"Only Old On The Outside!"

On the Twentieth-Eighth of October in the Year of Our Lord, Two Thousand and Twenty, I celebrated my seventieth birthday. I woke up with, "Phew! I've made it!" My allocated lifespan is complete, I am content. I feel that if I had died younger,  the cosmos would have cheated me somewhat.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of my goal of living to be 106. This apparently random number, is the result of the calculation that I made that I needed to live to be 106 to get back the seven years worth of monthly contributions I put into an investment plan that pays me twenty pounds a month. I will not go into the ins and outs of my foolishness, time has blunted the edge of my wrath, and left me a lot less inclined to stick around to the over-ripe age of 106, given the state the world is in, and the fact that I do not wish to outlive my friends.

i had a typical coronovirus-aware day. 11am I went to church (Our Lady of Lourdes, Newent) to check the mail, sort out the Track and Trace Register for attendees, open the windows, refill the sanitisers, all the things "who-would have-ever-dreamed-we'd-be-doing-a-year-ago." Mass is at midday, celebrated by Fr Barnabas Page, who could not help himself but inform the gathered faithful that the 28th October as well as being my birthday, is the feast of St Simon and St Jude. You may not be aware that St Jude is the patron saint of hopeless causes ... I dutifully laugh.

After Mass, the privilege of taking Holy Communion to Ann and Lawson, who live close to by. It's the whole, mask-distance-sanitise routine all over again, but the solemn moment of giving and receiving the Body of Christ loses nothing of it's sacred beauty.

So, I'm home before three for a gin and a nap. Well, I'm seventy, I reason, and perfectly entitled to both!

I have a new top to wear out in the evening. I like it. It's pink and grey and a bit sparkly. I think it looks just fine.

"Reminds me of Manchester City's away strip." remarks my somewhat- less -than -better- half (on this occasion). He has been taking lessons on gallantry from his sons-in-law, but sometimes, he flunks the course.

I posh myself up, and at 4:30pm we head off with eldest daughter, Jen, through Gloucester, up the Cotswold escarpment, into autumn's blazing woods, to The Royal William, in the village of Cranham.

When the girls were growing up, we lived twenty minutes away, on the outskirts of the city, and came here for many celebrations. Hannah graduated from the children's menu, to steak, over there, Jen celebrated her 18th birthday in the next room, Kate recalled the occasion we carefully made our way down the poorly-lit steps from the car park and saw a glow worm by the path. I brought my staff here for lunch when I was appointed their headteacher. We sat at this very table.  I decorously recounted  'walking' in the woods with boyfriends, and, as a child, exploring every rise and hollow of this ancient Holt's Wood with my brother Adrian.

it was a wonderful meal. Gifts were offered and gratefully received. There was cake.

Coming home, I reflected on how lucky I am: I have a wonderful family, seven amazing grandchildren, loyal friends, and a lifetime of amazing adventures to look back on, and be thankful for.

Final thought: I have many adventures to look forward to as well. As I never tire of telling anyone who stops to listen, "I'm only old on the outside!"

Oysters With My Father

"I'd like to see Paris and die," my father announced, rather unexpectedly one day. 

My mother had travelled no further than the Isle of Sheppey in her entire lifetime, and made no secret of the fact that she had no interest in going anywhere more exotic. So, after her death in 2002, dad had taken stock, and decided to take off.

He got himself a passport and applied to join a trip organised by The Gloucester Citizen, to Berlin, but that was cancelled for lack of numbers, and dad set his sights on the city that never sleeps (Or is that Chicago? I don't know, but I like it.)

For some inexplicable reason, I can't actually remember how we got there: but my money's on Eurostar, as my father was a railwayman, in one o his iterations, and remained a great fan of the iron horse. 

My sister and her family came too. we budged up in a budget hotel not too far from the Gare du Nord and set about exploring.

