How Time Goes Faster As You Get Older.blog

I spent 7 days in my usual writing and yoga retreat in Limnisa, Methane, Greece and 3 days riding 50cc scooters around Aegina when I made 43 dreamcatchers on card. I have used buttons Margery gave me from when she was a diplomat’s wife in South East Asia and had to have clothes made to fit her tiny waist, lots of different flowers and leaves from anywhere I could find them, pebbles, pins, shells, stickers and small incense stones (which I tried at first to erroneously eat!). I used purple pens, puff paints, inks, PVA glue and embroidery thread. As well as doilies and empty tea lights as well as some stamps.

The top layer needed further work and the second version is seen below the first one.

So it started with my neighbours. Now, it has become a full blown Barbie obsession. Here Mermaid Barbie goes to Limnisa (Limnisa for writers) where I go twice a year for a writing retreat. Purple Mermaid Barbie really does have a fun time!

Of course, like everything, there are lots of reasons, Carly muses. It is warm and different from home and not too far. The light of the Mediterranean is magical. When Carly thinks of Greece, she always thinks of this colour combination. 

Fuchsia pink (of the bougainvillea)

Bottle green (of the fir trees)

Bright white (of the houses)

Deep blue (of the sea and sky) 

Four colours. You may not know this, but Carly is obsessed with prime numbers. And four is a good number but not a prime number. Oh yes. Carly realises it is two times by two. 2². This is good as two is the first prime number. And the only even numbered one. Carly used to think one was a prime number, but her son Haz disabused her of that fact. One is a special number. She isn’t sure how or why it is special. But Haz knows about mathematics, so she has to respect that. Haz also told her that her blog and sabbatical theme weren’t true either. How time goes faster as you get older. He claims this just isn’t true. Unless you go to another planet. And Carly is sticking with planet Earth thank you very much for the time being.

Back to Greece and its charms. So, there is also the food Carly enjoys so much. Particularly the pale pink dish taramasalata. It goes so well on Zoe’s bread​, secretly toasted at work for a yummy lunch. Carly is very pleased with herself for bringing a toaster to work. She hides it out of site behind the microwave in a little used kitchen. Carly is only too well aware of all the ridiculous myriad of rules regarding health and safety in a hospital. No toasters allowed. At all. Because if a smoke alarm goes off, three huge red fire engines come roaring in and the toasting perpetrator gets a roasting and possibly a fine. Consequently, patients have to suffer with bread that tastes of cardboard and has the texture of a limp sponge. How on earth will they get better with such poor incentives to improve their nutrition?

Actually, Carly has been told off for setting off a smoke detector. It only signalled an internal alarm. No arrival of fire engines. Phew. It was for burning incense. Now she is more careful and places the marble holder on her window ledge so it is technically “not inside” her office.

Carly considers what other Greek food she loves. Feta, particularly in Greek Salad, grilled halloumi​, as well as Greek coffee with baklava. Of course, you can eat all this at home but it is so much nicer when you are away.

Carly loves to visit Greek Islands. She’s been to Rhodes, Mykonos and Lefkada. They were all very different experiences. Rhodes was several decades ago. She and Ades went on scooters all around including a visit to the oldest synagogue in Greece, the Kahal Shalom. Carly always makes a point of vising synagogues wherever she is in the world. She knows that irrespective of where they are, the layouts are similar and it is good to meet fellow Jews. On Mykonos, some 30 years later she was not allowed to ride a scooter. She did a test and failed. Oh no. How very embarrassing. For being too old and too crap. She consoled herself that really it was far too mountainous to scoot around anyway​.

She went to Lefkada several times in between Rhodes and Mykonos with her children and their all-time favourite babysitters Piotr and Karina who helped looked after her kids to attempt to stop them fighting a great deal of the time. This meant Carly could actually have a holiday. Loads of happy memories, considers Carly. Trying really hard to enjoy them despite her subsequent divorce from Ades. Nope she says. The memories were good, and they will stay good​, determines Carly.

