Tag Archives: decline

What is a Senior Moment?

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Tomorrow I will give you my definition of “senior moment”.

It has moved on from “tomorrow” and this is the second attempt, as it wasn’t quite as easy to pin down as precisely as I wanted to. Basically, a senior moment is much like a mistake, but with a touch of pathos, and traces of decay and self pity.

Julia by the Canal

Looking for a line to use about senior moments, I would define them as mistakes made with a Shakespearean flourish. They don’t require three witches or three daughters an eye of newt or a blasted heath, but they do require a touch of pathos and a recognition that faculties are faltering, if not actually failing.

It is probably easier to say what is not a senior moment. It really also needs to be relatable, without being commonplace, and to lend itself to becoming an anecdote. A simple error copying a date wrongly, for instance, will not do. We all do it and it doesn’t require age to make it happen. It also tends to lack a beginning, a middle and an end with any significance.

They vary, I suppose, from person to person. I, for instance, have laboured over the years with trying to remember names. As a salesman, and an antiques dealer, it was a useful skill and I developed a scheme for remembering them. Now that I’m retired, and can default to my normal position of not caring what people are called, it’s just something I have always done, rather than a failing of age. The fact that I have stopped trying to remember  is probably a function of age, but that is just curmudgeonly disregard for others, rather than a senior moment. I’ve met enough people, I don’t need to remember them all.

Julia, Sutton-on-Sea

For some of you reading, who actually like people and who remember names easily, forgetting a name is probably a notable event.

Does anyone have any comments?

The pictures of Julia, by the way, do not represent mental decline, they were just some i hadn’t used for a while.

 

Requiem for a Bookshop

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There was a time you could go to the bookshop at Brierlow Bar, browse an interesting selection of books, buy a few nice greeting cards, have a cup of tea and a Kit-Kat, listen to the elderly gents discussing steam railways and come away feeling relaxed.

It was, to be honest, a bookshop from a different time and it probably wasn’t very profitable.

Judging by the crowd in the cafe it’s much more profitable now. But ithe profits, unfortunately, don’t seem to have been used for upgrading, or even maintaining, the toilets.

In terms of stock, we couldn’t buy any cards this time, as the ones we liked seem to be out of stock.

The Natural History selection seemed a bit bigger this time and the poetry seems to have grown a little in quantity, though the quality has, I think, declined. They still have a good selection of History and Military History but Julia wasn’t able to find anything in her line this time. I quite like travel and cookery books but I haven’t been able to find any decent ones for a couple of years now – both victims of the increased cafe space/reduced book-shelving.

It is also more difficult to get round, as the gangways were always quite narrow and the increasing customer numbers make access quite difficult at times, particularly as so many of them seem to drift round aimlessly and clutter the place up.

There was only one dog in today, but it was barking quite a lot. It was only a pup (though an Alsatian pup, so quite large) and the owner was bribing it to stay quiet by giving it treats. Or teaching it that if it barked it would get treats. For me this goes to prove that people should have to pass a test before being allowed to have a dog. Judging from the evidence of her kids it wouldn’t be a bad thing to make them pass a test before breeding either.

I did manage to buy a few books so it wasn’t a wasted journey, but I’m afraid it’s going to be the last time we treat it as the main destination for a day out.

Apart from the access issues, the toilets and the stock, I just don’t feel relaxed there now, and the cafe reminds me too much of what happened to our kitchen on the farm, even down to the cliched decor.

I wish them well. They’ve invested time and money in the place and made it much more lively, and presumably a more viable business. However, it’s lost something in the process and it’s not the pleasant, relaxing experience it used to be. I suppose that’s the story of life.

If you want to read a selection of opposite views try this site. Lots of people love it, and they all seem to love it in the same formulaic way. If I was a suspicious man I’d think someone was rigging the reviews. However, having seen some of the customers it’s more likely that they all belong to the Stepford Wives reading group.

There are some very informative negative reviews too, some of which echo my feelings.

I did like a few of the quirkier ones – like the one where they ate, spent an hour browsing and then bought a book.

Or the one where they found it a good place to while away a few hours with the kids.

Presumably they also spent a lot of time cluttering the place up and getting in the way of grumpy old gits like me.

In conclusion I will leave you with a nightmare vision of the future, where you can’t buy books in bookshops or plants in garden centres because they have all expanded their cafes and gift sections until there is no room for actual stock…

And having unburdened my soul of this sorrow I will enter the New Year as a happier man.

Happy New Year to you all.