Join us every Friday to find out what’s being going on in Advantages of Age and our FB group where we discuss a lot.

1. This was an article in the Guardian on Older People and Circus skills. There is a company called Generation Circus in Hertfordshire that do the sessions. This is Rumman Talukder. ‘Rumman Talukder’s favourite circus trick is called the Mermaid. Every Sunday, the 60-year-old IT consultant drives from his home in Stanmore to a circus school in Ware to practise it. Hanging from a trapeze by one arm, with his back arched and his legs wrapped around the rope, he says it makes him feel “strong and graceful”.

   “My wife thinks I’m mad but in the run-up to turning 60, I decided I wanted to challenge myself; to find things not normally associated with people my age,” he says.

   Talukder is one of a small but increasing number of people discovering circus after the age of 50.’ Love this.

   

   2. This is a story from Wales Online and this is 86 year old Ann Lush. She has raised over £100,000 for a children’s charity by opening up her garden and charging for it. ‘This lovely lady is Ann Lush. And she truly is lush.

   For the past 30 years, she has been opening her garden to the public - and has since helped to raise over £100,000 for a children’s charity.

   It all started in 1996, when Ann and her late husband Dennis opened their garden to neighbours and charged £1 a head. They raised over £500 in a weekend.

   That first weekend was meant to be a one-off. But, three decades later, the Penarth Open Gardens event has become a fixture in their local area - with several residents now taking part.

   Ann, who is now 86, said: “It was a huge success, and we just haven’t looked back. It’s such a beautiful legacy for Dennis. People come from everywhere now.”

   Sadly, Ann was orphaned as a young child, and at the house where she grew up, she wasn’t allowed friends over to play. So, she makes it her mission to “never turn a child away”

   She said: “I decided, when I was still young, that if I ever had a garden of my own I would never turn a child away. And if I could ever help a young person, I would.”

   Ann and her fellow residents have now raised around £120,000 for The Children’s Society - a charity which her husband Dennis was a Honorary Vice President of until he sadly died in 2020.

   But, Ann is carrying on his good work with her lovely gardening - all while helping children who have suffered trauma or crisises, much like she did as a young girl.

   What a legend. The world needs more people like Ann Lush.’

3. Heard this story on BBC London about Angella Callam who left school with no qualifications and has just received her degree in sports therapy. ‘A north London grandmother who left school without a single GCSE has graduated with a degree in sports therapy at the age of 55.

   Angella Callam, from Edmonton in Enfield, collected her BSc from London Metropolitan University at a ceremony at the Barbican Centre on Monday 20 July.

   The mother of four enrolled on a foundation course four years ago and says she is the first of her family’s generation to go to university.

   “I didn’t even have a GCSE. There’s been lots of hurdles since I first started on that course,” she said.

   “We had a death in the family. During my exam period, we lost my son-in-law. I’ve been supporting my daughter and my grandchildren.

   “There were lots of times when I felt like giving up. My partner helped me to persevere and keep going.”

   Callam, who was born in Jamaica, said she had sometimes compared herself with younger classmates.

   “Sometimes I’d get the usual anxieties and compare myself to other students because they were younger and my grades weren’t always where I wanted them to be,” she said.

   She has worked as a fitness instructor for more than 20 years but had put off returning to education.

   “I wanted to know more about the science behind sports,” she said.

   “Graduating is something I’ve dreamt about for a long time. And now here I am.

   “It was such an incredible feeling stepping on to that stage and accepting my degree. It was thrilling, I was like yes, it’s finally happening.”

   She hopes to work in rehabilitation and is applying for jobs in the NHS.

   Two of her daughters, a grandson and her partner Leon Walker, 64, watched her collect the award.

   “I’ve been supporting her from the very beginning and there’s been lots of ups and downs. I’m proud of her for everything she has achieved,” Walker said.’

   

   4. Sad to hear that Bill Oddie died at 85. Chris Packham gave a great tribute. ‘A renegade polymath with binoculars and a beard, Bill was invariably funny and occasionally furious. He loved birds and loathed those who harmed them. He was delightfully unpredictable, sparky, smart and at times a bit spiky. Critically he really knew his stuff, and his passion was true – he didn’t just pick up his binoculars on telly, he went birding whenever he could. So he was genuine and that’s why we loved him, he never needed a script, and took scant interest in any he was given. He didn’t like rules and often neglected to play by them. This may have frustrated the serious and the worthy but it always amused his audience - he was an utter joy to be with. I recall finding a Black Woodpecker in a damp Dutch park with him once, he gazed at it intently, sighed, put down his bins, turned to me and just smiled. A massive grin. No words, just a beautiful childlike bliss. That says all you need to know about Bill Oddie.

