Old age and a New Age

The thing about our coffee machine is that, once you’ve finished making a batch, you run it with the coffee holder empty, to flush out any loose grounds that may have got stuck in it. I know that and do it a lot. So it was irritating when, the other day, having made coffees for Danielle and me, I started doing the rinsing operation, only to realise that I’d unthinkingly ground more coffee into the coffee holder.

Fill only for another coffee. Leave empty for rinsing

So what had happened? A brainstorm? A senior moment? 

I had a feeling that such things might not be related to my age. Indeed, didn’t they happen to me when I was much younger? Trouble is, I can’t remember. So is that itself a sign of age?

As well as these terrible questions, full of existential angst, imagine the quandary that faced me. Was I going to throw out the new grounds and waste good coffee – oh, sacrilege – or did I have a third cup instead of my usual two?

Now that definitely is a problem related to my age. Because these days I feel safer if I never get too far from a toilet (OK, American friends, a restroom, though rest isn’t my main concern when I visit one). Alternatively, if I’m out of doors, I need easy access to a convenient and reasonably private bush. 

Three coffees instead of two? That only makes the low-proximity need more acute.

The probem has become so irritating that my daughter-out-law, who is a doctor out here in Spain, suggested that I get some tests done, to check for various potential nasties, among which the nastiest, I assume, is prostate cancer. So I got them done. But Spanish GPs have developed the disagreeable habit of only granting telephone appointments. As well as the problem of having to carry your phone around with you at all times on the day of appointment, for fear of missing the call (the doctors can get brutal if you do – trust me, I have the emotional scars to this day), it also means you can’t see what they’re looking at, or do any of the usual things we do in conversations. You know, watching body language, making or interpreting gestures and so on.

“So how are the results?” I asked.

“Perfecto,” the doctor told me.

“I was concerned about potential prostate problems.”

I heard paper rustling, as though he was checking through the results again. For all I know, though, he might have been turning the sports pages of the local paper. Then he gave me his considered, second opinion on my test results. They were:

“Perfecto.”

Oh, well. Nothing to worry about, I suppose. I mean, if I’ve achieved perfection, how can I hope to do better?

What made my problems worse on what I now think-of as my three-espresso morning, is that it was New Year’s Day and we were off to the beach to watch those of our friends who were [bold]/[foolhardy] enough [delete according to taste] to go for a swim. 

The bold or foolhardy wading wisely back to shore

Support was what we were providing, and I was fine with that, as long as it remained moral support and reasonably remote. But the difficulty was that there are no bushes on the beach. So I needed easy access to some kind of restroom/toilet. Which was fine, since there were plenty around. Unfortunately, they were all in cafés. And cafés mean coffee.

I just can’t use a café toilet without buying something. I mean, if I sneak in to use a loo and then sneak out again, I can feel the eyes of all the staff on me, and the embarrassment is unbearable. So each time I find I just have to buy another coffee.

You can see where this is going, can’t you? In order to deal with a problem associated with my excessive coffee level, I find myself adding to that level. It was a painful dilemma, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Well, that’s enough of that. At least the doings on the beach were good. Lots of good wishes within a group of much-loved friends. I noticed that a significant majority seemed committed, like us, to providing support, with only a minority hardy enough to do any actual bathing. But overall, the atmosphere was cheerful and optimistic. 

The optimism was partly down to the glimmer that’s turning into a real light in the US (there were several Americans present). The worst infection that the United States has suffered in nearly 250 years of existence is about to disappear. Covid will take longer, but it feels almost inevitable now that the far more serious plague is drawing to an end, with Donald Trump leaving the White House.

Sadly, as the US begins to emerge from its dark tunnel, Britain’s mini-Trump and the country he technically leads, is entering its own far longer tunnel of Brexit. The Americans have kicked Trump out after just four years. But Britain will be stuck with Brexit for a generation.

Mixed times ahead, then.

It was a lovely day, on the beach on 1 January, though an odd one. The sky was all light and dark, sun and clouds. A perfect symbol, I felt, for the strange new age we’re entering.

Sunlight and shadow on New Year’s day
Just how I feel about the year ahead