Thoughts of mortality

This week's phone calls didn't bring much more cheer than last Saturday's but at least I was prepared for them. First was a call from Helen. MK is in a still worse state. She'd had to phone the doctor this morning & was awaiting his visit. MK is now in severe pain as well, so she's hoping he can have some strong painkillers to ease it. His strength is rapidly evaporating. His physical strength went long ago, but now his determination & spiritual strength is going too. It sounds as though it can't be much longer before he dies. We almost hope it won't be long, much as we will miss him. Poor Helen sounds even more shattered, though continuing to try to put a brave face on it.

Then I rang Aunt Ivy. We usually speak on a fortnightly basis, but she sounded so weak last week I thought I'd best check up on her. No answer. I tried again. Still no answer. So I rang her daughter, Anne. The urinary infection had got worse & Ivy had had to be rushed into hospital last Sunday. Anne is pleased to say Ivy is doing much better now. Hopefully she's coming home on Monday. Anne, a retired nurse, is anticipating that her mother will need some extra care at first & she is re-organising her life to give her just that.

All this, on top of recent reports that the average life span is late 70s, the last 10 years or so of which are usually not spent in the best of health, makes me only too aware that the Fox is coming up to 60 next year. I reckon that gives us only another 10 years to do all those things we always wanted to do. It's time we got on with them before it's too late. Time slips by so fast. Minutes become years in a blink of an eye.

My one ambition is to visit the land of my birth, Brunei. We had been thinking, next year, we would aim at a trip to Australia again, to visit the Great Barrier Reef to celebrate our coral wedding anniversary (35 years). I'm beginning to think it will be Brunei instead.

Apart from that I want to get the bathroom redone. Get shot of the bath & make it into a wet room - we both prefer showers & it would be so much easier for me to get into, as well as giving us a bit extra floor space in there. Sure it would be great to organise the garden a bit better, maybe add a conservatory, but ultimately if the house is fully adapted we should be able to continue to live in it together into a hopefully ripe old age. And that's what we both want to do for as long as possible, as independently as possible, together.