   Sadly we’ve not only lost a goodie, we’ve lost one of the besties.’

5. Sounds such a good idea. Based in Barnsley, this group brings women together to walk and share their grief. ‘The founder of a walking group for grieving women says the combination of fresh air and camaraderie has helped her through some of her “darkest days”.

   Amy Bassinder, from Barnsley, said walking had been an “outlet” for her after her dad died with prostate cancer in 2025, and she wanted to help others dealing with their grief.

   She said: “I needed to find other people that feel like I do ... I thought there must be other people that feel like me and are burying their feelings.”

   She set up Walking Through Grief to be a space for people to have “honest conversations, talking about these people that you love and you’d lost”.

   “I’ve learnt that it’s not talked about enough, people don’t want to talk about grief,” she said.

   “You have a funeral and it’s as if, ‘right you move on now’... it just didn’t work like that.”

   Bassinder said losing her dad had left a “massive void” in her life.

   “My dad was my best friend, he was the one person I could go to with all my problems,” she said.

   “When people let me speak about him and I can be open like I can with this group, I do cry, and it’s good to cry.”

   

   Bassinder said her dad was a keen walker and kept hiking up mountains while going through chemotherapy

   Lesley Logan said she felt “safe and comfortable” joining the group after she lost her husband.

   “This is an area we came to a lot, and I probably wouldn’t want to come on my own,” she said.

   “In this group... you can express exactly what your grief looks and feels like. There’s an underlying understanding of what grief brings to you.

   “And it’s not all doom and gloom, we like exploring and sharing things... [about] just life in general.”’

   

   6. And finally a poem called Ashes by Michael Longley.

   ‘Here is his wonderful poem, ‘Ashes’ from Poetry Ireland Review Issue 133, edited by Colette Bryce, which you can find on our website.’

Photo of Rose and Santi by Marlon Rouse Tavares

I have been going to Womad for years. I went to the first one in the show ground at Shepperton Mallet. In 1982, this was a new kind of a mixture of a festival with its Burundi Drummers, Don Cherry, Rip Rig and Panic, Echo and the Bunnymen plus great world food. World of Music, Arts and Dance. We were really for it. However, it wasn’t to really get going for a few years after that.

Accompanied by friends – one of the absolute biggies was Gil Scot Heron in 2010… unmissable – and more recently, my partner, I boogied to everyone from DakhaBrakha before the world knew about them, to and Malian legend, Salif Keita. Discovery of new music was the thing. Such a delight.

In 2024, I went with my son, then 38, for the first time. Marlon loved it. We had a dance up to Mexican wild men, Son Rompe who mix punk more with traditional marimba sounds. We were transfixed by The Fall Out Marching Band – they are always part of the traditional Womad procession - who told fascinating stories about their squat days that I related to, and cooked a squatter’s supper in the Taste the World Tent.

And we dreamt of bringing his son/my grandson who was then almost one, and his partner, the next time. And perhaps some of our friends coming along so we could be a Womad gang. That next year, Womad didn’t happen. They were looking for a new site.

So here we were in 2026 and my grandson, Santi was almost three. Time for festival action. We told the Mellings in Bristol. Marlon had grown up with my friend, Lizzie’s sons, as brothers. Now one of them had two sons. And we did all manage to meet up on the Saturday for festival kid capers and more.

Photo of Leon and Max plus Santi and Marlon by Rose Rouse

Womad really is the ideal location for families – although there are serious child wagon traffic jams, you know all those spectacularly decorated little carts which turn up at festivals and are very useful when parents want to dance or listen to music – because people are not drinking or getting wasted and the facilities are orientated towards kids as well as adults. Fish Finger Heaven, for instance.

And there is a Kids Area which is pulsing with crazy activities. A giant marionette dancing. Noisy table tennis. Small tables. A clay area for making – Santi and his parents made a dinosaur head with long tresses which was accompanied by eggs. There was a fiddler in a wonderful Green Man outfit on stilts that the children surrounded. And a music workshop where they could try out real instruments.

Photo of the stilt men by Rose Rouse

On our first evening – after blueberry and lime and coconut ice creams – we danced to Annie and the Caldwells who are the most magnificent soul disco divas from Mississippi who I discovered on Jools Holland’s Later and was determined to witness them live. And witness is the right term. God is very much part of the mix. By this time, Santi was supposed to be sitting on one of his parent’s shoulders but insisted on dive bombing unexpectedly and frequently. And we were wagonless!

When the Mellings turned up the next day – Lizzie was adorned in her own pink and white

lily head dress – the Kids Area took on a new dimension. There was playing with mini skate boards but the triumph was three and a half year old Leon going half way up the climbing tower. Quite a feat. Meanwhile his 20 month old brother looked on with doleful eyes.

