Tetuan trip

Recently, with 30-odd women from an international women's group, I set sail on the ferry across the Straits of Gibraltar for Ceuta and from there by coach across the Moroccan border. We weren't allowed in the country until a man in a white coat had pointed a gun-like instrument at our foreheads to determine whether we had a temperature, a symptom of swine flu. I don't know what would have happened if one of us had had a fever. I fantasised that the instrument was a memory-eraser and would get a fresh implant of memories on the way back!

We fetched up in Tetuan where, sadly, we saw little of the town as we were sped to the Casbah, to trawl up and down the rabbit-warren alleys selling fresh fish, vegetables and live chickens, killed to order. The most interesting part of the trip was at the Berber herbalist. We were given a half hour talk on the merits of different herbs, salves and creams with the offer of a 3 for 2 bargain at the end of a talk. I spent the most money in this shop as I wasn't interested in carpets, ceramics or kaftans. It would have been a different story if there'd been any beautiful Bedouin jewellery.

Moroccan women seem to be on a very short leash.....and so were we - no wandering off, all herded together. Most of us had set off at 6.30 that morning so by 1 p..m. our time (but only 11 a.m. Moroccan time) we were ready for our feast. We had to wait another 2 hours and were heartily fed with soup, couscous, shish kebabs, apples and date pastries, rounded off with Moroccan mint tea. No alcohol available.

Below is a little slide show to give you a flavour of what we saw.

Tetuan, Morocco

Tetuan, Morocco

Memory

I used to have a terrific memory. My brain stored dozens of telephone numbers. Now I'm lucky if I can remember my own, so without the address book and stored numbers on the phone, I'd be lost. I like to think that my brain has accumulated so much knowledge over the years that it goes on overload. It's all there somewhere but scrambled up.

In my field of psychology, I used to be able to rattle off writers and concepts without thinking. Now that I've retired from work, that information is right at the back of my memory bank. I still have the books, notes of workshops, research etc. so can retrieve stuff when I want to, but I don't need to.

Learning Spanish has been a big hurdle and I fall regularly. The best times are when I can devote time and energy to nothing else, but how practical is that. Acquiring new knowledge keeps us on our toes, but I guess the old stuff has to move over to accommodate it.

I love my PC, learning what makes it tick, surfing the net, keeping my photo albums. Now I have a special notebook nearby called "Daily Doings and Reminders". I note if I've ordered something on the net, Bookmarks that require a lot of time to read, blogs to revisit. I tried the blogroll thingy and it clogged up by home page so much, it took for ever to load.

Yet, here's the curious thing: information gained in my childhood without my knowing it has stuck with me. If I watch old b/w American or British movies, I can name all the actors and useless stuff about their lives then. My Christmas pillow-case always contained a glossy Annual about the movies, along with books like The Secret Garden, Children of the New Forest, 1001 Things for Girls To Do. (I still have the latter so need never be stuck on how to crochet, knit, sew on a button!)

Thanks to Ronni at Time Goes By
who, timely as ever, reminds me of the idiosyncracies of my aging person.

Aging

I've been following Ronni's posts at Time Goes By HERE about attitudes towards older people and all the euphemisms used by the Press and public to stereotype them. Expressions like elders, senior citizens, pensioners, "you don't look your age", "act your age" - all designed to put people in little boxes.

People are living longer and those who want to look and behave as young as possible have greater expectations of what they are capable of. It's an attitude that drives the cosmetic surgery, beauty, fashion and keep-fit industries, all designed to hold back time......as if.

I left a comment on one of Ronni's posts about not caring about aging, yet owning up to my difficulty in relinquishing mascara. What is that vanity all about? In the nearly 7 years I've lived in Spain, I've pared down my use of make-up. I do use plenty of moisturisers and go days without my darkened lashes, but when a social get-together is on the cards, the full slap goes on. Why I feel better with it, I do not know but come the day I can give it all up, maybe I will truly have accepted my 68, looking at 69 or 70 years.

Let me end with a lovely phrase of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) "As we grow old, the beauty steals inwards".

Transformation in 6 years

I was standing halfway down our garden this week marvelling at all the greenery that now obscures the house: it provides little walkways within a walled section with shrubs, pots and flowers. The fountain tinkles and sometimes the smell is heavenly.

Above is what it looked like after the undergrowth had been cut down. Later a brick workshop was added, then a woooden shed with a pergola to connect the two. Standing half way down as I did, it was a great boost to my current lethargy to see all the things we'd built and created - pepper trees, cypresses, pampas grass, ngao trees: and the climbers - campsus radicans, bignonia, morning glory, honeysuckle.
Not a great picture, but it gives the idea. You can just see the chimney in the distance. Aint nature wonderful.

Oh dear, this should be on my gardening blog http://salamanderverde.blogspot.com and I forgot.

A Reading Meme

I was checking out Darlene's blog HERE and her interesting replies to the Kreativ Blogger award and came across a meme that Rain had sent her. Darlene urges us to participate if we're inclined, whether we've been specifically invited or not, so I am.

The meme is to turn to page 161, sentence 5 and blog it. I'm reading David Lodge's "Deaf Sentence" about a retired professor who has lost his hearing. It's both comic and sad when he writes about this and it's given me an insight into what my other half suffers with his poor hearing (and not a few guilty pangs about my insensitivity at times.) The professor's elderly father is struggling to maintain his independence and failing and the 5th sentence has relevance to anyone thinking of residential care homes for the elderly, where the cost is finely calibrated to the degree of comfort offered. (He is talking about the UK here):-

"At the lowest end of the scale you get a stale smell of cooking in the dining room, and of pungent air-freshener in the lounge, fumed oak furniture and faded floral wallpaper in the bedrooms: at the top end air conditioning and sleek modular furniture and tasteful decor."

I must go beyond this 5th sentence as it is so poignant and depressingly true of many of the places I visited in the course of my work aeons ago....

"But there is the same rather melancholy atmosphere in all of them, of lonely old people waiting stoically for death, deepened rather than relieved by the tinselly Christmas decorations in the common room".

At one time residential care homes were for people who were still ambulant and had all their faculties. Nursing homes were for people who were physically disabled and intermittently confused. As both of these could be paid for out of the public purse, there was always an argument about who should pay - Social Services or the Health Service. I don't know if it's changed. But whenever I came across homes as described by Lodge, the lowest end of the scale was always those financed by the State.

I saw a t.v. programme recently which was the exception to this run by the Mary Feilding Guild, a non-profit making Charity. They only take active older people, many of whom were in their 80s and 90s. They go out to concerts, galleries, do t'ai chi, play Scrabble and income is no bar to living there as they have financial help for those of lesser means. For those interested, look HERE .

In this part of Spain, there are very few homes for older people as the family take their responsibilities to their grandparents very seriously and are very involved. It's not uncommon to see grandchildren out with a grandparent, helping with shopping, doctors and dentists. At the traditional weekend lunch, there could be 4 generations sitting down together.

There are very active clubs for "jubilados" (pensioners) who have reduced-cost holidays, excursions, educational talks - including talks on sexuality for older people. Speaking of which taboo subject, I came across this wonderful website that's all about sex for older people. Now there's something that's rare to hear or read about, fitting into the myth that it's a non-existent activity in the over 60s. HERE it is, run by a very open woman called Joan Price (only in America!)

I've strayed far away from the meme theme, haven't I, and somehow got on to sex. Well, go take a look at Joan's site for more information.