And it’s happened again. Yes, unsettled again. Is this going to be a pattern for the rest of my life? I hope not. The previous blog was about being unsettled by being in the company of ex school chums in my home town. This last weekend the ‘unsettleness’ was to do with neither of these things but the feeling was similar.
In this case I was with my family or some of them in Yorkshire (our recent home). Let me explain. I wrote a long time ago about something called ‘the sister’s weekend’ or more accurately ‘the dreaded sister’s weekend’ when Mrs Summerhouse takes the weekend off to visit with her three sisters and I look after myself and our two dogs. Since I got ill she doesn’t trust me to do either so she’s missed a couple of years. This year she decided that I might, given the right conditions, manage the first bit i.e. looking after myself. Although not quite as you will see. Read on.
The qualified ‘looking after myself’ is based on the fact that the sisters come to our house and I went to spend the weekend with my daughter and her husband. Clearly she didn’t think I was capable of looking after myself either so she kindly offered to step up and take care of me. And let me say right up front that they couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating to my geriatric needs. And after an hour in the company of my sister-in-laws I was more than ready to be taken care of elsewhere*.
Anyway the weekend away was as follows – Friday night we had pizza, Saturday night we had Chinese and we took a trip up to the vineyard where they cut the grass while I mostly watched. We went to two of their ‘atmospheric’ local pubs Friday and Saturday nights. Sunday we went out for breakfast, they let me watch a crappy horror film on Friday night and a crappy but comforting Hammer horror film on Saturday. I could drink as much wine as I wished and go to bed when I wanted and not do any washing up at all. So sounds great doesn’t it so why the unsettlement you ask?
I can only explain it by putting it in the context of our life in real old age by that I mean when we can no longer care for ourselves and need looking after. They have often jokingly? told us how they were going to buy a big house which would accommodate both me and Mrs Summerhouse and our son-in-law’s parents or however many of us are left by that time.
And there’s the rub, this weekend felt like a small foretaste of those now not so distant times and nice though it was I decided I was not quite (at all) ready for those times. So luxurious as the weekend was I was happy to be back at our own home with the sisters-in-law dispersed to their various homes up and down the country and me now surrounded by all the things I cherish (including Mrs Summerhouse in singular minus sisters form).
Maybe that was the purpose of this weekend to remind me of how lucky I am to have the life I’ve got and of course to know I have the safety net of family support when I am no longer quite so lucky, assuming they haven’t changed their minds about looking after us after a small taster of me this last weekend. They haven’t said anything but then they wouldn’t would they? Blimey, now there’s a thought.
* The weirdness / unsettleness began ten minutes from home when they picked me up we drove on a new road that had recently been built and I didn’t know it. Imagine ten minutes from the place you lived for the last forty years and I didn’t know where I was, weird or what? And a weirdness that persisted the whole weekend.