Leon and Santi had never really hung out together. This was the ideal opportunity. They are both mischievous little boys and they both found pieces of wood that became play weapons. Fortunately, the pieces of wood were mostly held in their hand, and there was a lot of running around together, throwing themselves at the ground and guffawing. We had to keep our eye on them as they were wont to disappear into the crowd but once we found them a lime tree, they ran around that. For hours. While the younger Otis simply followed them around when he could.

Photo of Santi and Leon under the lime tree by Rose Rouse

The joy of more kids was more freedom for the parents. We found ourselves – getting cold, we couldn’t believe it as it was so hot the day before, Lizzie and I went off and bought a poncho and a woollen scarf plus had tea on the top deck inside of a red double decker bus to get warm – watching the Congolese band, Jupiter and Okwess on the main stage. The parents and the grandparents could actually have a bit of rave up because the small ones were occupied with each other. The advantages of taking more than one child to festivals.

I thought all this running around was going to end up in tears but at 10 30pm, they were dancing with maximum energy in the salsa tent. We eventually had to drag them away. They were exhausted but refusing to give in when such fun was being had. And we all got to see the trees in their coloured night light splendour.

I hope the Mellings-meet up becomes a tradition and I’m trying to get more of my own family to come along and bring toddler Oscar who is my great nephew.

Mixtanena in the Real Ale Tent by Rose Rouse

Oh and I have to mention a couple of highlights. One was the blue grass band from South Korea who were cooking and playing in Taste the World tent. And the other was Mixantena de Cecilia, a Mexican marching band who play boleras and cumbias. We were just watching them in the Big Top when the Mellings arrived so we went off to meet them instead. However, we happened upon the bandin the Real Ale bar playing a spontaneous gig amongst the crowd. There are eleven of them – a full horn section – which also includes the ram’s horns dancer and Ramon, the black bull who comes out to fight and dance. These were absolutely golden moments. Plus Santi and Leon both got to sit on the back of the small bull!

Let’s hope Santi wants to go again…

Photo of Lizzie and Rose in warm clothing by Marlon Rouse Tavares

1. Who is going to Womad? One of the best festivals in the UK, it has moved and didn’t happen last year, so delighted that it’s on again in 2026. I am going with my son, his partner and grandson plus meeting up with an old friend and her sons, partner and grandsons. We’re going to boogie. What I love about Womad - I went to the first one - is discovering new bands!!!

2. We’re wishing Jean luck with her struggle to prevent part of her land becoming a road. This was in the Manchester Evening News.

   ‘Meet Jean, the grandmother who is refusing to sell part of her garden to developers behind a £45m road scheme in a bid to save a 500-year-old tree.

   Jean is fighting plans for a new link road that would cut straight through her two-thirds of an acre plot.

   The retired school secretary and piano teacher claims the council-backed project would bring a 60mph road just yards from her property and destroy crucial wildlife habitats.

   Jean, who has two grown-up children and three grandchildren, also argues that the proposed 3km Southern Link Road would do little to relieve congestion, despite its £45 million price tag.

   Her main worry is the impact on wildlife and an ancient oak tree standing in a neighbouring farmer’s field, which she describes as a local landmark.

   Jean moved into her three-bedroom bungalow in 2003 and its current value sits at approximately £575,000, but she worries the bypass will make her property unsellable.

   Jean says she has point-blank refused to discuss selling any portion of her land and has not entered into negotiations.

   We hope you get the answers you want Jean!’

3. This is a perfect AofA story. A Taiwanese couple who have become a social media phenomenon because they dress up in unclaimed laundry at their laundry! What more could we want. ‘Chang Wan-ji and Hsu Sho-er, a couple of Taiwanese grandparents who own a laundry, became a fashion phenomenon. 🧥✨
   
   Tired of accumulating clothes that their customers forgot and never claimed, their grandson had the brilliant idea of dressing them and photographing them with those abandoned clothes.
   
   With poses worthy of a catwalk and an overwhelming attitude, they showed that sustainability and style go hand in hand at any age.’
   
   Credit: @wantshowyoung

4. Paul Cook has turned 70. Congratulations! Photo of him and Phil Lynott by Chalkie Davies.

5. There was a general consensus that Ann Droid, the series by Diane Morgan (also starring as the kind and hilarious care robot, is funny and poignant. Linda, played by the wonderful Sue Johnson, has lost her husband and then her grown up son moves out again, eventually likes her care robot. They form a dastardly duo and there are some very poignant moments.

