No longer a Dorian Gray

Our local Golf Club is closed which is bad news for golfers but good news for us dog walkers. Vast open spaces without fear of bumping into joggers or those ignorant selfish families that  think it is ok to walk on mass taking up the whole path. Time to start dishing out  an Asbo.   I am a golf course virgin having never felt the call to take up this sport. Maybe it has something to do with growing up in Leicester where  it was common knowledge that Jews couldn’t join the local golf club.  But hey I am not one to hold a grudge – I promise not to trample over your neatly mowed lawns.  

golf

I  fear my Dorian Gray days are over. Until recently  I hadn’t considered myself as old. In fact I always felt rather middle aged. That was until Coronavirus. I  have been endowered with my mother’s skin  and have very few wrinkles. I could easily pass as being in my mid fifties.  Sadly those days are over. 

I remember on my 50th birthday we went out to dinner with the children and I thought it time I fessed up that I wasn’t really 35. They were shocked and the youngest was very upset, “are you going to die soon,” he cried. Fast forward a few years and I  am now officially old. I know this because the government and the press keeps describing people of my age as elderly. Stop it please, its not helping with my anxiety which is already way higher than is healthy.

While I am on the subject of anxiety I have a request to my friends. Please stop telling me about people you know who have died. I am not watching the news for that very reason. Today almost got  cancelled because of this  and I had to hide under my duvet and binge watch on Netflix. 4 Hours later I emerged to write this blog.  So no more messages, emails, phone calls with depressing news. 

On a more positive note the community spirit on my road is  uplifting.  It’s like a long market with free goods being exchanged and left on door steps for collection.  So today one lady decided to clear out all the toys no longer required and offered them up to those with young families. They were snapped up immediately.  I think I’ve got a whole case of beanie babies in the loft. Another had flour and someone else  had  milk and  I was offered by a neighbour who knows I am alone, some delicious peanut butter and jam cookies and a tomato plant. I, in turn offered her a cucumber. Both were left on our respective doorsteps.  Depending on my consumption I might offer a few peppers tomorrow.

You’ve got to feel sorry for the companies trying to flog their wares. My in box is full of them.

Retirement mortgages – are you over 65 what is the right solution for you? Hello are you not following what is happening. Will we even get to next year?

Clarks shoes and Fit Flop offering 20% of your second pair. Really why would we  even need one pair of shoes. I am living in my slippers. 

Big discounts on designer handbags – shop for your Louis Vuitton and Gucci here. Absolutely I  am sure my furniture would be very impressed.

Shop for your spring denim here. Has no one told GAP that spring has been cancelled.

So today I did something I have never done before. My father – who was a tailor, would have been impressed.  I darned my glove. I even found a darning mushroom in my old sewing box. The moths had been at my cashmere gloves. And it felt very satisfying. I mean there are only so many television programmes one can watch. The fact that I remembered how to darn is interesting. The only time I have ever done this was 60 years ago in school. And for those who have never seen a darning mushroom…

..darning this one

Lets be careful out there

 

Author: ladyserendipidy

Journalist, event planner, mother, animal lover, not very good bridge or scrabble player, hopeless housekeeper, ex social worker, radio producer, tv executive, hater of almost all insects especially the eight legged ones. And if I am ever allowed out of my house, intrepid traveler.

10 thoughts on “No longer a Dorian Gray”

  3. I learnt to darn at school. It was on the curriculum then, and now the moth has found my expensive navy wool dress. I’ve never owned a darning mushroom, but since you mention it, I’m wondering if John Lewis would have one?

    When we darned we used bright contrasting threads so the quality of our work was visible. I’m sure I could do it again but could I knit a sock now? As part of my application to train as a teacher in 1966 I had to finish the toe of a woollen sock. The wool was lime green I remember. Probably a lost craft these days but I like to think that in the fishing ports of Portugal, or maybe in Lowestoft, there are people making socks out of oiled wool. They last forever.

    You are right about Jews and golf. When I was going out with a gent who belonged to a golf club in North London in the seventies there was a joke that Frankie Howerd had been turned down for membership. He lived nearby and would have been a distinct asset to the company in the bar in my opinion. Give their neatly moved fairways a little trample from me.

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  5. Like you, I unearthed a darning mushroom, needle and thread and began to darn one of my socks. That was a week ago. It’s still sitting on the dining room table, along withe the box of photos to be sorted, the recipe folder to be culled. While outside the window, the weeds wait to be slaughtered…Procrastination doesn’t go away just because there’s a virus going around.

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