Doubtdispelled wrote:
Oooh, you want concrete evidence?

I hadn't meant literally...but still...

Doubtdispelled wrote:

I'm a bit knackered now...

Hmm...you must be getting' old...

Sounds like a job well done !

smudge wrote:Anecdotally it seems when people retire they often lose that bit of oomph. This could well be the fact that they are just older and so do lack the oomph because of this. It could also be that no longer having get up, go out, and do stuff 5 days a week they lose the desire to do anything and so the ability also dissipates quickly.
I can't help wondering if keeping busy at something - work, voluntary, active time consuming hobby - makes a difference.
Thoughts?

My experience of old people is the opposite. My DH worked until he was well into his 60s, and hated it. Sitting in an office shuffling papers all day wasn't that exciting, not as his retirement has been thus far.

When he was offered early retirement, he was happy to take it and it seemed to have given him new life. He'll happily get up at 6 a.m. to play in a bowls tournament without complaining about the cold, as he did when he was working. He also belongs to a drama group, a canasta group, and he plays another card game derived from canasta. He has sometimes three days a week for me, but that's also only on days when he isn't coaching bowls, or going to a drama club meeting. We shop on one day a week and socialise on the other free one. When we want to go off on a trip, he has to take his diary to all his clubs to rearrange his busy life for the week (and it's usually only a week) I'm taking him away from it. We went off for two weeks in May, upsetting his entire bowls programme and when I suggested that we take the dog to the beach for a day, his first response was to consult his planner to see when he could squeeze it in. Forget that the kids want us to visit them in October, and he says we can do it over a weekend because sitting in Joh'burg waiting for the kids to schlep us around is too boring. I'm thinking, sleeping late and taking long walks, he's thinking "boring."

This seems to be the case for most of the people living in the close on 1,000 houses in our village. Everyone except me seems to belong to one of the clubs here at least, and if they're not going off to a meeting, they sit in the library, doing jigsaws or socialising.

Even people who shouldn't be driving anymore, still do, so the council has reduced the max speed limit in our town to 40 kph. Slow as treacle but it allows for the old dears in their vintage cars to go at a pace that won't kill them.

I've lived around old people for just over 10 years now and I've never seen any who've "given up" when they've stopped working, unless they're in ill health but even then, their friends make them go out to lunches, evening functions, quiz evenings, movie evenings. Except me. They all leave me alone because I tell them to come and sit with me for a day to see whether I'm "letting myself go" by watching Cosmos (read documentary TV shows), reading ancient history, messing about on three different computers, taking photos, processing them and all the other things I do during the days that I have my house to myself.

smudge wrote:

kennyc wrote:

smudge wrote:Anecdotally it seems when people retire they often lose that bit of oomph. This could well be the fact that they are just older and so do lack the oomph because of this. It could also be that no longer having get up, go out, and do stuff 5 days a week they lose the desire to do anything and so the ability also dissipates quickly.
I can't help wondering if keeping busy at something - work, voluntary, active time consuming hobby - makes a difference.
Thoughts?

I think it absolutely makes a difference!

just my anecdotal observations though...

Yeh....but it's what we would like to believe isn't it? Because we think "when I get old and retire I'll keep active and busy and involved". Some concrete evidence would be nice, eh?

My story is pretty much anecdotal, I suppose, but I have had ten years of living around people mostly older than myself, although I'm one of the older people now. I'm amazed at how many of the residents here look like they should still be working.

I believe it's a state of mind. If you give up and just sit around watching soap operas all day, sure, you'll lose the "oomph" fairly quickly. I spent the first ten years of my retirement completing my university courses, and then wrote my book after we came back from the UK. I have a couple of other projects that I need to get into but have been procrastinating about - I can't get a handle on how to attack them. So I've spent the last two years messing around with this house and getting work done on it. Now it's all done, except for the garden, there are no more excuses. I need to knuckle down and do some real work, starting next month when the visitors I'm expecting next week, go home.

smudge wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:
Oooh, you want concrete evidence?

I hadn't meant literally...but still...

Doubtdispelled wrote:

I'm a bit knackered now...

Hmm...you must be getting' old...

Sounds like a job well done !

Doesn't it just. I'm in awe of DD and the work she's able to do. I'd like to see some pics DD when it's all done.

I can't do any physical work anymore, my muscles just tear if I over-extend them so I have to let other people do the bending and stretching, and digging, and painting. Every time the gardener comes to fix up something for me, I get all edgy about wanting to get down on my knees in the dirt, but if I did that, I'd be finished, and in bed for weeks afterwards. Horrible. I can still take walks, and do light housework, so I deal with what I can, and let other people do whatever it is that will hurt me if I do it.

smudge wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:
Oooh, you want concrete evidence?

I hadn't meant literally...but still...

