a medical helpline and to an optometrist friend both elicited the suggestion he should get to an eye doctor. Both suggested a particular eye hospital, but neither hinted of any emergency.

The following day, Easter Saturday, not much was open. Even in the great metropolis that is London. Not our own GP surgery. Not the recommended eye hospital. The local optician had no appointments, but there was no eye doctor there in any case.

In brief, we went early to the best-known eye hospital in London, where a perceptive doctor feared it might be a stroke. To my eternal gratitude, with persistence, he obtained a referral to an excellent stroke unit in a convenient hospital.

We learned then that my husband had had a haemorrhagic stroke, resulting in an eye condition called a homonymous hemianopia (hemianopsia in the US). Difficult to spell h’s seemed to be part of the condition.

He stayed in the hospital for two nights (it should have been more, but he managed to talk himself home on the grounds that he would recover quicker with good sleep and good food – and perhaps they needed the bed).

Aftercare

The aftercare from the National Health Service (NHS) was brilliant. The day after my husband arrived home, an occupational therapist visited him at home to assess his needs and provide advice.

The stroke doctor phoned twice within the first two weeks, a senior stroke nurse phoned once to provide a helpline number and the senior doctor from the eye hospital also phoned to say they would be in touch when his eyes had settled down.

As for the patient, he was left very tired and with no disability except to his eyes. Indeed, after a few days, it was clear that he could read a newspaper slowly, go for walks and do most things. He could watch television, but with occasional difficulty (for instance, at times he couldn’t see the football in a televised match, depending on the camera angle).

But he is an avid reader, and it is likely he will be unable to read books because the slow reading means he cannot absorb the rhythm and meaning of such prose. Yes, there are audio books, but they are not the same at all.

Reaction to misfortune

But all of the above is a preamble to what I most wanted to write about, namely our reaction to the situation, particularly my own. You never know until it happens.

OK, a block of concrete had fallen. Yes, this was likely to change the texture of my husband’s life and therefore my own. It could, indeed, shorten his life span. We were told his eyesight might improve, but it was not likely to.

Many people become frustrated and angry in this kind of situation and I was, indeed, warned that he might undergo a personality change. That was the most terrifying suggestion of the whole experience.

But he is a calm and patient man and has never expressed any frustration at all. “It is what it is,” he says, “I will learn to deal with it.” He has a wicked sense of humour and it has not disappeared, thank goodness.

I went into a period of suspended emotion – not cross, not relieved, just holding in there. Part of me certainly wanted to fall apart. To rant that this had happened and was in some way unfair. Only I knew it wasn’t ‘unfair’ because fairness has nothing to do with these events.

And my strongest reaction was that he – and therefore I – had been lucky. He could have been permanently disabled. He could have lost his speech. He could have died. But all he had was a loss of some sight.

He had got off lightly, dodged the bullet, take your metaphor of choice.

At some point, roughly two weeks after the event, I did break down and have a short but powerful weep following an exploration of whether this shortened his expected life span. A terrifying chasm opened up just briefly – enough to peer over the edge – and then closed again.

I think the psyche knows exactly how much pain you can take ­­– and when – and doles it out appropriately. I went back to a sense of calm.

The man down the road

I think it is quite a common reaction to disasters of whatever kind to decide that you have essentially been lucky, that there is someone worse off than you.

Years ago, my husband’s late aunt, then widowed and in her late 70s, was flooded out of her much-loved bungalow by a major flood in North Wales.

Because of sanitation issues, she was required to live in a caravan next to her house for months while the authorities slowly cleaned up the numerous houses similarly affected. It was cramped, there were limited cooking and washing facilities and was clearly not the way she wanted to live.

Did she complain?

No, she told us she felt sorry for the man down the road, who was in the same situation but with a heart condition. “It must be really hard for him,” she noted.

I thought then – and I still think now – that there is always ‘a man down the road’. Someone worse off. Makes us appreciate what we have.

The future

We will continue to wait to see if there is improvement. We will wait to see what resources are available for the condition.

And, in the meantime, that block of concrete can still come – cancer, heart attack, a nasty fall, or, worse, some form of dementia.

You just never know.

A version of this article has been published in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on Growing Older

When you were younger but already adult, your parents most likely helped you in every way they could. Not everyone has such help, but a huge number of us do. And perhaps your grandparents did the same.

