Due to some family problems and illnesses in UK my plan to resume Writing Group sessions on 11 May looks rather optimistic. Please keep a check on the blog and I will try to let you know, asap when I will be able to return to Lanzarote.My mum has been quite poorly and is still in hospital but I did think she was a little brighter today and we are hopeful that she will be able to return home soon. Steve's father is a different story. I have spoken to him and he sounds remarkably himself whilst saying to me that he is sure I understand that ' there is a lot of front involved'. So  I  will share the following if I may:


In the end-of-life care stage of his cancer journey Brian decided he wanted to go out on his own! No-one believed he had the strength to get onto his scooter. I had a phone-call from Steve saying he was on a stake out. He had tracked him to the garden centre and was hiding in the corner of the car park to see what he did. I had an image, which I have shared with some of you all ready of Steve peering through binoculars over the open car door with his beanie hat on, like some urban guerilla. Brian made his purchases, though he had to let Steve take them home in the car, just the purchases, not his Dad! The next day he went into the hospice. He is being amazing and has moved on from the anger. He wants to plant the flowers so that when they grow Bet will look at them and think of him. For the least sentimental or demonstrative couple I know this is some turn around!

 With apologies to Jenny Joseph this is my quick parody on a very famous, favourite poem and my little tribute to Brian:

Warning:

When I am an old geezer I shall drive a scooter

with a helmet and gauntlets that look ridiculous

I shall spend money on grow bags and plants

even if we only have a yard!

I shall park on yellow lines if I feel like it

and wave my stick at policemen and honk my horn at idiots on the road

in a gleeful, outrageous manner.

I shall wear what I want

insult who I want

and teach my grandson to spit.

 

You can sit about in your long-johns all day if you want

and smoke to your hearts content

You can drink whisky in bed

and swear at the computer

 

For years we conformed and paid the mortgage

and worried about what people think.

We socialised and kept abreast

but maybe it's time for a change;

Time to start being eccentric and vague

so people will come to expect

 to see me around, enjoying myself

running about on my scooter.

Sue Almond May 2012

For those who may not know the original:

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

By Jenny Joseph 

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick the flowers in other people's gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.