Zan's Zone – Ramblings of an O.A.P.

Our Aimee (Granddaughter) had a nice phone call tonight. She is in 6th form college and has been trying to get a job for either weekends or evenings to get a bit of cash to top up her EMA.

For those of you that don’t know, EMA is £30 per week paid to all kids by the government to help them through college.

Jobs are very scarce now and although she has been sending off application forms, so many apply for each job that she hasn’t even managed to get an interview with any yet. But, this evening she received a phone call from Next asking her if she would like to go in tomorrow morning for 2 hours orientation and then start work Christmas Eve for her first shift.

We don’t know if this is just a few weeks work to get them through the Christmas and January sale weeks or if it may turn out to be permanent, but either way it’s very good news. Even if it only turns out to be for a few weeks she will at least get a decent working reference that she can use to add to her curriculum vitae as well as obviously giving her a bit more money.

Wow, I just don’t know where to start.

Today is my 60th birthday and last night was Halloween. I was born at 20 minutes past midnight on the night the Witches and the Dead were roaming freely.

Being my 60th and having reached this special mark in my life I have thought over the last weeks that perhaps it should be celebrated in a special way but couldn’t come up with anything I particularly wanted to do. Last year, being the first time in years that once again virtually the whole family were living in the same town, we all went out for an expensive dinner for my birthday. For me that was not only celebrating my birthday but also celebrating us all being together once again. I didn’t feel the need for a big fuss this year. But last night I was in for a big surprise.

Being Halloween we planned to take my youngest GG, Jess, and one of her friends to the village where my Niece and Sister live for them to go trick or treating. While the elder kids, such as Aimee took them around the streets us adults would stay indoors in the warm drinking tea and chatting.

Sarah picked me up from home at 6pm to drive over to our Beverley’s. She had already dropped the girls off over there. Going in via the back way Beverley had made a real effort decorating her back garden for Halloween with pretty lights and lanterns and the odd ghost or two. I was later on to see the lit up grave in the front garden with the bones of a skeleton fighting it’s way to the top of the earth. On entering the door via the kitchen I could see that Beverley had created a dark, creepy atmosphere in the house. You have to remember that over here in England we don’t go overboard with the celebrating of Halloween. It has only been in the last few years that our children have even started trick or treating.

On entering the lounge is where I was in for a surprise. The whole room was decorated to the nines for Halloween, including paper chains and balloons along with a full size Angel of Death hanging from the ceiling and all the other gruesome displays that go with the night of the dead. The centre of the room was full of people standing in candlelight, glasses in hand to wish me a Happy Birthday, including a friend that I hadn’t seen for many years and my Nephews girl friend who had come all the way from Croydon to be there instead of Gary driving up to her for the weekend as he normally would. A massive table of food and drinks. I was in for a full blown party.

But there was something else that was to happen that actually brought tears to my eyes, and I can tell you I do not cry easily.

At a point in the evening Sarah brought out a birthday cake. It had thick chocolate icing (my favourite) and a large 6 and an 0 candles. But it was the top of the cake that really shook me. The icing on the top was a photograph of me when I was 6 years old. I hadn’t seen that photo for many, many years. The obvious place they could have gotten it from was my eldest sister.

I know that icing can be made from photos so it wasn’t that that made me tearful. It was just the most surrealist moment of my life. Seeing that tiny girl smiling up at me along with the 60 of the candles at the head of the photo just didn’t seem real. That, along with all the time and trouble those girls must have put in to do all this for me made me have trouble keeping back the tears. Wow.

Some of the pressies I also got were totally unexpected as well. Our family more or less give token gifts for birthdays for the adults, a bunch of flowers, a box of chocs etc. But I was given, A DVD player, A cashmere stole, A cashmere throw, a set of 8 Steven Seagal films ( I love his films), and from my Niece I couldn’t believe the ring that she gave me. Gold with a cluster of 4 diamonds, 2 rubies, 2 emeralds and 1 Sapphires. Oh and I did get me bunch O’ flowers and me box O’ chocs, lol.

The whole evening was wonderful. The kids still went out for an hour or so trick or treating and we still had kids knocking at the door demanding their treats. The atmosphere was fantastic. What a wonderful way to celebrate my 60th.

On arriving back at Sarah’s with the girls later that evening Sarah also had something else for me that had me laughing. She had got together a group of things, as she said, that every 60 year old needs to take with them into their old age.

It was an old fashioned straw basket such as our Grans would have had and in it was………..

A “Now We are 60″ book – This is a rip off of the poems of A.A. Milnes “Now We are Six”
Two wind up racing Grannies with their zimma frames (must have a race with those with my little Jess later today)
An exercise video to keep one from getting incontinent as one gets older
A “Where’s Wally” hat to keep the old girl warm indoors in the cold evenings
A pair of slippers
But the funniest thing was a half dozen marbles running around the bottom of the bag (for when I lose mine)

Had some really good news yesterday. Took a trip to the hospital with Sarah for her check up scan to see how big her ovarian cyst had grown and whether it was ready for an op and there was no trace of it.

We thought it had burst last week because she spent 24 hours being really ill. Constantly throwing up and couldn’t even keep a glass of water down her.

Obviously it was the poison from the cyst leaving her body.

Thank goodness for that. It’s all over. She has been in the most awful pain for months now.

Bad news is that she has an accident last night and fell flat on her face after tripping over some cobbles in town.

She has badly strained her ankle which is now swollen to twice it’s size. Quite nasty.

Our Aimee has a chest infection so she is coughing and spluttering all over the house and as she is an asthmatic she is having terrible trouble breathing with it. Poor little cow is having to sleep virtually sitting up.

I have been spending the last few days staying with Sarah again, but then the weather hasn’t been that summery so if I’m going to stay in doors half the time it might as well be here where I have company.

Today 23rd August is the anniversary of my Mum’s passing.

I can’t believe it’s been 18 years. Dad passed in the same month 17 years ago.

Mum was a bit of an eccentric and very much a great laugh. She was such fun, but maybe that’s because she was eccentric. I am pleased to say that out of all the sisters I am more like our Mum than any of us.

As I get older and look in the mirror I more and more see Mums face looking back at me. But then funnily enough my elder Sister said exactly the same thing to me only a couple of days ago, that she sees Mum looking back at her.

Anyway I will be thinking of Mum today and sending loving thoughts to her and I hope whoever reads this will share this day with me.

(((hugs))) to all.