My Daughter's 50th - My Friends early Death.

M had a weekend of 50th birthday celebrations with friends & family - presents, cards, cake & fizz. Just as it should be. A good friend, T, died suddenly last week. He was only 58 & will be missed. It's yet another couple of footprints on the road you travel through life.

There are celebrations & rituals, joys & sorrows. No life is exempt from great pain or great joy.

A birthday is expected a death may not be. A life can end in a whisper of time without notice or warning. The thing is you have to learn to deal with both. There is no alternative. Stuff happens. You can't ignore it & hope it will go away. What matters is how you deal with it.

The shock waves of a death, in whatever circumstances, travel wide. Many people can be touched by one persons life. The trick, on your journey through life, is to leave behind good memories if you can. I'm not necessarily a big fan of Eulogies. I have been to funerals where what was said bore little resemblance to the life of the person I knew. I'm thinking of another friend R who would have been very surprised by his own funeral.

If we could just live thinking about both siezing the moment & really living it, but also doing something to benefit others. Being kind. Being thoughtful. Really listening & trying to understand what someone is trying to tell you. But we are all wrapped up in our own small lives & horizons - The minutiae of our own mundane existance.

Then the moment is gone forever & we can never recover it. We can rarely go back & put something really right. Life moves ever forward & the wrongs we do, big or small, are there in the memory & can't be erased. Better to act mindfully, with thought about our actions & the consequences.

I will miss my friend. He was a joy to be with. He made me laugh. We put the world to rights. I will remember him with good memories. I hope someone can say that for me when I go.

Misfit - Is it me or my Activity Tracker?

My device simply does not work. It does not register my swimming half a mile 5 x per week. It will not synch with my iPad, but does with my phone. The sleep monitoring seems to register when you lie down & get up, rather than when you actually go to sleep & wake.

I spent a huge amount of time trying to get it set up. The "Quick Start" guide is anything but! It's worse than useless. The whole process is not intuitive or user friendly. I had trouble finding & downloading the apps you need to see the display on your phone.

I have now spent a huge amount of time emailing with Misfit customer services who couldn't rectify any of the problems. I got a replacement yesterday, but not a Speedo Shine, just a Shine 2. I will have to purchase a swimming app! It appears that the Speedo Shine has been discontinued. (Why am I not surprised?) I imagine that's why there are so many Speedo Shines for sale on Ebay.

Looking at the display on the phone is not as good as it would be on an iPad. (It's very small). The only reason I bought the Speedo is because I swim so much.

What can I say. It's been a disaster & now I've got to set up the new one. There are times when I think that technology is a pain in the ass & complete waste of time & effort.

 

Maybe just exercising is simpler.

Update - I have now asked for a refund because the Shine 2 didn't work either. Looking at the forums I'm not alone in having problems. I don't need a tracker to tell me when I go to bed & get up as opposed to when I actually sleep. I've got a pretty good bedside clock for that. I also don't need a tracker to tell me how long I swim for, there's a clock in the pool. You are supposed to tap the "watch" to start & end swimming, but neither watch responded reliably to being tapped when wet!

Very put off trackers now.

Birthdays - Spoilt Rotten?

Oddly I can't remember ever having a birthday cake when I was a child or adolescent. Nor can I remember having a birthday party. There certainly were not the presents which everyone gives & receives nowadays. Nothing much happened for either my 18th or 21st.

It could be a poor memory, but even if I'm suffering from dementia I would have thought that old memories would remain. It could well be that my parents couldn't afford a party - Money was definitely tight. Maybe birthday parties weren't the thing for my immediately post war generation. I imagine that the austerity lasted for many years. My mother was German & my father came from a mining community, so I doubt that birthday celebrations were big in either families.

I also think that because my birthday comes so soon after Christmas it meant that Christmas was the focus of celebration & gift giving. When I was married it was difficult for my husband to find something exciting to do in January. I do remember many cold, wet or even snowy days doing something outside. For most of our early years we weren't at all well off, so a restaurant was not something we even considered.

Maybe because of all that I have always wanted to be spoilt rotten & surprised. But my logical self knows that that is difficult to do, especially for a husband of my generation.

