Runnin' On

Short-term memory loss leads to long-term memory recollection

Nothing has happened in the last month to spur my imagination enough to fill a page for The Pump. However our editor will be able to decide if a little rambling chat will amuse our readers. Of course it may spur on other like-minded people to write in with some of their own thoughts. I hope it amuses you anyway.

Being what now is considered a Senior Citizen, please notice the capital letters, they tend to make it into a proper title. As I have got more senior I find I don't feel I have changed much, apart from finding bottles and jars are very difficult to open now. When I worked in Boots a lot of "Senior" customers used to ask me to loosen the tops of any jars of honey etc, so now I know how they felt. Luckily I have a Senior citizen husband who can open jars for me so I'm all right.

I do find that my short-term memory is getting very remiss, so I write lists. Shopping lists we've always had. I keep a pad on the fridge top and it is kept updated. Lately though I have resorted to using a list to remind myself of anything that happens just in case could go into one of my ramblings.

I started this month's list with "Little potatoes"; sometime later I noticed that my ever loving had written bacon under the potatoes, he'd obviously thought it was a shopping list.

Well the little potatoes was to remind me of the time when I first started to go out with Brian. A lovely spring day it was and we'd been looking forward to a walk on the Downs after lunch with Brian's parents. Why the gentle slopes around Eastbourne are called Downs are a mystery to me. Anyway, a really heavy shower started and as the rain beat on the lounge window, Brian's Dad sighed and said, "This will spoil the little potatoes".

Knowing how proud he was of his garden I was quite concerned and sympathised with him. I asked how the rain would affect the potatoes; very seriously he looked at me and said, "Well, they won't be little any more!" I wasn't sure if my naivety had spoiled my chances of being good enough for his lad. Still I like a challenge and I'm still waiting for the opportunity to use the little potatoes joke on someone, it's a good job I can remember it after all these years.

I do wonder if this short-term memory loss is the reason that people of my age think about things that happened way back in the past, it's probably the only thing they can remember.

Janet Tilburn