Speeding, Luna, Amie, Bath and Ireland

I’ve been away for a few days visiting my daughter in Bath. I really do love going there. My daughter and her partner have a Guide Dog for the Blind pup called Luna (we tend to call her Loony ;) and they’re in the process of training her. Just the basics; the more complicated stuff will come later.

I always used to have dogs and horses in my life, and I do really miss them, but I wish I’d been taught to train a pup the way my daughter has. It’s a lovely way to bring up a baby. Gentle, caring and totally reward-based. I’m lucky enough to live in a beautiful place in Malvern, but, sadly, we’re not allowed to keep pets, which makes visiting Loony extra special to me.

My last dog was a treasure. She adopted me one day on a mountain path in Ireland, where I lived for 10 years after losing my partner, Mike. He died suddenly in 1999, aged 55. We’d combined a holiday with a visit to my mother in Donegal, and he died while we were there.

Donegal is a glorious county, if rather wet and rainy, and after a while I felt a call to move there. I bought myself a ridiculously inexpensive second-hand mobile home, parked it on the land and lived a simple and fairly isolated life in a wet but glorious environment, with views overlooking mountains, lochs and the sea.

She, the wee dog, just appeared one day. I was walking up on the hills and she came up to me, pressed herself against my leg and we walked like that all the way back to my mobile home. Though I tried, I was unable to find where she had come from so I kept her and called her Amie, which, as you will probably know, is French for friend. Amie, darling Amie, was my dearest, loveliest friend and lived with me from that moment until the day she died. That day was a long time ago now, but I still really really miss her.

Back to the present and my recent trip to Bath. I love going there, but this weekend I was anxious because I’d been caught speeding and given the option to go on a speed awareness course. It comes as a zoom call and I never use zoom, so I went to my daughter’s and used her laptop and had her help in setting it all up.

In the lead-up to the course I’d been in a dementia-esque panic for days, agonising about how to use zoom, amongst other things, even though my girls would be standing by to help with any technical issues that might come up. Will I cope? I asked myself. What in the world is going to happen? And what will I be expected to do? The thoughts tumbled around my head like clothes in a drier, on and on and on . . . .round and round and round, so I was rather groggy, mentally, before we even started. Initially this worried me, but when the course began I realised I needn’t have worried. It is, in fact, very user friendly and extremely enlightening, and I very soon relaxed.

Having said that, driving home from Bath the next day, and obeying every last letter of the various speed limits was REALLY hard. Before I got to the motorway, I was sticking meticulously to the (60 mph) speed limit for probably the first time on that particular road, and a queue was quickly forming behind me. It’s a good road but there’s not much opportunity for overtaking for quite a few miles and I really didn’t want to be that famed ‘dithering little old lady’ driver. In fact I felt like putting a placard on the back of my car. SORRY! RECENTLY BEEN DONE FOR SPEEDING! But, that said, I really am totally converted, morally, after what I learned that day.

Ironically, it was in one aspect, rather similar to my Age UK H&W experience, as in, for one you have to have broken the law, and for the other you have to get dementia. And whilst no-one really wants either scenario, both, in their own ways, have involved me in situations that have been totally engaging and useful.

Yet still, when ‘public forgetting’ happens it makes me feel old, incompetent and stupid and the more I feel that way the more timid and ‘on the back foot’ I become. I intend to address this arrogant viewpoint, because I would be furious if anyone described the people I know from Age UK H&W as ‘old, incompetent and stupid.’ And I am most definitely one of them.

And on one last note. This morning started off terribly for me, and I realised that I was allowing too many miscellaneous and malicious thoughts, all against myself, to fill my mind. Mindfulness and meditation are both tools I used during my time as a counsellor and I realise I have, to my detriment, let both of them slip . . . But this morning I was watching something on YouTube and it reminded me. It’s strange, isn’t it, how easily we let important things go, and how quietly and quickly they slip away.

So, maybe, before we part, you might like to take note of your breathing. Check from time to time, during the day, what your shoulders, arms, hands and toes are doing and let go of them, so they fall into a natural and relaxed form. Begin to take slower, longer and deeper breaths and follow them, both on their journey in and on their journey out.

Try to follow the breath right down into the tummy, keeping the chest still. Don’t strain, and try to pause for a while between each breath. This, too, is all about mindfulness. Whenever you have the time, stand or sit or lie still and put your full attention on the journey of your breathing. Be present and focus. Try not to let your mind wander. I think you might be surprised to find how difficult it is to stop the mind, so you will need to observe your thoughts carefully and stop them when you find them.

Now consciously and deliberately let go of any straining and gripping and try to keep your attention calmly fixed on each move you make. I’m totally out of practice and cannot believe how many times I’ve had to drop my shoulders whilst writing this down.

Lastly, and if you’ve managed to get this far, I’d like to thank you for reading my rambling words and to wish you wellness and happiness. I look forward to sharing with you again soon. Goodbye for now and, if relevant to you, God bless.