Versailles was extravagent, but exhausting. I remember queuing on the stairs, with a rest stop in an alcove, and glitz. I don't remember dad being particularly impressed.

Inevitably, we got lost, but for a reason that no-one could have anticipated. We were on the Metro when an an urgent announcement sounded and everyone started to leave. I stretched my utterly inadequate French to its limits,and dug deep.

"You know what people, I think 'incederie' is, 'bomb', and I think we should follow these guys ... "

The Metro then closed down for a spell, and after  a fruitless search for our hotel, during which Dad became very tired, we piled into taxis.

Dad insisted we stop at a wall that was pocked with bullet holes, where Resistance fighters had been executed, to have his photo taken. I thought this a rather macabre request, but then realised, the Second World War was HIS history, and THIS was his homage, to men and women whose heroic stories he'd heard as a teen, and who died fighting for him, too.

Ray and I took him for a meal at a restaurant, where dad was treated as a hero. it was so special. I ordered a table and exchanged greetings in the same inadequate French that had spotted a bomb, but the attention of the waiters was entirely on my father. They welcomed him in English, helped him choose his food and drink, and made him feel like an honoured guest: he revelled in it. It gladdened my heart to witness it.

We did all the other things, too, The Louvre, boat trip down the Seine, but the outstanding moment for me was the trip up the Eiffel Tower. 

I had one of those moments when I stopped time. I took in every detail of being with my father, who unknown to me, WAS to see Paris and die, ravaged by cancer and gone within two years.

There was something so beautiful, so incongruous about sitting opposite my father in a restaurant half-way up one of the most iconic structures in the world, slurping down oysters. 

The six-inch model dad bought to take home is mine now. It sits on my window sill and carries me beyond the mundane to the hour when time stood still, and I ate oysters with my father.

Night Post

I read on Twitter that tonight I would, along  with everyone else, be passing through a meteor shower. This seemed reason enough to execute a plan I’d been hatching since the purchase of a rather fancy hammock in March  - to sleep out under the stars.

So here I am.

 

I have spotted five meteors so far, and I’m thrilled. 

Things haven’t gone entirely to plan. A fabulous lightning storm to the north-east has been quite a distraction, visually, and a monster combine harvester less than a mile away has provided  a very noisy backdrop to what should have been a quiet night. 

It’s 11:42 now and relative silence has descended, clouds that appeared about fifteen minutes ago have floated on, and I’m about to resume my stargazing. 

Goodnight! 

“Left Bereft”

The Labour Party and I have come to a mutual agreement. I won’t pay for dodgy legal settlements, and they’ll stop taking my money.. We’ve split up. And it’s painful. 

I don’t feel anything but relief for not worrying about when my lifetime commitment to combating  hate-speech and discrimination would suddenly morph into rabid anti-semitism. I won’t miss being labelled a trot for wanting a decent standard of living for everyone. But I’ll miss the amazing buzz of the Party Conference alive with the excitement of being in a hall full of engaged people set alight by the radical policies introduced by Jeremy Corbyn 

Most of all, I’ll miss chairing my local branch with its dozen or so activists, that turned out for two elections doorstepping reluctant voters, cheerfully manning the Party Stall at the Oniin Fayre, blissfully unaware that back in Labour HQ the money we were paying in, was funding bureaucrats not only actively sabotaging our efforts, but willing to go on television and lie about their own. What mugs we were! 

The Labour Party is sensible now.They don’t do excitement. The poor are back in the box, the hungry relegated once more to food banks. And I’m gone 

Have you?

Do you want to connect with other “Lefties Who’ve Left”? Let’s do it! But first some rules. Just two to start. Others may evolve. 

We’re a support group. If you want to fight, go do it elsewhere. 

No hate-speech. 

EVERYONE from the left is welcome. 

How to get involved:

If you’re on Twitter, send me a direct message @maryeffrancis If you’re not, leave a comment here.

If you choose to be confrontational or rude, I’ll ignore you. 

Payback.