Sweet Mystery of Life….

Sweet Mystery of Life at last I’ve found you.   Oh no, I haven’t, quite the contrary – the mystery seems to deepen on a daily basis.  But who could possibly have found the mystery of life?  Stephen Hawkings?  Einstein?  I don’t even understand how electricity works.   Why doesn’t it leak out of the sockets when there isn’t a plug in them?   As for telephones?   How can we speak to people in China – and often on a better line than when we try to talk to someone in Gloucestershire.   As for flying – I’m not a particularly nervous flyer but a part of me always wonders why gravity doesn’t pull the plane bac k to earth.  

On top of that we are offered so much conflicting advice that it is a miracle any of us make it through the day.   And what is more that advice keeps on changing.   I have just been listening to a programme on Radio 4 about the start of life talking about the evils of smoking and drinking during pregnancy.   Whilst we weren’t exactly encouraged to smoke whilst pregnant people wouldn’t have said anything if they saw us smoking and as for drink, in my mother’s generation they were actively encouraged to drink stout while they were expecting.   What has happened to stout – does it still exist?   Apparently it does – I have just googled it  – stout beer.  The definition of the word ‘stout’ means brave or strong, and the malty dark brew took this name on due to its bold dark taste. Well, who knew – not me.   One day we are told that low fat spreads are the answer and then no sooner have we made the change then the advice comes that butter is better.   Anyone with any sense will ignore most of this advice.   But one piece of advice that I try to follow is for balance.   I can remember teaching my son to stand on one leg when he was little and now I try to do it when I’m cleaning my teeth – although I am slightly nervous that I might fall over and break my hip and it wouldn’t do much for my desire to stay young if I was unable to walk without the aid of a Zimmer frame.

Getting to the end of one’s life makes one (or at least me) more philosophical.   I can’t help wondering how much time I’ve got left.  At the moment, I’m really enjoying the party, but it can’t be too long before people start clearing away the glasses and dimming the lights.   It’s probably time to leave.   These thoughts are not particularly morbid – it has to come to us all and the older we get the more friends we lose.    The answer, we are told, is to take plenty of exercise and get lots of fresh air – and I certainly do that and I was pretty pleased with myself when I managed to climb over a five barred gate the other day – admittedly it probably wasn’t the most graceful activity but I did it.   To stay slim – that is top of the list for 2024 or in my case to get slim.   All my life I have known that if you eat more you put on weight and if you eat less you lose it, so I have no idea why I bemoan the tightness of my clothes whilst rummaging through the ‘fridge in search of some tasty morsel.

Putting on socks has become part of my exercise regime already – I often have to have a rest after I have wrestled my way into them.    Added to that the problem of the little toes.   What age were you when your little toes started to take on a life of their own?   If putting on my socks is hard enough the whole thing is exacerbated when my little toe sticks out and get stuck without any orders from my brain.   And sometimes I’m walking innocently across the room barefoot  – usually when I am on my way to the loo on one of my nightly visits when my little toe finds a piece of furniture to hook itself around.   Oh, the agony and indeed sometimes the blood!

Another protection against old age and in particular dementia is wearing hearing aids, but sometimes mishearing is quite entertaining.  I swear I heard someone talking about ‘training to be a lesbian’ – I have no idea what they were really saying.  But I did find out that the newsreader wasn’t talking about ‘Releasing the prostitutes’ but ‘releasing the hostages’.

No hearing aids in the world can make the BBC and above all Radio 4 any better.   The announcers/presenters all seem to have these very breathy little voices that remind me of David Attenborough talking about the shy little marmoset peeking out from behind the ferns.   It’s fine when he does it about wild animals but why is it necessary on a documentary about Joni Mitchell?   And I find the giggly voice very irritating too – maybe because I am a grumpy old git, but I quite a like a bit of gravitas on the radio.   On the other hand I rather enjoy new language – I probably won’t try to incorporate Rizz into my conversation , although I quite like it – it is derived from charisma, and I think that is rather clever.   Where ‘drip’ comes from I have no idea, but my grandson explained it to me and all I know is that it has nothing to do with what the cold weather does to my nose!   It is wonderful to add to one’s vocabulary but hopefully not to the detriment of words already in use.   I heard a presenter on Radio 4 talking about someone who had found what seemed to be a grenade in their garden but the bomb squad told them it was a Victorian finial – and she had no idea what that word meant!   How depressing that the BBC has sunk so low.   While I was in America last summer I went on a whale watching cruise and it was amazing – we were surrounded by humpback whales and they were awesome – I was filled with awe.   That evening when I placed my order in a local restaurant for dinner the charming young waiter said ‘Awesome’ when I told him I would like my steak rare.  

And so the mystery of life continues to baffle me – and hopefully keep me on my mental toes!