The measure of it..? 17 11 3 (17) 25 1 30

1 growing old

2 climbing the Munros

Sometimes these days when I have a new title for a blog I have to hurriedly write it down lest I forget it like the aid memoirs above which came into my mind only yesterday and because I very rarely if ever use the expression of "getting the measure of something" I thought it best to write it down in a place I often frequent so at the same time could be sure of running across it again whatever the event... You see I have observed that words or expressions I learned in childhood I still have pretty much instant recall over whereas words or collections of words I learned in adulthood, like for example "avocado" I sometimes have difficulties recalling right away, though thankfully so far they do recur, only I have to exercise patience. "Enigma" as in the film or movie by that name: The Enigma Files, is another word I have difficulties recalling from time to time...

It occurred to me in connection with my last blog then when I reflected how 2016 as a year for Munro-bagging was something of a watershed year, viz:

                 Spring         Autumn         Total                 Grand totals

                  tally             tally              no.          Climbed    Left to climb

2012 (up to and including 2012)                             179            103

2013            17                 7                24              203              79        

2014            15                 5                20              223              59 

2015              9                 6                15              238              44

2016              0                 3                  3              241              41

2017              9                 3                12              253              29

Which is to say that unless I took decisive steps to curtail the falling down sick on vacation I could kiss goodbye to my quest to climb all 282 Munro summits..?

That I managed to an extent to get back on track in 2017 I have to attribute not only to good luck but to the following:

1) Being better organized, like having a hire car throughout my stays instead of returning the hire car when I took my wife A-E to the airport at the conclusion of her stay, as opposed to managing in the past at such times on foot and using public transport and for the whole time during my autumn visits.

2) Cutting down my holiday daily use of wine, especially during the first full week when we traditionally spend 2 nights with each of my brother and his wife, our younger son and his family, and my sister and her family, partying throughout and quite often into the early hours when because of the geographical disposition of some parts of Scandinavia in relation to UK we can be at a 2 hour disadvantage for such activities, at least insofar as body clocks are concerned...

3) Here at home I am accustomed to swimming in the sea everyday throughout the year except when I travel abroad. This year in common with 2013 I took cold showers throughout my stay to retain something of the protection cold water showering or swimming is said to provide...  

Plus to an extent good fortune for if one is sitting next to someone on an aircraft who has a heavy cold and or cough, or staying in a dormitory of people at a hostel where similarly people have some infection or other like a stomach bug there exists a high probability someone else will go down with the same thing...

That such a progression as detailed I have no doubt has something to do with the aging process, hence the common enough saying “That old age doesn’t come on its own..!”

Another thing to consider then is that as one ages one becomes less attractive as a potential friend for the future, when the older we become the more we become aware of ageism creeping in. This then is another aspect I try to deal with in these blogs. If as a young person we make lots of friends and/or acquaintances on face-b then the corollary of this is that as one gets older one doesn’t to the same extent, or that there becomes a falling off.. That is long before one reaches the stage of losing friends altogether either because they die or because one or other engages in the operation of “unfriending” the other person either because of lack of response to comments and such or simply because one loses the interest to wade through all the reams of trivia…hahaha

Have a good day everyone as I hope you too are getting the measure of some of the things you have been wanting to change in your lives?