Still standing

Martin Luther (1483-1586) said, "Here I stand, I can do no other".  Sounds like he too had a bad back.  Last week I was reduced to scuttling around, hunched over, with my backside stuck out and my arms pumping madly to get some momentum going - picture a cross between Donald Duck and one of the Seven Dwarves.  {Grumpy, obviously.} I used to go ice skating as a child, and I discovered that I could apply the same principle - get as quickly as you can to where you can hold onto something, then try to pull yourself upright.  I found the window pole very helpful for this, raising myself up, hand over hand, until I stood triumphant.  Sadly, I then looked more like Gandalf the Grey than Snow White, but at least I could look my co-workers in the eye.

It was a little easier at home, where the chairs are more comfortable and I had less need to move about.  Apart from going to the bathroom.  I adopted the strategy of crawling to the foot of the stairs then walking my hands up a few steps ahead of my feet.  Pulling on the banisters at the top helped a bit, but not enough.  I still wasn't able to reach the pull chord for the light.  Reader, I weed in the dark.  At least I could sit down.

Now that I can move freely again (more or less) I've been considering what exercise I can do on a regular basis to keep supple.  {Shut up, Adam!} I quite fancy yoga, that's nice and gentle.

  Or maybe swimming; the pool is only a short walk away.  Have to buy a new costume though; my bikini appears to have shrunk, and now when I put it on it resembles two elastic bands round an egg.

I visited a friend the other day, and noticed that she was moving rather carefully - yep, someone else with a bad back.  "How did you manage to do that?" I asked.  "I thought you'd just had a relaxing holiday."  "It was supposed to be," she replied, "I went on a yoga retreat."  Oh dear.  Swimming it is then.

I'm not what I do

Occasionally, if I'm drunk or not concentrating, I do what I did recently - on being asked, "What do you do?" I realized, too late, that I'd blurted out, "I'm a writer".

"Ooh, how interesting," my companion exclaimed, "what have you written?" Um...endless lists of stuff I've got to do, a couple of complaints to the Council and a few letters to the local paper. Somehow I didn't think that would impress her. I knew I should have prepared my 'elevator pitch' months ago. {Translation: convince someone you meet in a lift to buy your book, before they reach their floor.  Or before they have to pretend that they've reached their floor.}

But how do you sum up 108,000 words in 108 seconds?  Especially when what you've written doesn't fall neatly into any particular genre.  Why didn't I just write an adventure mystery set on a parallel world?  That would have been easy to describe.   Or a coming-of-age comedy?  Or a tale of love and friendship in a training college for spies?  Why, in the name of all that's unconventional, did I choose to combine all three with the underlying themes of choice and identity?  More to the point, why didn't I just give the woman my card and say, "My first book will be out later this year, but do read my blog if you're interested; it'll give you an idea of my style"?  Because I panicked, that's why, and because I hate being the centre of attention.   So I just burbled something inane and changed the subject.

I usually respond to the "what do you do" question by saying I work in a doctors' office, which enables everyone to start talking about their health.  If I'm feeling particularly intimidated by the company I'm in, I might admit to having been a teacher, and say that I changed my job in order to do something less stressful.  {Pause for ironic laughter.}

But why do we define ourselves, and others, by what we do for a living?    Particularly when so many people are unemployed, or have little choice about their work.   I think that, instead, we should open conversations with something like, "What's your favourite season?" or, "If you could be an animal for an hour, what would you be?"  Classless questions, with no right or wrong answers, that actually tell you something about the person rather than the circumstances in which they currently find themselves.

The 'S'-word

The last time I wore proper, grown-up shoes was for one day only, at the wedding we went to in December.  I generally go straight from boots to flip-flops, and very comfortable it is too.  However, despite my dislike of wearing normal shoes, I do in fact have... yep, you guessed it... many pairs.  I believe this is a reaction to my childhood, when I only ever had one pair of shoes at a time - sturdy brown lace-ups for winter, and crepe-soled sandals {also brown} for summer.

My best friend at the time had the same style, but hers were red. I wasn't allowed red shoes because, "They won't go with anything".  This was clearly rubbish but I had no choice in the matter until, aged ten, I saved up my pocket money and bought my own sandals {purple}.

This week, I attended a formal occasion when neither boots nor flip-flops would have been acceptable, so I had to bring down the dusty box from the top of the wardrobe and seek out a pair of stilettos.  They were fine in the morning - walking was a bit of a challenge, particularly on grass, but I held on tight to my beloved, adopted a Marilyn Monroe wiggle, and just about managed to get around safely {if a little inappropriately, considering we were at a funeral}.  By the time we got to the wake I couldn't wait to remove them.  This would not have been dignified, so I was forced to hide in the toilet, sitting with my aching, hot, nylon-clad feet firmly planted on the cool floor tiles, wondering how long I could stay there before people became concerned for my digestion.

