The right move

My sister and I drove to Newcastle yesterday for Mother’s Day and I was reminded once again that my parents have made a smart move.

They decided to buy an apartment in a retirement complex a few years back and it is gorgeous. It blows all negative visions of what “retirement living” looks like out of the water.

It looks like a glamorous apartment that I would quite happily move into right now … with the added bonus of a few discreet red emergency buttons in the bathrooms and kitchen.

They have made loads of friends there and have a great social life. Mum took us to the apartment next door to say hello to some of the gang, who were having a Mother’s Day orphans gathering.

The women seated around the table were all vibrant and chatty and lovely – living their best lives – which is really how you hope to be spending your 80s.

So many people are in denial about getting older and stay in their original family home way longer than they should, until the decision about their next move is made by their relatives rather than them.

My grandmother was so angry and bitter about ending up in a nursing home. Mum tried for years to convince her to move to a villa close to her, so she could help her more, but Nan refused.

My parents will be able to stay where there are now for the longest possible time, as there is help on site when they need it. They have chosen well.

Heading up to Newcastle for a day trip is a bit exhausting, but it gave my sister and I four hours in the car together to catch up, which was great as our busy lives can make seeing each other difficult sometimes.

The downside of all that car travel was that I didn’t have it in me to head up to see DD, as that would have added another hour and a half of driving to my day. And he couldn’t come to see me because he had his sister staying with him.

I felt a bit bad about missing him because he’s heading overseas for a month later this week.

“Fortunately” we will get lots of quality time together today, if he can swing the time off work to come with me to see the surgeon.

Instead of heading to DD’s, the eldest and I had a Mother’s Day dinner together.

I was feeling like naughty food, so we headed around the corner to a bar that serves great wings and corn ribs and fries, so we loaded up on junky comfort food.

That needs to stop, as my current ban on anything other than very gentle exercise means I am burning up even less kilojoules than usual.

And I’m already wearing the largest sized pants by my favourite designer!

I hope you had a good weekend.

I won’t write a blog tomorrow due to needing to catch up on work after all my medical running around, so I will get you up to speed on Wednesday with what the surgeon had to say.

I am a teensy bit anxious about it all, so there wasn’t a huge amount of sleeping done last night.

Yawn.

Song of the day: Savage Garden “Affirmation”