Perspective

The other day we had some grandparents visiting because someone in the family had passed away and there was a funeral (seems about the only time they DO come down and stay with us, which is a bit sad...). And it reminded me how elder people seem to have such a strange sense of perspective. It's like this:

Things concerning babies: Breathing, walking, eating

Things concerning toddlers: Thomas the Tank Engine sets, sandpits, hand paintings

Things concerning teenagers: School, relationships, their own self centred sense of disillusionment with the world

Things concerning adults: Jobs, money, families, responsibilities

Things concerning elderly: How to make the perfect flourless chocolate cake (use less egg yolks apparently), whether the begonias are flourishing as well as they should (or should we use extra rainwater collected in the new rainwater tank?), the name of the new presenter from Better Homes and Gardens that was doing the Japanese style pagodas.

Can we see a trend?

Older people can often get bogged down in the smallest details. It can be quite funny when your grandparents are insisting they couldn't eat more of the green beans at dinner (which were probably a tad overcooked anyway), or asking if it might be possible for the television is free at 7.30 so we can watch the episode of Jamie Durie's makeover show where they put the pizza oven in.

And funnier still when they tell you about how they went to someone's house and they were served up some muffins/cake/miscellaneous foodlike comestibles, and they were incredibly tough/tasteless/dry, and so then they didn't want to offend the friends so they ate it, but "oh, it was tasteless as anything, I tell you!"

Or the latest expedition to ALDI, the cheaper supermarket store that stocks only one brand of each product. A good 10 mins was spent discussing the 'adventure' and thrill of ALDI. And then you have the conversations like this around the family dinner table (I changed names, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental):

Mabel: "We went to ALDIs, didn't we George?"

George: "Yep."

Mabel: "Oh, and they have SUCH a selection, didn't they? No, they really do. I honestly and truly believe they are really, really, good, high quality, good value..."

*ticking each off her fingers as she speaks

*obliging nods from people round table

Mabel: "We told the McPattons to go there as well, didn't we? And what did she say to us? What did Mary say to us?"

*blank looks

Mabel: "She said "MABEL, I can't believe it! I bought all this" and she had all these tins of tuna, didn't she, and it was tuna with good quality olive oil - you can't get that in other supermarkets now-"

*everyone thinks "Yes you can" but doesn't say it

Mabel: "And she said to me, "Mabel, that is the best buy I've had in YEARS!" Didn't she?

George: "Yep, she was pretty happy."

Mabel: "And we were there just the other day.....oooh....what did we buy....we got those lamingtons, didn't we? They were nice lamingtons. About this big" *shows us how big with hands. And we got some of those Italian biscuits, didn't we?"

George: "Yeah, they're big biscuits" *shows with hands

Mabel: "Oh, and they had ice cream - not lite ice cream, proper vanilla ice cream - we didn't get any though because you're not meant to eat ice cream, are you George? Remember what the doctor said? What did he say..."

and so on for ninety billion years.

I suppose its the gift of living for so long and putting up with life. It must be nice to wake up and only have to wonder whether or not they still stock your favourite Assorted Biscuits at Coles.