In the springtime of my dotage

 

I am now in the springtime of my dotage, ageing and retired.

If I’d considered it at all, I doubtless thought this would lead me to a quieter life with lots of reading, craft, seeing friends and pursuing hobbies. Instead, it’s turned out to be Housewife Mark II.

I am blessed to be living with my daughter, her partner and two grandsons, with my son, daughter-in-law and three more grandchildren close by. Between us, we three women manage the day-to-day activities which begin by getting the children ready for school and end by getting the children ready for bed. Taking four of them to school and one to kindie requires constant fine tuning, as does the afternoon pickup. Not only is there the plain “pick up and go home”, but the older four have activities after school – gymnastics for the girls, swimming for one of the girls and the boys, speech pathology for two of them, and art for one. In summer there’s tennis and Nippers on the weekends. School holidays bring code camp, sports camp, gym camp, surfing lessons and I’m sure there’s more but I just need to sit down and rest a bit after thinking about them all.

My principle job is driving the boys to school and picking them up in the afternoon. Or is it doing the washing. The two boys generate a lot of washing, especially the elder who’s idea of tidying his room is to put every piece of clothing hanging about into the dirty wash basket, worn or most often not worn. At the end of the week there’s at least three wash loads just for them, to say nothing of towels and adult clothes. The sheets, thank goodness, now go to the laundry.

I have reinstated myself as queen of the kitchen but on the cleaning side. My daughter is the cook. I pride myself in creating a sparkling clean stovetop and taking a soapy cloth to the white cupboard and drawer fronts. The house we now live in has a huge walk-in pantry; I salivate just thinking about it! Putting away the shopping which I have had delivered and keeping the pantry tidy, is a wonderment, as I think Yul Brunner said in The King and I. I’m also the queen of watering the large number of plants we have on a triangular wooden frame in the living room and creating attractive live mixed-flower-pots on the outside table. Unfortunately, the cockatoos think they’re attractive too; one aggressive fellow (well, who knows if he was a he) stared me straight in the eye and pulled out one whole flowering viola. I shooed him away but, inevitably, he (or she) came back while I was out and took care of the other three. In a triumph of hope over experience, I tried hand feeding the cockatoos a few times only to be bitten, badly. Eventually I gave up and we now throw seeds over the balcony so they can forage on the ground as when we fed them on the balcony they were eating the wooden table.

As the possessor of a sewing machine and an entire room in which to use it, I’m continuing my life as a mender for both families; hems up or down a specialty. I do a reasonably good line in mending holes and rips but only on clothes which don’t leave the house. Anything too fancy must go to the alteration lady. The room with the sewing machine also has bookcases full of fabric acquired over 30 years of visiting the quilt and craft show, and more bookcases full of other hobbies: embroidery, card making and more recently creating art with fabric, threads, beads and other notions.

So when I think about it, despite the housework and kid chauffeuring, I still make time for craft, for reading and listening to music, so my dotage is looking fine.

 

Quote of the week from Chambers Dictionary of Modern Quotations

America diplomat Warren R. Austin in a debate on the Middle East: “Jews and Arabs should settle their differences like good Christians.”