Last week I spent a couple of days in the town I grew up in, with few old friends.Discussing a new project over some really stale samosas and coffee, we also frequently went back to classmates we remembered and places that have over the years faded into the concrete of overcrowded new buildings. it made me nostalgic for the people and the town I once knew.
Old age creeps up around you when you aren't looking in the mirror. I went to visit an ailing aunt of my husbands and was taken aback to find the once feisty, quick-witted battleaxe was now a gentler version. Confined to a wheelchair for most of the day her wits were as sharp as ever and she looked as lovely as she did always. I took my children on this visit for it matters to me that youth must face up and touch old age ever so often.My children were enamoured by her quick wit and friendly banter...it isn't often that old people have a way with kids but this Ajjamma did. My kids were happy to come and spend an hour away without feeling the lack of gadgets and gizmos.
How often do we spend time with older people,ours or others I wonder? Do we really want to go sit while they mutter endlessly of the past.
when I was growing up my mother visited quite a few grandmas and Mostly I went with her. Looking back I find I wouldn't swap it for anything else because those days were magical.
There was in one of the Guest Homes, an elderly widow,who had moved in the year her husband ,pastor and friend had passed away. She had a suite of rooms set apart from the main house where she stayed with a younger spinster sister who was partially deaf . Visits to her meant a cozy cushion by the fire on rainy days and a stack of womens weeklies to read with various cakes and biscuits while the older women talked about whatever .Aunt Evie was a pretty lady with hair plaited over the crown of her head and held by a cloth bow.I spent many a time writing her when I was away at school and she replied in lovely handwriting.
We often went to visit another darling old lady who was Armenian.She was well into her seventies and cooked like a dream. She was Aunt Rose.Aunt Rose and her daughter Violet,a spinster in her forties lived in a liitle cottage covered by briar roses. I often felt I was in a fairy story.
We were often called to tea,that was more like a dinner with the table covered with baked dishes made by them in a basic mud oven. Ah what food! My younger brother would not miss out this particular visit as the food was too tempting. Aunt Rose would sit in her chair knitting, not missing a stitch as she chatted her face creased with the lines of a hard but well spent life. Smiles always blotting out the harsher memories of losing her children in the war. Aunt Violet was the talker....oh my she could talk without taking a breath. she had a good heart and gave me some really wonderful clip on earrings that I carefully wrapped in tissue and still have today.
when I look back I find all this has really enriched my life.... I continue to try and visit older people and spend some quality time with them and I hope my children do too...we need to realize that these same old people were once young like us and had their own demons to deal with.
I cannot blog off without my update on coffee. When summer drifts into the rainy season we coffee growers are more than ready and we have to be. This is the time we plant. My job began much before the summer while the cold was still a nip in the air . The years planting begins with gathering seed for making seedlings and this year I took up the challenge of trying to supply all the seedlings we needed. This means having a tent that caters to at least 30,000 seedlings. It means getting good soil, sieving and filling polybags and readying seedbeds .Once the beans sprout we wait until they have two leaves before we transplant them into the bags so they can grow and root well before being transferred to the field. We also raised shade tree seedlings of Silver oak, that will also be used for planting.
you may wonder why I am telling you all this...well , lets say its just not decaf and sugar that goes into a cup of coffee. its so much more . It takes lots of hard work to bring up sturdy plants that will produce your next seasons coffee bean. so when you pour that next cuppa think of a little green plant grown though the vagaries of weather,that produces a berry to fill it.
I hope you enjoy your cup of coffee as much as I do.
Old age creeps up around you when you aren't looking in the mirror. I went to visit an ailing aunt of my husbands and was taken aback to find the once feisty, quick-witted battleaxe was now a gentler version. Confined to a wheelchair for most of the day her wits were as sharp as ever and she looked as lovely as she did always. I took my children on this visit for it matters to me that youth must face up and touch old age ever so often.My children were enamoured by her quick wit and friendly banter...it isn't often that old people have a way with kids but this Ajjamma did. My kids were happy to come and spend an hour away without feeling the lack of gadgets and gizmos.
How often do we spend time with older people,ours or others I wonder? Do we really want to go sit while they mutter endlessly of the past.
when I was growing up my mother visited quite a few grandmas and Mostly I went with her. Looking back I find I wouldn't swap it for anything else because those days were magical.
There was in one of the Guest Homes, an elderly widow,who had moved in the year her husband ,pastor and friend had passed away. She had a suite of rooms set apart from the main house where she stayed with a younger spinster sister who was partially deaf . Visits to her meant a cozy cushion by the fire on rainy days and a stack of womens weeklies to read with various cakes and biscuits while the older women talked about whatever .Aunt Evie was a pretty lady with hair plaited over the crown of her head and held by a cloth bow.I spent many a time writing her when I was away at school and she replied in lovely handwriting.
We often went to visit another darling old lady who was Armenian.She was well into her seventies and cooked like a dream. She was Aunt Rose.Aunt Rose and her daughter Violet,a spinster in her forties lived in a liitle cottage covered by briar roses. I often felt I was in a fairy story.
We were often called to tea,that was more like a dinner with the table covered with baked dishes made by them in a basic mud oven. Ah what food! My younger brother would not miss out this particular visit as the food was too tempting. Aunt Rose would sit in her chair knitting, not missing a stitch as she chatted her face creased with the lines of a hard but well spent life. Smiles always blotting out the harsher memories of losing her children in the war. Aunt Violet was the talker....oh my she could talk without taking a breath. she had a good heart and gave me some really wonderful clip on earrings that I carefully wrapped in tissue and still have today.
when I look back I find all this has really enriched my life.... I continue to try and visit older people and spend some quality time with them and I hope my children do too...we need to realize that these same old people were once young like us and had their own demons to deal with.
I cannot blog off without my update on coffee. When summer drifts into the rainy season we coffee growers are more than ready and we have to be. This is the time we plant. My job began much before the summer while the cold was still a nip in the air . The years planting begins with gathering seed for making seedlings and this year I took up the challenge of trying to supply all the seedlings we needed. This means having a tent that caters to at least 30,000 seedlings. It means getting good soil, sieving and filling polybags and readying seedbeds .Once the beans sprout we wait until they have two leaves before we transplant them into the bags so they can grow and root well before being transferred to the field. We also raised shade tree seedlings of Silver oak, that will also be used for planting.
you may wonder why I am telling you all this...well , lets say its just not decaf and sugar that goes into a cup of coffee. its so much more . It takes lots of hard work to bring up sturdy plants that will produce your next seasons coffee bean. so when you pour that next cuppa think of a little green plant grown though the vagaries of weather,that produces a berry to fill it.
I hope you enjoy your cup of coffee as much as I do.