6. I just wish I had Apple TV. New documentary by Sasha Waters on poet, Mary Oliver. ‘Artist Sasha Waters has captured a new way of seeing the esteemed queer poet Mary Oliver and her wonderful world of nature and love in her new documentary, Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World.

   The documentary opens with American TV host Stephen Colbert choking up while trying to get through Mary Oliver’s famous poem, The Summer Day. Eventually, Colbert makes it through the final line, reciting: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?”’

Margarita on rooftop bar

I’ve just returned from 12 days in Spain. Hardly a radical statement for a British person but my trip was quite distinctive. The first five days I was teaching drama at a hotel in a village in the mountains of Andalucia. I used to do this sort of gig regularly but the pandemic and years of suffering with Long Covid brought it all to a grinding halt. This comeback after regaining my health was a tentative re-entry into the ‘retreat holiday’, helped by facilitating in tandem with an old friend, and by most of the participants being benevolent ex-students of mine (made up of retired, mainly British people seeking fun and company on a gently active course.)

After the work bit, the holiday bit involved me going to nearby Ronda as a solo traveller. I had decided to blow the shreds of my savings on the best hotel I could find in this pretty old town, which sits on a plateau rising high above lovely countryside in every direction, dripping with history and swimming in tapas bars. I like going on holiday alone; I’ve done it a few times. I’ve never been married, am childless and currently without a partner and I’m confident about navigating strange places, sitting in restaurants on my own and keeping myself amused without a sidekick. When young on these solo trips, there could be holiday romances or suggestions from friends about people they knew nearby with whom I could meet up and do local stuff, but that never happens now. I was expecting to rely on my own resources.

I walked into the lobby of my plush hotel with the manufactured air of someone who does this sort of thing all the time, deliberately keeping my sunglasses on until the last moment and speaking in my best received pronunciation (it would have been more impressive to use fluent Spanish but the evening classes I did 25 years ago are barely retrievable these days). My room was understatedly elegant with some very exciting features. Fully functioning air conditioning! A balcony! Free daily mineral water! A bidet! Traditional Spanish welcome macaroons! I’m like a kid with this stuff and can’t believe my luck. My childhood holidays were mainly spent on rainswept Scottish beaches whilst staying with my nan. As an adult, I’ve holidayed in some very basic B&B’s, pensions and sheds on beaches and though through work I’ve had a night here or there in a posh establishment, this, The Parador in Ronda, was the finest hotel I’d ever paid for with my own money.

I’d spotted posters for a guitar festival held in the old library attached to the bullring (Ronda is famous for its bullfighting tradition, though the only spectator now is the ghost of Ernest Hemingway who loved it there) and the hotel receptionist told me how to find the ticket seller, so on my first night, I entered a lovely 18th century high-ceilinged room and quickly took advantage of my first perk of being solo: nabbing a stray empty seat on the front row amongst the couples. I was mesmerised by the guitarists, particularly the headliner, Paco Seco, who was a wizard of a player, both hands doing extraordinarily fast and fluent moves with lots of flamenco-style hard taps on the wooden stage from his shiny black shoes. Both man and music were sexy and exhilarating. I whooped at the end as I always do at a good performance, for a split-second wondering if an older lone lady whooping could be considered odd, then doing it anyway. That first night I hadn’t learnt any ropes or googled decent restaurants so had an inferior meal at a pavement café, but the bottle of icy cerveza helped lift it all and the waiter didn’t seem to pin me as a weirdo, though I could see no one else anywhere, of any gender or age, eating alone. And this remained the case…

Parador Hotel atop the gorge

I spent the next five days exploring every museum, art gallery, Moorish building, Catholic church, formal garden, rocky path, cobbled street and viewing platform I could find. I have the hungry instincts of a collector and if I do a town, I do it properly, so virtually no cultural or architectural phenomena of note in Ronda escaped my beady attention. I don’t go to see things just to check them off my list (I’m not like an old geezer collecting train numbers - though if that’s what satisfies you chaps, knock yourself out). I immerse myself like this because it makes me happy. I like to learn, I like to look at beauty, to understand how people used to live and how they live now, and it feels like food for my very soul. As I roamed the streets or rested with a café con leche, I was sure I was imbibing a lot more of this spiritual nourishment by being unaccompanied and not having to go at another’s pace or compromise my own whims.

