MEETING UP WITH FRIENDS (23/1/15)
Hello to you all
Recently I’ve been catching up with friends and family as well as other volunteers. Chatting and sharing our life experiences with others makes for greater appreciation of what we have to offer as retirees.
One of the volunteers I met up with a couple of weeks ago for a coffee was Kathy who had been a volunteer on the same crisis line as myself for 12 years until hearing difficulties made it impossible for her to continue. Subsequently she still felt the need to volunteer and became a Community Visitor to an aged care resident. The time has now come for Kathy and her husband to move from their property to be closer to family. I spent such a happy hour with Kathy listening to her plans for the future of which there are many. I was so pleased when she told me that she couldn’t leave her horse behind (she has always been a keen horse woman) and was having it cared for close to her new home so that she could still go for the occasional ride. Apparently her husband said he would accompany her on his bike. Kathy is such an inspirational woman. We have agreed to keep in touch and I am hopeful that I will be able to pay her a visit in the future.
I also visited a friend Lesley who has recently moved to a new home after selling up her property following the death of her husband. It is a sad time and such a change of lifestyle but Lesley has been able to develop a vegetable plot, the proceeds of which I sampled at lunch time, and has plans to join a local art group. She told me that Wendy (of knitting hat fame) had revived her interest in knitting. Her forte is scarves which are already destined for different parts of the globe. Once again it’s amazing the great patterns and wools that are available. I took a couple of photos shown here. Lesley’s next project, seen here on the needles, is in very fine yarn, 3ply I think she said. That will certainly be a work of art.
LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE
Every week go to the house of my friend Olga. She has been a marvellous help to me with developing my Spanish conversation skills and introducing me to many of her homeland recipes and traditions. Last week she invited me to a special lunch she was having for a group of Chilean friends which included Rita who has also been a good friend to me. It is a challenge to speak another tongue and I have so much admiration for people who come to an English speaking country and master the language. It was good to be part of the group and be able to join in the conversation though of course some things passed me by especially the jokes. Learning a second language has opened up many opportunities for me. There are many on-line courses available and I recommend you give it a go. Here is a link to one of them which I used very successfully when I first got interested in learning Spanish
There are a wide range of languages to chose from…
In my next post I hope to tell you about the enjoyment of collecting and drying wild flowers and how to use them.
Bye for now
Janice
I loved reading your latest blog – catching up with friends.
Then I went on to learning another language and got fired up about that! I’m positively thinking about it. So if I ever do go for it, I’ll let you know,