So that was the long hot summer?

What a month! I always feel tired as this time approaches; to me its the end of a long academic year and however long I am away from the classroom proper, the fact I run a tutoring business means I am still to some extent, in the classroom. Its different now though, the year doesn't end until the end of August unlike before it would have broken up, well now.
The habits are telling me its time to stop but the change of circumstances means that old habit cannot run in the same way as before.
It has really drawn my attention to all the habits we have running at any one time and it makes me think about all the ones I don't know happily clicking on and off running me and me not even realising.
I have been working with a few people who have had these sort of things running without realising that was what they were, and for one woman it was almost destroying her marriage. They can be powerful and this one was placing more than she wished in jeopardy.

The Age of Austerity, a new title for a new age (or is it? Just after the war comes to mind), and again one where we will have to change habits we are so used to. Maybe less trips out in the car, less jetting off to that lovely little villa in the south of France or the apartment in Spain and more the trip to Brighton. Going back to shopping habits more akin to the times of the 60s when times were booming but there was still a level of austerity modern generations would not understand. Less of the whim shopping on the internet, that habitual click which sees the bank account sink a little lower each time. We are so far embroiled into this style of living where everything comes to us and we have to do no more than enter a few pins, passwords and shopping lists into the computer and like a miracle, everything turns up gift wrapped the next day.
At least it does for some, I don’t know about you but I am a creature of my age and still enjoy going shopping to find the bargainsto pick over the plants on sale at the garden centre and make decisions as to which plant I will buy. I know it shows my age but nothing beats a day out and about to return home with exciting bags containing things I have been looking for, for some time, and now have in my hands.
Whatever happens, something will change and it will be interesting to watch how this will unfold. Society is a very transient organism and will create a new way of dealing with things which suit the new generations as they take over the controls.
Maybe some of us will begin becoming more self sufficient; it becoming a status symbol, something the very Modern do, and those who don't, obviously behind the times. I can see it now, well dressed 'Margos' primly teetering between the potatoes with their designer bags and flowery gloves, collecting their vegetables, hoping their make-up still looks good and they haven't marked their pure white designer jeans. Mm, not sure about this.

What habits am I changing? How am I adapting to the changes which are coming? More importantly, how are you?
I drive a car which does in excess of 50mpg and has a clean catalytic converter (clean ‘cats’ work more efficiently than ones which are older and full of the impurities they have removed).
I eat locally produced foods or grow my own (not in designer gloves I might add) and I avoid spending money on unnecessary goods or services. When I do, however, I always look for the best, making my money work hard for me.
I re-cycle as much as I can, buy from charity shops so as to re-cycle back into my home and maintain a simple but full life. The TV isn't on all the time, nor the internet. Stand-by costs money and wastes electricity.
I turn off lights when not in use and regulate the heating so I am warm but the world isn't benefiting. My house is so well insulated its warm in winter and cool in summer. The only habit I haven't adopted is solar heating and that is only because of costs of installation.
Travelling to the coast as I often do to get away from the lists of things to do around the home, I found myself on a bus in Hastings with a group of recently created OAPs. It was interesting because I could see quite clearly they were aging hippies from that late 60s early 70s era and the moustache and shoulder length hair was still in evidence. The women still had that vaguely puffed hair synonymous with early Sandy Shaw and the clothes still carried traces of psychedelic colouring. It brought back memories of my childhood, those crazy Carnaby Street wearing fashionistas parading in old military attire, feather boas and big floppy hats. I looked at this group and smiled. The lady from Pilates (see back page for reference) certainly opened my eyes and I am now noticing it everywhere.
Amazing, isn't it, you plan on doing something, and your attention is drawn to it, its then you realise its everywhere!

As the nights begin to draw in and that nip returns first thing in the morning, I have two thoughts on my mind, the wonderful smells which await us in autumn and the fact that the holiday I have dreamed of is fast approaching. The two have become synonymous in my mind since I have stopped teaching fulltime, and the prospect of taking off in a jet to somewhere warm whilst my erstwhile colleagues face the prospects of a new year, is both delicious and thrilling.
I know when I land there will be a short respite before the year, for me, gets under way, but at least mine is staggered and later and whilst they struggle to re-establish order and discipline, I am lying on a beach listening to the waves crash in on the shore.

The coffee shop

I sat down with the ladies from Pilates and enjoyed a well deserved cup of coffee in Neros. We started talking about jigsaws for some reason and turning to one of the ladies there I asked her if she enjoyed them. She said no, not unless it was something like a psychedelic. I looked at this woman in her early seventies and inwardly smiled. I had fallen into the classic trap—I had presumed old age went with no life, rather than picking up on the fact she would have been one of the older girls at the Beatles concerts, and she would have been one of the ones screaming. She would have been part of the love, peace and free spirit brigade, with flowers in her hair, big swirly patterns on flowing dresses or trousers, tight skimpy tops and dark eye make-up. She would have been one of the young women I would have looked up to as a young teenager and wanted to emulate. And yet here we were all those years later chattering about this and that and we had both removed each other’s pasts and replacing it with nothing, save for the belief they had lived a life similar to those of people in our family who had been of that age when we were younger, in our prime.
I thought back to my great aunts and uncles when they had been her age and how staid they were, reflecting the generation of Victorian values which were still prevalent in the late 50s and 60s. I had inadvertently given her the same values. Ouch! She was so different and if I had time to enquire I bet she had a few stories to tell.
You know we do this with people; think of our mothers. How many of us as children couldn’t imagine them ever having sex, but lets face, it for us to be here, they have had to have done it at least once!
I sat back and drank some coffee, re-aligned my thoughts and presumptions and gave her credit for the possibility of having had a full and adventurous life. I imagined her in the flowing clothes and listening to the 60s music.
Yes, I could be envious of her again, just as I had been all those years ago, when I was too young and self conscious to be as loud and outrageous as she had probably been. No, she didn’t like jigsaws, she much preferred Sudoku.