In many hours of tourist rambling, I only had two interactions with my fellows. At the Arab Baths, I eavesdropped on an American man who was explaining some history to his wife and stood by to listen. The guy was bullishly masculine and could have been a MAGA-type. Extremely polite, he looked very put out when I corrected him on a point about the Baths’ plumbing that I’d learnt in the information video. He complimented me on my bright orange palazzo pants in a way that implied he really hated them. His wife was very relieved that the Catholics had expelled all the Muslim Moors in 1492 even though we were standing within a superb example of their engineering and aesthetic brilliance. We were not destined to be friends. Later, I was heartily congratulated by a British woman for walking up a steep hill at a brisk pace. I discovered she and her husband had come up on a coach from the Costa Del Sol for the day, and I would have nattered further as I was feeling qualified to act as a tour guide by this point, but an ambulance appeared in the urgent way of such things, and in accommodating it in the narrow street, we were separated.

After a few hours of exploring, I’d retire to the hotel and avail myself of the pool, a lounger and my novel. Ah bliss! There were no children there at this point of the season, just well-heeled older folk and occasional stylish young couples (I was keen on the younger Japanese guests because their clothes were always the chicest). I’d bought a new swimsuit from T.K. Max at home – black, with substantial coverage and no painfully tight straps or gimmicky cut-outs. It was the dullest swimsuit of my life, and I felt a bit sad it had come to this, but I was glad not to draw attention to myself as the old bod is looking weighty and crepey these days and I wanted as little evaluation from stranger’s eyes as possible. My wish was granted as I was apparently fully invisible. In six days of visiting the garden and the pool, no one so much as glanced at me - apart from the pool-boy I bumped into having a sneaky cigarette as I went to take a photo from an obscure corner; his bashful grin felt absurdly precious.

The most sumptuous meal of the day was breakfast in the hotel’s creamily elegant restaurant. Tottering piles of every fruit, cheese, cured meat, pastry and curious tiny pudding greeted me, and though I was scarcely ever excessively hungry, I felt obliged to lay waste to my share of it, also surreptitiously tucking a couple of filled rolls into my bag for later. The headmistressy maître d’ greeted me in Spanish each day, the only words of which I could understand being ‘una persona?’ which sometimes sounded accusing, sometimes pitying. I braved it out as if being the only single person in the huge room was especially noble. Sometimes, I snuck observations at weathered couples who had long since run out of conversation and felt superior as I necked a gigantic pot of oil-black coffee and another of foaming hot milk all to myself.

On day five, a housemaid knocked on my door and gave me two complimentary jars of candied fruit. I don’t know why that happened, but it felt encouraging.

Catholic and Moorish art plus Alison!

Day six was my last full day. I had very little left to see. I did a slow amble around streets that were already well trodden by my sensible walking shoes (the first time I went abroad on my own was a week in Paris when I was 22 and I wore a pair of jelly sandals for the entirety - plus one pair of trousers, and two different T-shirts). I marvelled at the tourists sitting on stools outside bars at midday, giant jugs of sangria on the table between them. What’s the point of that? I mused. It’ll give them an afternoon headache, and they’re not doing anything they couldn’t do at home. Maybe just being in Spain and quaffing some orange slices in red wine, with the sun beating down, makes them feel like they’re in a holiday commercial and that’s what they want. Fair enough. I didn’t think me squinting at a seventeenth century lintel would ever feature in a brochure. That night I ate at the swankiest restaurant I could find, overlooking the incredible El Tajo de Ronda, a massive gorge with a stunning bridge that is the very centrepiece of the town. I was more exposed as an eccentric spinster here than ever before, but the waiter was impeccably polite, and I listened in on various exchanges about property from the groomed British bourgeoisie around me.

My final luxury was a cab to the airport, a 90-minute journey. My driver was a Spanish woman who had lived in London. I had the best and longest conversation of my trip with her, and when we said goodbye, she gave me a hug.

It was a great holiday. I may not have met many strangers, but I forged a relationship with the town and that felt strong and special. I enjoyed my solitude, I even enjoyed being unnoticed most of the time, but by the sixth day, I did start to want to share the odd experience or observation. Next time, if I can’t persuade a friend to do the holiday I fancy, I’ll go on one of those group things (not one for the very geriatric – a mix of ages would be good, and as you know, I can still walk fast up a steep hill). If it all gets a bit claustrophobic, I’ll scarper off to town on my own, stride through the streets and let the atmosphere feed me. More adventures please…!

Socorro Square

All photos by Alison Goldie.

Do check out Alison’s own Substack. alisongoldie@substack.com

1. and I are delighted to announce our first Advantages of Age conference on Oct 10th at the brilliant Cecil Sharp House in Camden. It’s called Rebel Later Life: the ideas party because that’s what it is - the opportunity to inspire and support each other into leading the lives we want to lead as we get older as well as the funerals. This is a day event with loads of exciting panel discussions and talks - from Pensioners? Ageism and Words, a panel hosted by Cathi Rae with and on the panel to Eve Tibber talking about what it's like to live in a co-housing community, to How to Have a Funky Funeral with the two Kates from Match and Despatch hosting and , on the panel, to a Flamboyant Forever photo booth with fantastic photographer, Peter Wallis. Lunch is included in these tickets and the option to stay for a special networking event. Thanks to PensionBee for your support so far. There will also be 20 exhibitor stands/tables available so do get in touch if you'd like one with suzanne@advantagesofage.com. And so much more. It's going to be an amazing day. Tix for sale here. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/.../rebel-later-life-the...