So, today is my birthday, hence the reflection. It's a bit late now for the spoiling rotten. However I did have a lovely birthday weekend thanks to my daughter & family. Lunch with daughter on Saturday,  (then chosing her 50th birthday present). Sunday was a really nice birthday tea with daughter, son in law & one grandson. (Unfortunately the other one was in school). Lots of presents & a scrummy cake. Today I really enjoyed opening all my cards over breakfast - A reminder of all my friends.

Maybe I'll have to learn to spoil myself rotten.

Birthday - Friends are better than Gifts.

Another one approaching! Age makes you contemplative.

Just chatted on the phone to two friends, one who was 90 a couple of days ago. She is always very happy, interested & interesting, bright & intelligent - A real pleasure to be with & talk to. The other one is in a similar situation to me & we can discuss anything. Two friends came for drinks on Friday & the conversation was hilarious - champagne might have had something to do with it, but I don't think so. Another two friends came to stay recently & we are always very relaxed & able to talk very openly about our lives.

Good friends are really rare. People who have similar interests, or who you can disagree with without compromising the friendship. People who are interested in you & really want to know about your life, not just download about themselves. You have to work at real friendships & relationships. You have to give friendship the gift of time. It isn't a question of buying gifts & spending money. Life is full of acquaintances, that's nice but not the same.

A birthday should be special, but I don't really need or want any presents. Cards are nice because you know that people are thinking about you. It is always a pleasure to see people, but that isn't possible with most of my friends. We phone, email & maybe text. I am used to not seeing my micro family actually on my birthday, but there will be a birthday tea at some point.

I know I'm lucky to have good friends. It's even more important when you live alone. People really do need people. We are social animals.

"😊A friend is like a book, you don't need to read all of them, just pick the best ones😇"

2:5 Fast Diet - Michael Moseley.

Trousers too tight - some have given up the unequal struggle with the increase in size of my waist! Waist fat is the most dangerous. It isn't necessarily what you can see, but the layers of fat around your organs. What a delightful image that is!

The scales & the tape measure don't lie.

Too much cake & biscuits & chocolate, eaten without thinking, over the weeks & months.

I refuse to buy a bigger size or give the unwearable trousers to the charity shop. Something has to be done & only I can do it.

So, this is the first week of fasting for 2 days a week. Already completed one day. Today is the second day. Actually it really isn't that bad. Check out the web page.

https://thefastdiet.co.uk/

It's all a question of getting your mind adjusted & keeping occupied. The incentive of a wardrobe full of clothes you can't wear is useful too.

3 months - then I should have lost at least a pound a week. I will also have got into better eating habits. Theoretically you can eat what you like on the 5 days you don't fast, but I am going to try to avoid sweet things & cut down on carbs.

Some foods send messages straight to the pleasure centres of the brain & they are the baddies - chocolate for instance. I'm aiming to shut down my pleasure centre & reduce the size of my stomach.

In todays techie jargon I'm re-programming myself. Hope it works.

Time

 

There are a lot of quotes about time - What it is / isn't - What to do / not do with it - Lots of good advice. Basically I think the only time that is relevant is now. This moment. Maybe that is the perspective of age though.

My conclusions are :-

• Time should be spent with people you like / love / have things in common with / enjoy being with.
• People who are interested in you too & enjoy being with you.
• Time should not be wasted on self absorbed people or "toxic" friendships / relationships.
• Time should be spent doing what you want to do not what you have to do - (that can wait a bit)
• Best of all time should be spent doing things you really enjoy. Fun things. Things that make you feel good & make you laugh.
• Time should not be wasted on remorse, regret or recriminations. The past has gone & can't be changed.
• If time was a £100 note you wouldn't throw it away, so don't throw away your time.

Over a lifetime I have wasted a lot of time on people who were "drains" & on doing things I didn't want to do. I have tried to please other people instead of pleasing myself. I have found it very difficult to say No when I should have done so. I have also sometimes been task oriented instead of people oriented, so there are people I should have spent more time with & been more understanding with.

But I am me & that was then. Now I know better, but that is what age & experience is about.

I'm not making any resolutions - I will try to value my time though - (Just saying in case any of my friends are surprised if I don't immediately say yes to something).