Maybe it was financial help. They gave you a down payment for a mortgage or helped with all those extras, like music lessons and school trips. Or college expenses for older children.

Or perhaps they offered a lot of useful advice about coping with different aspects of life. We all need that from time to time.

Or maybe they offered help looking after your children when you were at work, either on a regular basis or on occasion. Grandparents have always done a lot of such childcare.

They gave what they could – their financial resources their wisdom, their time.

Now you find yourself helping your children or grandchildren in much the same way.

What is going on?

Serial reciprocity

Years ago, I carried out research on the nature of patient support groups, then often called ‘self-help’ groups. These are sometimes very small local groups of people with a common condition, such as breast cancer or being widowed young.

Or they might be branches of much larger national organisations, such as for people with disabled children or people suffering from arthritis.

I carried out a survey of members of some groups about how much people participated in their activities and why. I also visited a lot of groups and met their committee members. Most of all, I was interested in what people gained from them and what made the groups work.

It seemed to me that members of such support groups were essentially involved in a form of reciprocity, but not of the normal kind. When you ask a neighbour if you can borrow a cup of sugar, she may well have already borrowed some milk from you on an earlier occasion. This is direct reciprocation – you helped her and she now helps you.

But when you, as a long-standing member of a support group, give a new member advice about how to cope with a problem, it is unlikely that she has already helped you. She is new and bewildered and in need of help.

But another member of that group may well have helped you on an earlier occasion, when you were equally in need. You are grateful and want to give back to others in response.

What is going on here is what I called ‘serial reciprocity’. You give back to a new person because you have already been helped. Your motivation is to reciprocate or give back to others in thanks for the help you received.

Neither of you may think about it in this way, but it is often an underlying motivation.

It can go on and on, as members come and go. The eagerness to reciprocate goes on in a serial fashion. Help begets help.

Families

And this is exactly what goes on in families. The help you received from an earlier generation makes you want to give help back to the next generation.

Again, this may be financial help (‘the bank of mum and dad’) to help with all sorts of expenses of young couples. Or it may be advice, based on your experience. Or it may be your time, collecting grandchildren from school and the like.

And your children will do the same for their children and grandchildren.

Love

Of course, you can also say it is ‘love’ that makes you want to help your adult children and nothing to do with reciprocity. And that may be so.

But I think people are programmed to try to pay back for help received.

And who better to pay ‘back’ than members of your own family.

It is part of the circle of life.

Years ago, I coined the term ‘cheap luxury’ in my household, but I think it is a good time to spread it around. See if you think it has meaning for you.

The term first arose, if I am not mistaken, over a jar of mustard. We were in a supermarket deciding what to buy and confronted a shelf full of mustards. Some were much more expensive than others and we were not very well off, but we had some small room for manoeuvre.

How to choose? Leaving aside the type of mustard (French, German, English, with seeds etc), there was also the question of cost. If my budget had been extremely tight, I would have gone for the cheapest, no doubt about it. In contrast, those who have no budget constraints and always want the best would choose the most expensive.

We discussed it and thought the most expensive was also notably better, I forget the reasons, and decided to buy it.  Why? Because it was basically a cheap luxury. And then I began to think about it.

What makes for a cheap luxury?

Most of us like to feel cossetted now and again. We can’t afford it most of the time. But my great ‘discovery’ was that we could afford it when the overall cost was low.

The difference between the cheapest brand of mustard and the most expensive was large in relative terms, but altogether small in the scale of things.

Perhaps this is obvious. But how many people really go for it?

A little luxury now and again does us good. We feel pampered and, for no good reason, more loved. We luxuriate in it. So, my argument was, why not indulge in a cheap luxury when it is something you really appreciate? It won’t break the bank.

Examples of cheap luxuries

There are numerous examples of cheap luxuries, some of which most of us do without even thinking about it.

I love lying in a hot bubble bath, for instance, soaking up the heat. It eases the muscles and relaxes the whole body. As the water cools, I will often let a little out and add more hot water. I know this is not costless, but I do it nonetheless. It is a cheap luxury.

