A new beginning in one's eighties? 25 9 11
It's not every day we think of starting over but without laying it on the line that's what the title of my present blog is all about...
Like this morning 25 9 2 I decided to walk round our garden the one outside my study window sitting at my desk here, the desk I somehow inherited from my wife's eldest uncle, John, who didn't return from WW II: falling as he did in the closing days of Finland's War of Continuation, which meant her father, the youngest son of her grandparents' family of 6, would now inherit the family farm then in its second generation, since her grandmother Hilder decided to buy it, when her husband, her grandfather Willi would accede to being its first Gentleman Farmer of the new owners.
Little me, of all people!
But having lived in our house here these past 37 years since 1989 5 12, to begin with, as people who rented the plot of land it sits on for a token sum of maybe €200 a year from the town, increasing the rent 20 fold to something of the order of €4000 around the year 2000, decided us to buy the plot outright, for a sum of the order of €20 000, when I became a joint owner of the plot and of the house, since I had become a Finnish citizen since we first bought the house in 1989 in only my wife's name.
But I have always thought of my wife as the owner of our garden, because on the whole she is the one who tends it. Until my recent decision to begin more seriously to tend it myself, as a 50/50 partnership, if only insofar as mowing the lawns are concerned, collecting the fallen leaves in autumn, and removing pine cones at other times of year, etc., in terms of let's just agree the more arduous tasks, since historically I always used to think of myself as a city dweller by virtue of for the most brought being brought up in a house without a garden. And why now particularly? Only because at my age I have come to realise what a gift it is to have such a beautiful spot, all 236 steps it takes for me to circumnavigate it! Enjoying my wife's handiwork, as a Finnish Farmer's daughter, well versed in which plants to plant so we have flowers and shrubs in blossom at different times of the spring, summer and autumn!!!
That this decision coincided with a part diagnosis of a new situation vis-a-vis my health, I shall just let it go for the time being but nevertheless it will go some way towards explaining why now for such a momentos decision?
That therein lies the rub is just one example of how with encroaching old age life becomes ever more precious...
Like 18 months ago or thereabouts I recall sending my wife's sister-in-law a birthday greeting on her 75 th birthday on the 28th February 2024. Why I can recall precisely is because at the time it occured to me she was born 10 years after my day of conception which also coincided with my parents' first wedding anniversary, getting married finally only 5 months after their first child my elder brother was born, our mother being heavily pregnant on that first wedding day, giving them perhaps a special reason to celebrate their first anniversary in the manner they did?
That my wife's sister-in-law took that occasion to not only thank me but to close her message by sending me her love, may not strike any readers as remarkable but for the fact it is totally uncharacteristic for a Finnish ladies so to behave to someone like me, not even a blood relative. Until one understands it was her very last chance to show her affection in my direction because very very sadly she died of a condition she had endured already 16 years, less than a couple of months later, following the death of her husband too: my very dear youngest brother-in-law.
Add to these losses the loss of my next youngest brother-in-law, my wife's elder brother, followed not two months later by her one remaining brother-in-law, and you can perhaps appreciate the fact I am the only remaining man among the older generation of my wife's parents'family, when two years ago to the day almost we were a total of 8 people which is now reduced to only 4, and leaving me the sole male.
Losing friends and relatives is only the tip of the iceburg at my age when with my heart attack 23 years ago and the wake-up call that my personal MI gave rise to me, as I woke up in the intensive care department of our local hospital next day, with the question of my doctor "Was it a small one?" When his answer came with a resounding "NO". As a consequence I got to see things differently, and thereafter I got to think of my life more and more in terms of its bonus years these last 23 years and counting.
Have a good day everyone and perhaps like me reflect on the fact from time to time how all these worldly gifts and acquisitions are merely transient for we are only here today and gone tomorrow...
Like this morning 25 9 2 I decided to walk round our garden the one outside my study window sitting at my desk here, the desk I somehow inherited from my wife's eldest uncle, John, who didn't return from WW II: falling as he did in the closing days of Finland's War of Continuation, which meant her father, the youngest son of her grandparents' family of 6, would now inherit the family farm then in its second generation, since her grandmother Hilder decided to buy it, when her husband, her grandfather Willi would accede to being its first Gentleman Farmer of the new owners.
Little me, of all people!
But having lived in our house here these past 37 years since 1989 5 12, to begin with, as people who rented the plot of land it sits on for a token sum of maybe €200 a year from the town, increasing the rent 20 fold to something of the order of €4000 around the year 2000, decided us to buy the plot outright, for a sum of the order of €20 000, when I became a joint owner of the plot and of the house, since I had become a Finnish citizen since we first bought the house in 1989 in only my wife's name.
But I have always thought of my wife as the owner of our garden, because on the whole she is the one who tends it. Until my recent decision to begin more seriously to tend it myself, as a 50/50 partnership, if only insofar as mowing the lawns are concerned, collecting the fallen leaves in autumn, and removing pine cones at other times of year, etc., in terms of let's just agree the more arduous tasks, since historically I always used to think of myself as a city dweller by virtue of for the most brought being brought up in a house without a garden. And why now particularly? Only because at my age I have come to realise what a gift it is to have such a beautiful spot, all 236 steps it takes for me to circumnavigate it! Enjoying my wife's handiwork, as a Finnish Farmer's daughter, well versed in which plants to plant so we have flowers and shrubs in blossom at different times of the spring, summer and autumn!!!
That this decision coincided with a part diagnosis of a new situation vis-a-vis my health, I shall just let it go for the time being but nevertheless it will go some way towards explaining why now for such a momentos decision?
That therein lies the rub is just one example of how with encroaching old age life becomes ever more precious...
Like 18 months ago or thereabouts I recall sending my wife's sister-in-law a birthday greeting on her 75 th birthday on the 28th February 2024. Why I can recall precisely is because at the time it occured to me she was born 10 years after my day of conception which also coincided with my parents' first wedding anniversary, getting married finally only 5 months after their first child my elder brother was born, our mother being heavily pregnant on that first wedding day, giving them perhaps a special reason to celebrate their first anniversary in the manner they did?
That my wife's sister-in-law took that occasion to not only thank me but to close her message by sending me her love, may not strike any readers as remarkable but for the fact it is totally uncharacteristic for a Finnish ladies so to behave to someone like me, not even a blood relative. Until one understands it was her very last chance to show her affection in my direction because very very sadly she died of a condition she had endured already 16 years, less than a couple of months later, following the death of her husband too: my very dear youngest brother-in-law.
Add to these losses the loss of my next youngest brother-in-law, my wife's elder brother, followed not two months later by her one remaining brother-in-law, and you can perhaps appreciate the fact I am the only remaining man among the older generation of my wife's parents'family, when two years ago to the day almost we were a total of 8 people which is now reduced to only 4, and leaving me the sole male.
Losing friends and relatives is only the tip of the iceburg at my age when with my heart attack 23 years ago and the wake-up call that my personal MI gave rise to me, as I woke up in the intensive care department of our local hospital next day, with the question of my doctor "Was it a small one?" When his answer came with a resounding "NO". As a consequence I got to see things differently, and thereafter I got to think of my life more and more in terms of its bonus years these last 23 years and counting.
Have a good day everyone and perhaps like me reflect on the fact from time to time how all these worldly gifts and acquisitions are merely transient for we are only here today and gone tomorrow...
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