I know you didn't, Smudge, and to tell the truth I'm feeling a bit embarrassed now about chucking that all out there, blowing my own trumpet as it were, but I think that for me it was a bit of a reaction to all that horrible anti-women stuff we've been seeing on a certain thread lately.

smudge wrote:

Doubtdispelled wrote:

I'm a bit knackered now...

Hmm...you must be getting' old...

Sounds like a job well done !

I am, and

Agrippina wrote:Doesn't it just. I'm in awe of DD and the work she's able to do. I'd like to see some pics DD when it's all done.

I can't do any physical work anymore, my muscles just tear if I over-extend them so I have to let other people do the bending and stretching, and digging, and painting. Every time the gardener comes to fix up something for me, I get all edgy about wanting to get down on my knees in the dirt, but if I did that, I'd be finished, and in bed for weeks afterwards. Horrible. I can still take walks, and do light housework, so I deal with what I can, and let other people do whatever it is that will hurt me if I do it.

To tell the truth, Aggie, I'm a bit gobsmacked myself that I can still do as much. I'm not sure how long it will last. There's still one area of the house to be tackled, and that's up the stairs and along the landing. The landing I can do, but getting up to the top of the stair-well I'm pretty sure is beyond me. I think I'm aware that a serious fall could well be the undoing of me!

BTW, I don't suppose you could send your gardener over to help me? My poor old garden has turned into a complete jungle (again) because I can only do one thing at a time.

My gardener would weep with excitement at the thought of flying to the UK to do your garden for you. He is a wonderful horticulturist. I'm amazed at his knowledge of not only gardening but everything else. We have wonderful conversations about politics especially, and he teaches me about which plants to put in and where. I'd really love to be able to send him to the UK to see some of the gardens there. His daughter is in her first year at university, studying information technology, and was sent to Cape Town university to present some of her work at a seminar there. I have no doubt that she will end up travelling abroad before too long. Really not bad for a man who left school at 15 to support his family, and has now bought his own home, and encouraged his two daughters to get educated. It's an amazing story considering he wasn't allowed to do anything other than gardening, but then became an expert at his craft because of Apartheid.

Agrippina wrote:My gardener would weep with excitement at the thought of flying to the UK to do your garden for you. He is a wonderful horticulturist. I'm amazed at his knowledge of not only gardening but everything else. We have wonderful conversations about politics especially, and he teaches me about which plants to put in and where. I'd really love to be able to send him to the UK to see some of the gardens there. His daughter is in her first year at university, studying information technology, and was sent to Cape Town university to present some of her work at a seminar there. I have no doubt that she will end up travelling abroad before too long. Really not bad for a man who left school at 15 to support his family, and has now bought his own home, and encouraged his two daughters to get educated. It's an amazing story considering he wasn't allowed to do anything other than gardening, but then became an expert at his craft because of Apartheid.

He sounds like a very good man, Aggie. If I was rich enough, I'd send him a plane ticket, because I think he would deserve it!

He definitely deserves it. Hopefully his daughter will get the acclaim she seems to be heading for, and she will take him off to see the world. He is one of the people I would reward without a second thought if I happened to come into a lot of money.

Fuck.

Posting from my mother's house. Just spent all afternoon and evening in Accident & Emergency after she fell over and banged her head. She's fine, and they released her to come home for the night since I'm here staying with her. But she's in one hell of a lot of pain. She has chronic back pain anyway, and this has tipped it over the edge.

This is her only fall in five years. What are the lucky odds that it would happen within the few weeks that I've here visiting from the other side of the world, and could deal with it?

Now looking through brochures to find out what can be done about increasing and expanding her range of home help, or even look towards a nursing home or retirement village. Because my fucking brother who lives five minutes up the fucking road, doesn't have a job and spends every day playing fucking computer games, can't muster the fucking imagination to ring her up now and then and find out if she needs anything.

I fly back in two weeks. Probably going to spend most of that time sorting what's left of her life out. I have two kids and a wife who also has a debilitating chronic pain condition. I can't handle this.

So sorry Beatsong.

I can understand your frustration. I had my mum living with us for 12 years at a time in my life when an extra mouth to feed and a person to house was a little expensive, apart from the emotional trauma of the dementia and constant threat of her falling down.

Beastsong, it's really hard when parents start to age, I empathise. Any day can bring something like you describe. I don't know if you saw my stuff a few months back about my mum - she had a heart attack and although I have a sister who is 5 miles away from her, I ended up leaving my family and going to stay at their house to look after my dad while my mum was in hospital. I don't begrudge her that at all, but it is quite cross-making when you have a sibling who lives just round the corner - you'd think they could manage to lift a finger when something crops up. Now, even though they've been told not to stress her out, the pair of them (sister and dad) are worse than they were before, nagging and criticising and my dad making her run around after him just as much as he always did. My 52 year old sister is supposed to be relied upon at this stage in our parents' life to help them out, not add to the problem. I'm this far away from pulling my hair out, and then hers. If I lived around the corner I'd start throwing my considerable weight around, but I don't.