On top of the world.

13th June 1968 - My grandmas must have been just over 70.  She never moaned about things being wrong with her health, but she did say about some of them and she recorded many of them in her diary: left cheek very painful and inflamed."  She also describes pretty miserable weather in June for example this from June 15th and 16th 1980: "sun all morning but windy rain later heavy in night did not go out/ very winder and rainy morning cold too afternoon some sun but she windy."   Grandma worked till she was 70,  did all her own shopping and it seems had to go to the launderette to wash her clothes - this when she was about 83." went to launderette Tuesday tiring work. Ironing Wednesday and Thursday. "  

Grandma had no real help as she got older and even when I visited I was not really allowed to do anything, so how do I compare to her.  I know that having only worked part time since my 50s it could be argued my health is worse than hers, and perhaps friends will say I moan about being in pain a lot but it would be nice to think I could emulate her and carry on till 90 with virtually no help. I hope so, like a lot of people my own age I do worry about how I will manage.  But where I think my life really is different to hers is in the amount of time I spend going out and about (her diary show she had a life, but not so many visits to exhibitions or holidays and so on).  

I was very pleased on Tuesday to dodge much of the rain  and this summer feels like the worst on record till I read my grandma's diaries) to visit a good friend in hospital, she is slightly older than me and in worrying pain,  and then go on to meet a couple more friends to see a talk on Tibet which featured the redoubtable Sir Michael Palin and the force of nature that is Brian Blessed. He was only slightly younger than me when he went up Everest and now at 87 has more energy than a family of elephants.  I was just chuffed to get into town and back and had to rest most of the day to have the energy to go but I am so pleased I did. 

As a child I was always vaguely interested in explorers,  and from about 14 years on was itching to travel more and have more experiences.   But with climate change and the sheer volume of people moving around begin to question the focus I put on travel in my life.  (I used my pension to pay for trips for the last 7 years, but sadly the money runs out in July)  So it was interesting to learn about the early years of Tibetan travel and how differently it was viewed by the Westerners compared to the Tibetans but that even then it was marketed and promoted through film and a tour of Tibetan monks to the UK.   It was also lovely to see two greats share some memories.  

 

So some people have been travelling to places like the Himalayas for the last 100 years, for most Brits a trip to the seaside and perhaps one or two places abroad seemed exciting until recently and now there is an explosion in travel.   I hope I have at least a couple more big trips in me, (both financially and energy wise ) but I suspect it will be mostly local travel soon, though that is more expensive of course than travel abroad.  My friend Johnny who is slightly older than me just came back from three months in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, very impressive.   He did ask me to go with him, but knew I wasn't up to it.  However, I love watching programmes on travel still and of course whilst Nathan lives abroad have a good reason to nip to Europe a couple of times a year.