2. There has been opposition apparently to Eastbourne’s new flower beds - more sustainable planting, less gaudy planting of annuals that require a lot of water - but we think it’s a good idea to change them. It’s happened in my local park and I think the beds look better.

3. This sounds so good. A day of The Dances of Universal Peace on September 12th. This is what the member who is organising it says - ‘I am in the midst of organising a whole day of the Dances of Universal Peace in London this September 12th. We will have some great dance leaders and some excellent musicians there. If you already love the dances, or if you wonder what on earth they might be, this is your opportunity to come along and sample what I think is the most amazing spiritual practice. Think embodied kirtan, or state change without the psychedelics, or just a wonderful day spent with lovely people trying something new, simple and very satisfying on all levels! No previous experience is necessary. The booking link is in the comments, get in touch with me if you're curious or unsure..and hopefully see you there!’

   

   4. We loved this story in the Newcastle Chronicle of the couple who started Barter Books in Alnwick station, Northumberland. ‘Meet Mary and Stuart Manley (pictured 35 years apart) they set up a beloved train station bookshop 35 years ago - and today it brings visitors in from around the world

   The husband and wife duo set up Barter Books in one room of the former Alnwick Railway Station in June 1991, and in that time it’s grown into an iconic Northumberland institution

   They say they had “no idea” it would become as popular as it has.

   The couple recreated a picture from the opening day this week to celebrate the milestone, but for a place that seems like it’s always been there, its inception was not what most would have imagined.

   Stuart says the origin of Barter Books came from a need to keep his model factory afloat, which operated in the station.

   Speaking to ChronicleLive, he explains: “We had a heavy overdraft, we had to do something! I had a model factory there which was struggling.

   “Mary came up with the bookshop to help with overheads, the idea was it would help in the summer when there were more visitors.

   “Memorably during our first week, I remember one of the people coming up and saying ‘I give it a year’. That’s Alnwick wisdom for you!”

   And how wrong they were!

   The couple couldn’t have predicted that by 2022, Barter Books would have expanded into the majority of the station; pulling in around 350,000 visitors a year

   In recent years, it’s been named as one of the most beautiful bookshops in Europe and even the world

   And if you’re passing through, it’s well worth a visit

   

   5. The folding fan or a new fangled electrical one? Well the consensus went to the former but I have a feeling that quite a few of us have both!!!

6. And finally to knee painting and the lost art of it. Several members were keen but not on flowers. Skulls was suggested…

This morning I had a pivotal conversation with my GP of thirty-five plus years. She’s going to retire in a few months.

This particular doctor has been beside me since I fell into her practice a few months off the plane from Australia. I was completely lost, and she was right there at the beginning of being found. Her speciality within General Practice is being relational. You might think that is the baseline for working on the frontline as a GP, but we all know that is not the case. I have been so grateful, not to mention the envy of anyone I have spoken to about what has been co-created over all these miles, years, conversations – hours of conversation over decades.

She never watched the clock and she never looked away. Eye contact and open ears and heart. Her appointments would take the time a person needed. Period.

Back in the old days before Covid changed the world as we know it, when the norm was to go to the surgery and have face to face, her downstairs waiting room was always rammed. The other three doctors in their upstairs offices had much faster throughput, but on the ground-floor the biggest wait room would without fail breach out into the reception area. You had your appointment time, but could easily not get in the room for two or more hours later than the designated time. The wait space was indeed crammed, but full of goodwill. We all chose this doctor because she never ever sent you out until you were absolutely fully attended to. It was normal for an appointment to last an hour.

In an entirely appropriate manner I love her, and feel her sincere, also appropriate care for me. We got old together though I am a few years her senior. Of course she’s retiring, and rightly so. Her selfcare is inspirational – she gives a lot and always takes fulsome measured breaks at regular pacing.

We had a really ‘good talk’ in our monthly phone consult – we do three on the phone and then the fourth in the room. She puts me in at the end of her Tuesday baby clinic.

I was in fluency and flow during this conversation. Sometimes I’m not in that register when we speak and it’s always just what it is. She knows me – I know deep in my bones I am known.

