Old Ladies

Just now I finished a phone call with a very old lady friend. Old in years, not so much old in friend years. One of these sweet old dears who rarely, if ever, have a bad word to say about anyone, gentle and mild, a white halo for hair, small in size, frail and delicate. Articulate, educated, well-mannered, a lady. Sometimes I have wished that she might drop the sweetness, even if just by accident and join the rough, crude, occasionally cross and sweary world I inhabit.

We got talking about Putin and the invasion of Ukraine. Is there anyone cognisant who doesn't? I said I want him dead, shot, eliminated.

"Shot?", she said. "Shooting is too good for him, I want him hung, drawn and quartered", she thundered, "I want him torn limb from limb". To my great delight the old lady was spitting nails. Obviously, I agree with her and told her so and it gives me hope that old does not automatically have to equate to lacking spirit.

Life is slowly, in minute increments, resuming pace. A well attended garden club meets monthly again in a village hall a twenty minute drive away. When I heard that two ladies (yes, oldish) from my neck of the woods were on the committee and would therefore go I asked for a lift. The driver very kindly agreed. These meetings take the form of a paid speaker giving an illustrated talk on their subject of choice with open questions at the end. I have in the past attended many such meetings elsewhere and enjoyed them and sometimes I didn't.

What is wrong with non-professional speakers? You'd think that, as they get paid, they'd get the basics right. The speaker that evening started by getting her microphone upside down, she then sat with her back to the audience staring down at her laptop, and mumbled her way through a very uninspiring talk with few and mainly boring photographs presented on the screen. How many beds of snowdrops can you take, how many pictures of men at work and heaps of earth waiting to be turned into flower beds? And finishing off with a picture of more old ladies crowding the cake counter in the cafeteria of the garden she was supposed to delight us with simply made me even more cross. All this and when you go to the rather famous garden's website you get some beautiful vistas.

As I had been given a lift by two friends active in the club I thought I'd better not say anything on the way home. Imagine how pleased I was when one of them said that the evening had been a waste of time, the speaker quite poor and not to be invited again. One of them asked the other if they should not point out to potential speakers that they should face the audience and speak clearly. "Not really," the other one said, "they might be offended". Such very good old lady manners, spend a boring evening rather than give offence.

The entire audience consisted of nice old ladies with just a sprinkling of old gentlemen. I didn't see anyone above middle height, under 65, and with any colour hair other than grey. I have a friend who says I am incredibly negative; she's right, of course. I must learn to stop being so judgemental and keep shtum, unless I find genuine cause for praise. I have my doubts, however, that I will succeed.

I have mentioned the German Conversation group before, well, we have commenced face-to-face meetings again; we are slowly working our way through "Die Deutsche Seele" (the German Soul) a many-paged book with essays on such German terms as Fussball, German Angst, Bauhaus, Wanderlust, all the way from A through to Z. Alternatively, we watch DVDs on German history, starting with the 9th Century and ending with the Weimar Republic, a thousand years later. That should keep us old ladies busy for some time to come.

All in all, life is picking up.