Thinking of baths, have you ever considered your bath soap? Most people, as far as I know, buy ordinary bath soap for themselves but choose expensive brands as gifts for friends and family for Christmas or birthdays.

But we decided long ago to buy the good soap for ourselves for regular use – not even keeping it for special occasions. The cost is low, and it just feels nice.

I could go on and on. So many foods and ordinary household products fall into the category of cheap luxuries, depending on your interests and tastes. So, too, do small items of clothing, such as the not-most-expensive silk underwear.

Expensive luxuries

Lest anyone think I am advocating always buying at the high end, let me stress this is not remotely the case.

A new sports car – or even many ‘another’ car – is not a cheap luxury. It is an expensive one, as it will cost a lot of money. Hugely more than a simple car to get you around. Your bank balance will really notice.

I haven’t owned any car for years and when we did, it was a VW beetle. But I would never buy an expensive car now.

First class train or air tickets fall in the same category. You can’t even argue that they will get you to your destination any faster. Good luck to those who can afford to pay for them without holding back on other expenditure. But you know you are forking out sizeable amounts.

The same is true for hotels. You recognise the luxury and perhaps even decide to go for it, but you need to know what you are doing. In these days of inexpensive B&Bs, or even air B&Bs providing more space, luxury hotels are there for people who are not worried about cost.

None of us are going anywhere at the moment, but we will soon. I never travel first class, as it is a high price to pay for peace and quiet. And I have never liked the expensive hotels I have stayed in, as they tend to lack a human touch.

So I am not into expensive stuff – just cheap luxury.

Indulge yourself

I am not generally one to tell other people how to spend their money. We all have different interests and financial situations, and it is up to each of us. But if you do not do so already, think about splashing out on a nice bar of soap for yourself (or the equivalent).

You will get more than your money’s worth in the sense of luxury it brings.

This was first published on Sixtyandme.com

I cannot keep my secret quiet any longer. I have suffered in silence for years. Only my closest friends know the situation and they tend to sympathise. It’s not really my fault, BUT I really hate shopping. I always have.

The problem

Let’s try to ‘unpack’ this little problem. Perhaps I had a bad experience in the past. Perhaps if I were to be given the right sort of aversion therapy (or is it the opposite?), I might learn to love shopping.

I doubt it. There is very little I could learn to like.

First and foremost, I am not very acquisitive. I don’t much like ‘things’. A new dress rarely cheers me up. Nor does finding just the right vase or tablecloth.

I might make an exception for a new book I look forward to reading, but there aren’t many such exceptions.

Secondly, I am really uncomfortable in crowds. I try to find times to shop when the crowds will be small, but it is difficult. Many shops are quiet first thing in the morning, but if it requires public transport to get there, you are stuck in any case.

As you can imagine, I would never shop in a sale – people struggling to get into the front in order to acquire that one thing specially on sale is my idea of sheer hell.

Thirdly, I can’t bear the whole process of trudging from shop to shop to find the right thing. I find it incredibly dispiriting. Leaving aside food shopping, I have never found one store – yes, even a large department store – which sold exactly what I wanted in every department.

Too much choice

And finally, I hate being given too much choice. I can stand for what feels like hours in front of a shelf full of breakfast cereals, feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.

Yes, I will often fall down this line of thought… Maybe I should try that one with the little bits of fruit, but no, would I be better off with something with bran? Does it have too much hidden sugar? Or salt? Is this one over-priced because it has a child’s gift inside?

Point a gun and tell me what to choose and I would be much happier.

I am certainly no better with house furnishings. However much I try to prepare for such decisions, I am constantly worrying that something is the wrong size or the wrong colour for everything else in that room. I have no ability to visualise it.  It makes me feel incompetent. Not recommended.

And it is much worse with clothes. I am an awkward size (too short, hips too big), but then everyone I know says they think they are an awkward size. No problem if you enjoy the process anyway, but in my case it is a nightmare.

I dislike the whole rigamarole of trying things on – not because of the slim young things in the dressing room – but simply because I have never been very good at getting dressed and undressed.

And then you are back to the problem of choice. Well, it doesn’t fit perfectly, but then nothing ever does, so do I choose the slightly tight waist or the awkward fit over the shoulders?

Do I really need this garment anyway?

Mail order

So, you might argue – if you hate shopping, why not go the mail order route? It is so easy in this day and age.