After I put down the phone, I fell into two hours of grief. I wept until weeping was done. I am going to lose this human that has been a constancy over approaching four decades. Even though I am a few years older, she has been a real surrogate mother. She has held me, walked alongside me, built a relationship that is infused with trust, and gone above and beyond to help me as my curriculum of pain wended its way from the beginning, when it was not nothing, all the way through to the escalation over the last decade to being actually disabled, mostly housebound, and needing to use all my resources not to live in the victim position, not to make pain management the top note of getting through each day, not the only note.

Towards the end of last year I had an orthopaedic appointment with a very straightforward, no frills consultant. I liked him a lot. He said it as it was. He said my fusion surgery in 2020 was impeccable, but that it had created a rigid situation at the base of my spine. Our structural systems are dynamic, so this beautiful metal architecture had created a problem in that above it the spine was nodule by nodule unable to do what spines need to do. He also said that had he had anything to do with referring me for this fusion he would have strongly recommended against it. He said if you looked at all my scans historically, it was clear that the dilemma I now found myself in was almost inevitable.

He concluded by saying there was nothing further to do and he was discharging me from the orthopaedic clinic, and the rest of my life would be pain management.

I did have a big messy cry at this point, and he was no frills kind, just handing me some paper towels and giving me a few moments to be upset. I heard myself say something I hadn’t said before – that though the pain was unspeakable, what was sometimes worse was the relentless four hour circuits of pills, waiting for them to kick in, the slide in which the efficacy wore off, taking the next dose and same again, on repeat, twenty-four hours a day, every day.

I described it as hardcore car crashes because that is what it felt like.

He said: lady, it doesn’t need to be like that. He told me I needed slow release patches that were changed every fourth day. Two patches a week, no more car crashes.

Dear reader, it was life changing.

However, the thing he also said that I didn’t really hear, was that the pain would continue to escalate over time. I was too excited to really register that bit until it started happening.

It is eight months later and I am now on the strongest patch my doctor can prescribe, plus oral medication four times each day and another dose in the middle of every night.

Everything crashed into everything after my doctor call yesterday – grief, terror at having to meet a new doctor who is pretty much guaranteed to take a look at my prescription and react. I cannot tell you how much I am not up for a conversation with a brand new doctor. I will not only be furious with her/him/them for not being the doctor I love and trust, but I know I will be grilled on discussing and reviewing the hefty prescription, put in place with great care, through all the many measured and unflinching conversations over time, built into mutual trust and respect.

Then it brings me to the very simple conversation I am currently having with myself, my therapist, my group – therapy and group are also enduring. Seventeen years alongside Joanna, not remotely orthodox therapist shaped – the perfect shape for me, and my group, also that many years.

I speak in a very straightforward manner about the option to take my own life at a point when it feels done. I have always talked about death. I’m good at talking about death. It seems clear that as a society we need to rewrite death from the narrative of tragedy and taboo, into something we can get up closer to and make more intimate, ordinary in the best kind of ordinary. That is my wide aperture view, but this is me talking about my death.

I have always been clear and open with my doctor that I am unequivocal about taking matters into my own hands if and when I’m done. She has been so willing to hear me, I mean really hear me. She doesn’t like it, but she doesn’t argue. She also knows I have made it my business to educate myself about everything that matters: legal implications for anyone afterwards, and how to procure the pentobarbital – the unequivocal death drug. The one they use in USA death row executions, and the one they use at Dignitas in Switzerland.

Then there is the reality of my pain prognosis. It will keep getting worse, and the only possibility is pain management. There is not much of a margin anymore for increasing medication to higher dosage. I am standing in the threshold, the doorway, the truth of this.

Here is more truth: the epic amount of medication I am already taking is no longer getting on top of pain – it takes the edge off at best, and it I do the smallest of physical business such as hosing the garden, it triggers escalation that then requires I stop, lay down in my optimal arrangement of support pillows etc, for recalibration.

I am looking down the barrel of the last bit.
I can report from the inside of what getting worse happening is in a metric sense, and I believe I stand inside three more years maximum. That would include a decision that gave a six month lead up, so more like thirty months.

Here is what I’d like to be understood in.

Imagine you are surgically attached to an audio speaker playing Black Sabbath at an off the scale volume, and that it never, ever stopped. Now convert that into embodied pain.

It does not let up.
The long ago locus of my pain was lower spine, my lower two discs had more or less collapsed by the time I had the metal architecture put in six years back. There was a brief respite in a decrease of volume, and then what my no frills surgeon told me was clear to see if anyone had taken the time to look historically, kicked in.

Now, I have to report that every single location of my body is screaming. All that clenching, compensating, walking in ways that created further problems in different body parts… then about five years ago I started developing a different tonality of pain as an overlay. It lives in the slippery realms of autoimmune conditions such as fibromyalgia. The diagnosis and treatment are flailing about, and it still carries an echo of judgement in the way that conditions like ME and chronic fatigue still roll some people’s eyes as if it’s not entirely a real thing.