What I should have done, of course, was have a pair of flat shoes in my bag, to change into.  You can get some very pretty flat shoes that look like ballet slippers, but I don't possess any.  I have nothing against ballet shoes; as a teenager I often wore my actual ballet shoes {black} to go out in.  But that's the point - I'm not a teenager any more, and I think they'd look silly on a woman of mature years with short legs.  I mentioned this to a friend a few months ago, and she admitted to having worn her tap shoes in public.  I am seriously considering this idea; tap shoes are comfortable, and you can get them in red.  I suppose I'd have to remove the metal tap bits though, if I wanted anyone I know to come out with me.

Photo opportunities

Photography has always been a big deal in my family.  Grandad took photos at every conceivable opportunity, often at great inconvenience to everyone else, or so it seemed to me at the time.   I'm not talking about your average holiday snaps. I mean proper, posed shots, when we all had to sit motionless during those endless seconds between him pressing the plunger and the shutter clicking.  {Cameras didn't have a 'delay' function in those days; if you wanted to be in the picture yourself (and he did) you had to buy a mechanical device to trigger the shutter release - imagine a miniature dynamite plunger attached to a long wire, which you screwed into the camera.} Then there were the landscapes which, by definition, couldn't have people in them.  My grandmother would attend patiently, feet slowly turning to ice, as grandad waited for the perfect combination of light, weather conditions and emptiness.

I must confess, I do the same as him with landscapes.  I fuss around for ages, changing my lens and taking the same scene from several angles.  That's after I've waited for all the passers-by to pass by.  But I also like taking quick shots of funny or interesting things and, since my camera is too big to carry around all the time, I chose a mobile phone that was capable of taking good quality pictures.  And it was great... until it decided to evolve into a sulky little filing clerk.

It started a few months ago, when pictures began disappearing from my 'gallery'.  I eventually found that 'she' (the phone) had buried them on 'My Files' on the memory card.  I assumed that there wasn't enough room on the phone itself to store them so I deleted a load of updates and a couple of applications, turned it off and on a few times, and one or two pictures came back.  But not for long. Ok, I thought, maybe I just have to select the one I want to look at in 'My Files'.  Tried that, but she wasn't having it.  Sometimes she doesn't let me select a picture at all,{"Nah, we don't do that here"} or keeps me hanging around for ages before producing a tiny,  generic picture of a chess pawn with its head split open. {"You asked for a picture, an' that's wot you've got."} Occasionally she lets me email a picture to myself, but not often, and only one at a time.

Today, I found the USB cable and connected the phone to my computer, in an attempt to download my pictures that way.  She really didn't like that.  I think I must have provoked the phone equivalent of constructive dismissal as, not only did it not work, but she now tells me I haven't got a memory card at all.  Mind you, she's flounced off in a huff like that before, so I expect it'll turn up again sooner or later.  In the meantime I'll just have to use a proper camera again, as grandad would no doubt have advised in the first place.

Too short, too beautiful

Not me, obviously.  I'm 5'4" which is tall enough for most purposes, and the only claim I'm going to make about my appearance is that I'm not scarily ugly.  No, I'm referring to life itself.  It's a bit of a cliché, I suppose, but it struck me forcibly last weekend when we went to visit friends - one in hospital, one in a care home, and both about my age.

Some things - or people - are worth making a sacrifice for, but I'm no longer willing to risk my health or sanity for no good reason.  And while compromise is sometimes sensible or polite, there are some things that bring so much pleasure that I'm not prepared to do without them.  Here's the start of my list, of things that life is too short for:

Inferior toilet paper. You only get one body, so treat it kindly.  The soft stuff costs a little bit more, but you use it every day.  Why start the morning being irritated?

Nasty tea. We had a delicious breakfast at the pub we stayed in at the weekend and, when the plump, creamy teapot was brought forth, I eagerly anticipated a reviving brew.  Imagine my distress, on taking a large gulp of Lady Grey.  Alright, so it's a lot better than Earl Grey, but what isn't?  Now, I didn't want to upset the chef, who seemed a decent young man, and I was rather thirsty.  Clearly this was one of those occasions when compromise was called for so, rather than spitting it out and calling for a large mug of the fine beverage of which the knitted monkey speaks so highly in the advertisements, I drank it up uncomplaining.

Worrying about what you can't change. On the evening before the breakfast, we'd been late back and missed dinner.  We had hoped to find somewhere to eat on the way, but we were in a rather remote area, and couldn't find anywhere still serving food at 9pm.  We ended up going back to the pub, where I had half a pint of bitter, a packet of crisps and a Crunchie bar.  My beloved, who can't mix sweet and savoury without having a sneezing fit, had a pint of bitter and two packets of peanuts. It was fine.  We were warm, comfortable, and a lot healthier than our friends.  Besides, we knew we were going to get a good breakfast the next morning, with a lovely cup of tea......