SteamRolled into it
Hello and Happy New Year! We’re off to a great start… a new dog!
Last weekend we did what a lot of people have done in these Covid times and gone and bought a puppy. Aka - Lockdown lunacy! To be fair my lot have been on about getting a dog for a couple of years. We picked ‘Maggie’ the Westiepoo up last Saturday and as they say - life will never be the same again!
Day 2: Puppies should come with a 14 day ‘cooling off’ period if you change your mind. Knackered is an understatement. I hadn’t considered the sleepless nights and having just come through menopause, this pup might put me right back in it!
Day 3: I escaped puppy training and went to my breast screening check up appoitnment - and what a liberating experience that turned out to be. Even though my boobs were steamrolled to the shape of a pie crust, the said steamroller turned out to be an inspiring woman. 5 years from retirement she’d transferred from her South Yorkshire homestead to the big city! Leaving her husband behind to fend for himself. She said she’d always wanted to know what it would be like to live in a city. So with nurses accommodation in situ she upped sticks and came South. I asked her what it had been like and was she glad she’d made the choice to leave. She told me she’d had ‘the best time, eye opening, interesting and different - a great opportunity’. She was heading back North soon as her 5 years were up, retirement was looming and her husband was missing her! I do miss these random chats!
I heard a similar story a few years ago. I was in Marks and Spencers in Hammersmith. The women I got talking to was also in her 60’s. She’d transferred to the city from a small town later in life too. Renting a house with new flatmates! I’m always intrigued (perhaps envious) of peoples motivations to try something completely different.
As I’m sat here typing I’m remembering another woman I met on the bus a few years ago. She was 86 and had moved to London from Suffolk 4 years previously. Everyone had died or moved away so she decided to up sticks and try London. She said it was the best decision she’s made. She said she’d never been so busy. Always out and about: galleries, museums, church. She loved the buses and had a real sense of belonging! London sometimes gets a bad press, not friendly, too crowded, too dirty, too busy. Yes it is all those things but it’s also a very inspiring place. It has both ying and yang in equal measures.
Tales from my shed this week have been fabulous. I’ve spoken to two fellas for my book, chatted to a whole bunch of lovely ladies at the Dorset WI via Zoom and enrolled on an Astrology course. I’ve always been fascinated so I’m giving it a go - look out, I’ll be be telling tales from other planets soon!
Lots of love to you and by the way, as my week went on - Maggie is sleeping through the night and we’re both settling in to our new reality! 2021, so far so good…