It is a real thing.
Neuropathic pain is a whole different orchestra of brutal pain. It is different from the structural pain and I am living with both. I can’t take any of the go to meds for that because it won’t agree with the pain regime I’m already on.

This is less a tragic song, and more akin to a forensic report.
This is the first time I can see the specific time line, rather than an approximation.

That is not nothing.
I’m catching my breath.
I’m writing it because that’s what I do. I do it for me, but also in case it means anything to you. In case you are living something like this and might feel less alone. In case you love someone living this and maybe it could support you to do your utmost to hear, to listen, not only the natural reflex of resistance.

Last Friday was the Friday that once a month is Groupie Day. I have been in this group since it was born around eighteen years ago. It is a slow opening group which means you step in with an agreement to stay for (I think) two years, and as and if and when you feel you’re done there is notice given and justice done to leaving and being left. People have come and gone over the duration, but it is a group with a depth culture of staying. There are eight of us and Tim, our Person. This group is a foundational part of my internal home address. I’ve been called out on pretty much all my hiding places over time. It’s what we do for each-other and with each-other. I have been able to allow so very many stories that felt like the truth of me, well, just fall away. Without knowing, or planning, I fell into nonbinary geography with my groupies, and now I literally cannot muster up a drama or a tragedy. I have a lot of feelings. I mean we are all full of feelings – the thing about the group is that my feelings are witnessed and loved. As a fairly solitary human, in that I live with myself, my cat and my dog, and because my human constellation is quality over frequency, sometimes feelings happening come with a beat of lonely.

In my group, the place I’ve fallen to pieces so many times and found on the other side of falling, that the pieces are slightly reshaped - in that group feelings are never lonely.

Last Friday I unravelled around this thread – pain, pain medication, escalation, the impossibility of actually continuously increasing the prescription because the drugs will ultimately stop breathing happening. There’s a ceiling, which is kind of comedic…

What happened in my group is really beyond description, but it gave me what I can’t measure. I can’t tell you what it meant to me, but I can and need to tell you what it looked like.

If I don’t it would be so easy to imagine that I was showered with love and a version of not empathy, more like, it’s so terrible and we want to make it not this – the human tripwire that happens in the face of being helpless to fix a thing that is kind of unbearable, but also in my baseline, and in my precious group, just what is.

If we can stay in the what is, and not make it a tragedy, something priceless can happen. The shared staying with is the thing where contact happens – the medicine for lonely. I’ve had a lot of deep lessons in the difference, especially over the last decade, and when people are highjacked by the very real discomfort of helpless, distance and separation are the rollout.

I’m still feeling the contact from last Friday with my group buddies, it continues reverberating inside the human I am.

It is worth mentioning too, that me unravelling and being stayed with, was not only about me – I brought death, dying, pain, agency, choice, fear, all of that and more, into the circle and then it belonged to everyone. Everything always does.

In conclusion to this writing, that I was writing anyway, inside where writing cooks, but suddenly got written fast because hearing yesterday that I’m going to lose my beloved GP, threw it onto the page at sonic speed, well I want to say a few unadorned things about curating taking my own little life in the not too distant future.

I have been talking in public by writing, by being part of various communities, for a very long time about my death revision. I speak from an intimate place, but not without a sense that even in a modest way I want to contribute to the bigger conversations.

This is a threshold and I can feel in my body, but most deeply in the place below all thoughts, maybe even below feelings – the place where I just move like water does in a river, or between the shoreline and the sea. I can feel it there in a new way.

Of course it is a decision and an action that happens above ground, and I have given this a lot of thought.

The things that matter to me are that it happens with attention and care. No-one will get a shock, except there is always a kind of shock when someone is gone, even if you know it’s happening. I mean that no-one will hear it out of left field. It matters that I make a point of telling people I love what I love about them, that I build in that space for conversations.

It matters that I do it right.
I have learned what I need to know to do it right.

In a different world I’d create a gathering and make a ritual with a little cradle of humans to stay with me until the time to let me go – unfortunately this is fraught with legal pitfalls, so I will make a ritual near my leaving date, while remaining ambiguous about fine detail.

I will leave video evidence of my right mind decision, and any legal documents that support there being no aftermath with criminal justice.

I will, unless policy changes in the next couple of years, be taking this leap alone – I will not feel alone.

I will, as my nature is quiet order as an aesthetic, not be leaving a mess.

I will have something in place so I can be quietly found the following day.

As for the afterparty – well there will have been a bit collaboration in advance about that.

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