Turning 85

My 85th birthday was wonderful…lots of online greetings, a few real cards…however the highlight was being taken out to lunch by me best friend. He arrived bearing gifts that included a beautiful hand engraved vase clearly influenced by the organ designs of Art Nouveau. The drive through Staffordshire and Cheshire lanes was enchanting and the meal was exquisite at a corner table next to a window overlooking the terrace and the green wall of the woodlands beyond. We returned home by a different route no less magical with tunnels through overhanging trees and sudden vistas that stretched as far as the Welsh mountains.

85 seems like a landmark moment…a milestone that I hope might be a watershed…a turning point towards fresh endeavours, new challenges which open up untapped potential. It also presents a call to archive a lifetime of artefacts…both personal and of organisations with which I have been significantly involved. I guess my first step is to cut back on activities that consume so much time. How much time do I have to write and record all that I wish?

Although I have few serious health issues in older age compared to many of my peers…nonetheless, enlarged prostate, elevated lipids and long term HIV are declared as preexisting conditions on my travel insurance. In daily life this translates to having to pee more frequently and having to put up with the diminished sex drive of an elderly snail on Valium. I also have to cope with insomnia…probably related to the other health conditions. What matters is that I appear to have the resilience and energy to lead a very demanding workload… albeit, unpaid.

In writing this post, I am already engaging in goals I wish to achieve before… in the words o Shakespeare… I shuffle off this mortal coil. The culmination of the major project ALWAYS HERE...a collaboration between the North Midlands Older People’s Group and GRAIN photography… also helps to address some archiving issues as will an upcoming filmed interview with Duckies deep-dive oral histories.