A Forty Year Tale

Flour-covered hands suspended their activities in the mixing bowl as she paused to gaze dreamily out of the kitchen window. Her concentration was lax, normal attentiveness to the job in hand completely awry. All morning her mind had centred on the reason for the forthcoming celebration rather than the preparation.

A grey squirrel darted up the path to the front lawn, then scampered up the chestnut tree causing two blackbirds to squawk their alarm. Watching this action, Joyce felt her own unease, a stranger suddenly in her own kitchen, as if she had been spirited there from a bygone age. The lounge clock struck eleven; each chime was like a signal that the finishing post was in sight. Was she really on the final strait of the forty year race?

Abandoning her baking, she wiped her hands on a blue and white towel and dropped onto a chair, uttering a huge, disbelieving sigh. Somewhat pensively she allowed herself to review the years, wondering at the swiftness of their passing, pondering on the perceptions she began with, the skirmishes, the adventures, and the myriad of achievements. It was a Saturday in September when she gambolled happily towards marriage. Who would believe that forty years could travel so rapidly into distant time?

Picking up a forgotten mug of coffee, cold now but welcome nevertheless, Joyce sipped the brown liquid. Grimacing at its bitterness she rested the mug on her knee, tracing the design of vines round the rim as she allowed herself to reminisce. Oh, the yarns she could spin, anecdotes both humorous and sad. How much she had learned. What advice she could give about life. So valuable; so precious. Unwittingly, she hummed the Wedding March, familiar still notwithstanding that matrimony was currently, incredibly, less popular with the modern generation. Don't know what they're missing, she murmured, rising to put the mug to soak.

In a more accepting frame of mind, less concerned now by the speed of things, she leaned against the sink and looked out at the garden: geraniums like a crimson sea, marigolds as bright as the sun, dahlias like orange orbs, a colour scheme as diverse as matrimonial occupation, and as satisfying.

The squirrel had been joined by another, somersaulting, racing, chasing, no time for contemplation. Like the forty years just gone. Shadowy images besieged her: her family, her children and their children, her husband guiding her from the altar where they made their vows.

Wilt thou take this man to be your lawful wedded husband?

Thrills whisked her insides as she remembered that glorious day.

I will, she had promised. I will.

~~~O~~~

Forgive me, but this is the time of year that Joe and I got engaged so I thought I would celebrate the occasion by re-blogging my feelings.

EYE TESTS

I started off by having spectacles for reading and advanced in later years to wearing the damned things all the time. My silly pride was squashed when I moved on to fancy specs, making the excuse that I had to keep up with modern fashions.

And so I did. For the next forty years.

Opticians then were different, they prescribed lenses that suited my eye sight, but it changed when fashionable frames took over, when opticians got more money-minded and called their customers in once a year – for a test, you understand. However, more time was spent choosing frames than getting the eye test, an eye test that demanded a change in prescription.

Why not stick with the old frames? Because there was more money to be made updating the old ones. I did attempt to update the old until I heard the cost. Several hundred pounds…. Apparently cutting new lenses to fit old frames cost more than fitting them into new frames. Can you see the sense in that?

It got that once a year I was choosing new frames which was cheaper than having new lens in old specs. I never saw the logic in that but went along with it on the basis that they knew what they were doing and anyway I liked to think I was keeping up with friends!!!

After a while I began to realise that a pair of new specs didn’t feel right. Three times I took them back for adjustment but was never totally satisfied with the result or the extra cost. This year I rebelled, ignoring all letters to get me to make an appointment. I am getting older so where’s the sense in forking out hundreds of pounds. My friend agreed and we both decided to do a trial run, in other words not pressing for appointments.

Both of us have boxes full of old specs and unknown to each other we sorted through them.  I tried mine and wondered why I had fallen so quickly for new frames when there was nothing wrong with the ones I had. I could see through one pair of specs better than the latest.

I have been wearing my oldies for a few months and can see perfectly well with them. I now have a great satisfaction in ignoring the letters…. for now! I am old enough to know what’s what and who’s who, and when the time is right to make changes. 

SOAPS, AND THE EFFECT ON YOUNG MINDS

I watch two soaps on television daily but not much else. Why? Because lately programmes seem to be more educational than entertaining. I use the word educational loosely but it does teach me about the world and the people in it.

I watch television in the evenings, a time when I want something relaxing to look at. Instead I am faced with violence, violence and more violence. Shouting, screaming, screeching, fighting, murdering, is it any wonder the world has developed into a fighting ring?

Don’t TV people realise what they are doing, or that they must be held responsible for the way young kids act? Younger minds will and do think that what they see on telly is normal behaviour in real life. 

As for parents who murder their young children ... well, quite honestly, if I knew of one personally it would give me great pleasure in making sure that life behind bars is the best place for her or him. What a pity the death penalty no longer exists!

It’s knives where I live, in a former respectable area. Knives to kill and maim and mostly used by teenagers. What the hell is going on? What has led up to this new craze of killing? People are stabbed as they walk up the road, stabbed for merely being there. I am grateful for the fact that I no longer go out shopping.

I ask myself… why are these oafs allowed to continue? Why are knives so freely available? Why, why, why???

And people wonder why I would like to see the return of the death penalty. 

A FEW QUOTES

Below are a few quotes I found and kept in case I wanted to share. 

Today is sharing day:

*****

Each moment makes up our world as we go step by step into the future.

Keep reading the book of life, the next page might be the one you're waiting for.

What's in a name? Why, said the rabbit, a name is full of love, that's what's in it.

Is it laziness or advancing years that makes one choose the escalator rather than the stairs?

Women are mentally prepared for most things, it’s the arms, the hips, and the knees that call a halt.

Love costs nothing yet it is worth a lot to those who receive it.