News, views and stuff

Over the past few weeks, the tempo of my life has slowed right down, with lots of time for reflection, and it’s occurred to me that this has been one of those before-and-after times. Before and after my shoulder became a prosthesis.

Only a few weeks ago, as far as I knew, I had a healthy and able body. Suddenly I became a person with restricted arm movements; someone who had to reinvent my wardrobe to include lots of front-fastening blouses (no more jumpers and T-shirts); someone who has to juggle simple operations like holding a watering can or fastening seat belts in someone else’s car. (I’m still not driving.)

As with all times of change, I’ve found myself re-assessing my life. One of the things that struck me was that before the accident I’d maybe been too wrapped up in my own activities and resources. And I’d been a bit disparaging about those people who seemed to need to fill their retirement with groups – walking groups, gardening groups, reading groups, and so on. Well, those I’ve just mentioned are for me private pursuits, and I intend to keep them that way. However, I have rejoined the U3A philosophy group, and joined for the first time a jazz appreciation group. I’ve convinced myself that there’s nothing wrong with meeting people who share an interest and hopefully learning a few things along the way.

I suppose what had been bugging me before was the idea of having time to fill – it seemed indulgent and almost lazy. But now I’m asking myself – and actually not for the first time – whether all that so-called creativity was just another means of filling spaces. Why be so driven, when the world isn’t exactly waiting for my artistic endeavours. And so I’ve written a manifesto. A manifesto for Relaxism. It’s just a few scribbled notes at present, but I’ll type it up and post it on my next blog.

On the doing side, I’ve been taking a few more still life photos (still using my Nikon Coolpix). I’ve also bought a new Epson printer (one of the cheapest models) and the prints are amazing compared with those I was getting on my old HP Photosmart. Suddenly every grain of dust has clarity. There won’t be the same clarity on screen, but below are three of the images.







If anyone would like to respond in any way please feel free to send me an email via the contact box on my website. To get to my website from the blog, click on ‘News, Views and Stuff’ at the top of this page.