Yes, I do a lot of shopping via mail order. I have learned, over time, which companies sell trousers that actually fit and which catalogues’ pictures are reasonably accurate. Some companies have very helpful staff who will discuss details like the ‘feel’ of a garment. Much welcomed by me.

It is a bit of a nuisance when you need to send things back, but they are making the packaging much more suitable for this purpose. And at least the line in the post office is not much longer than the line in the store you would have experienced if you had bought the item in a store in the first place.

The test I can’t pass

Shopping feels like a kind of test that I am always failing. Either I come back with nothing – and everyone says “What? You couldn’t find anything you liked?” Or I come home with something and they say “What? You chose that?”

I hate shopping. I’m afraid the feeling will stay with me until the en

A version of this article has been published in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on Growing Older

This was initially published by Sixtyandme.com. 

It is a common practice to divide the world into two types of people. Extroverts and introverts. Meat eaters and vegetarians. In England, Marmite lovers and haters. My distinction for today is between those who love to laze around and do nothing and those who are happiest when they are doing something useful. Popular culture would have us believe that the former is the norm, that we are all waiting for the summer holidays so that we can lie on a beach. Anything connected to ‘work’ is to be avoided as much as possible.

I am not so sure. I know a lot of the latter type of people. And I am certainly one of them.

Being Useful

I have always been driven by the desire to be doing something – and, preferably, something of value to someone.  Doing nothing can certainly be pleasurable for a while. But its main use is to ensure that your brain or body is well rested, so that you will be firing on all cylinders when you return to purposeful activity. It is not an end in itself.

There are, of course, a myriad of ways to be ‘useful’. You may be a carer (caretaker) for someone and need to engage in a whole range of activities to meet their needs. You may like building things from scratch or taking them apart in order to understand them. You may simply want to get things done around the house – clean out that cupboard or make those new curtains.

Alternatively, like me, you may like to engage in creative activity, whether writing books or painting pictures or inventing new recipes in the kitchen. And much, much more.

You may or may not do these things well. You may or may not be satisfied with the result. But the key point is that the activity is important to you and helps you to feel that your time was well spent. You would rather do them than laze around.

Nature or Nurture

What makes us so clearly one way or the other? I was brought up by a mother with a ferocious work ethic. She was in any case unusual in having worked in a professional job while bringing up three children in the 1940s and ‘50s (no surprise now, but then it was distinctly unusual).

She was not keen on ‘relaxation’, although she would read at times and, in the summer, liked to weed her garden for this purpose. Perhaps I get it from her.

If we are in any way moulded by our schooling, then that, too, pushed in the same direction. I went to a very academic girls’ private school in New York City, whose motto was ‘in truth and toil’ and whose mascot was a beaver. Do you detect a strong work ethic here? Perhaps hard work was imprinted onto my brain by a daily dose of ‘toil’.

But I do wonder. If I had been born with a penchant for taking it easy, I might have rebelled heavily against such influences. As I watched my two very different children grow into adults, I increasingly questioned the impact of nurture in comparison to nature.

I think we come out of the womb with a lot of characteristics that we spend a lifetime discovering. But they were there, just as much as the tilt of our nose or the colour of our hair.

Getting Tired

But returning to the matter at hand, one sad discovery about growing older is that we tend to get tired more easily. We lose the resilience we had when younger and our batteries run down faster and faster.

This starts at different ages for different people but seems to creep up on us when we are not looking. As far as I can see, it increases slowly each year and greatly diminishes our energy for getting things done.

For those of us with an eagerness to be engaged in positive activity, this lack of energy is incredibly annoying. It means we cannot work for long periods without becoming tired. And the definition of that ‘long period’ slowly shortens from a day to half a day to even an hour.

Your body becomes a battleground – your head wants to get something done, but your body rebels. That old saying, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” comes into play.

At the end of a day, you find yourself disappointed with the paltry amount accomplished. You had such great plans, but you got little or nothing done.

It is not so different from the lockdowns we have suffered in the UK and others have done elsewhere. They are a kind of imprisonment where we cannot do what we want, what one grandson called ‘a kind of house arrest’.

A lack of energy is exactly the same.

A version of this article has been published in my book, The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on Growing Older