More recently, she has gone to a remote yoga and writing retreat on a promontory of the mainland in Greece. It is near the sulphurous waters of Methana on the Peloponnese peninsula. Carly has been to Limnisa three times. She totally loves it there. You have to be silent until lunch – and surprisingly Carly can manage that. She wakes up to a class of either yoga or qi gong, looking out over the sea. Then it is writing for most of the day. Some swimming and walking too. Lots of well-meaning friends have suggested she gets her stories edited. Or put them into competitions to see how they fare. But really Carly writes because she wants to. It is a way of dealing with this difficult time in her life. Getting an editor to pour over your very personal work seems to be following an arbitrary set of writing rules. And Carly isn’t really in the habit of following rules. So why start now? She plans to self-publish her work and buy lots of copies herself and give them to people. This is a sort of charity which begins at home! Maybe this is really egotistical, but Carly is too old to care too much what others think of her. Funnily enough this used to be called ​’vanity publishing​’ but this name has been dropped as self-publishing has now become so very popular. Carly also doesn’t follow rules on giving money to charity. She gives money only to people who are doing sponsored thises and thats. Unless she really doesn’t want to support a particular charity. But this is rare and indeed this way she gets exposed to all sorts of charities she had never heard of and can see what they do. And she doesn’t have to choose them. Someone else does that for her​, as well as the hard work of some sort of challenge. 

On these retreats in Limnisa she is looked after by a very special couple. They have both been married before and this is like a beacon of shining light to Carly in her dark hours of her recent divorce. They are so respectful of each other, and it is a joy for Carly to be contained within this wonderful and nurturing relationship. She also meets lots of other participants from all over the globe and they have so many wide-ranging discussions – but only from lunchtime onwards! She also goes on silent walks, enjoys sunset mindfulness meditations and eating tip-top food. One time, someone led a mandala ceremony. The premise was to let go of feelings that were no longer helpful. This was done with intention and also to mark what was good to take away with you when you left Limnisa. For Carly​, she tried to throw into the sea all the negative connotations of being a newly​-divorced woman. She wanted to acknowledge the wonderful camaraderie of the fellow writers she had met at Limnisa. She so enjoyed being with all these creative women, to celebrate this and take the essence of it back with her. The ceremony took place on a promontory overlooking the sea at sunset​, with 11 women. They were all told to bring items of nature which were laid out in a pattern. This was like a temporary art installation as most things would blow away by the next morning. Carly had gathered seven figs during her run earlier that morning. She placed them on the right half of the mandala. She squished them into place with her bare right foot. Afterwards, a couple of the women commented how poignant it was. That Carly had used figs which in texture and shape represent scrotums. The humour was not lost on Carly who had unwittingly chosen these fruits. She laughed and cried about this at the same time.

On her most recent trip to Greece, Carly stayed in Athens. Wow what a revelation. She had breakfast looking out at the Parthenon and loved all the graffiti and street art, as well as the shabby chic of many buildings and the equally dusty but friendly cats. Yes, Greece has many cats. And this pleases Carly who is a feline fanatic.

Probably the most significant reason that Carly loves to go to Greece is that it reminds her of her beloved Israel. She plans to emigrate there on Sunday the 2^nd July 2023. This is an auspicious date. It is three prime numbers 2, 7 and 23. Sunday is the beginning of the week there – so it mirrors her new start. To Carly, Greece looks, sounds and feels like Israel. Just without the Israelis. This makes Carly chuckle.

Addendum

In the end Carly went to live in Israel in September 2023. She really wanted to mark her ex-husband’s first year anniversary (grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr) on 4/9/23 (4²/3²/23) sort of prime numbers but her brother persuaded her to come a day earlier on 3/9/23 which still fits Carly supposes (3/3²/23). Carly is still really pleased with this attention to sort of prime detail.

Like many things in life, jogging is probably good for Carly. Her knees are up for it. She has the right sports bra, and some patched up, sort-of-ok trainers. But she can’t really say she actually enjoys jogging. All that talk about ​the endorphin rush at the end. No. Carly doesn’t experience that. Maybe because she only ​half-runs​, when out on a supposed jog. She doesn’t run fast enough or for long enough for that elusive hormone blast. Carly does so like to be in control but probably doesn’t enjoy running because she cannot control enzyme release. And then she considers when she has tried to drink a milkshake with some cannabis or eat a biscuit containing it. No effect whatsoever. She wonders if she has a genetic mutation leading to maladaptive hormone release? It is more likely that she just hasn’t jogged hard or fast enough to get that rush. And the milkshake and biscuit were hash-light? Or maybe she is just deluding herself ​that she is actually jogging at all. And who needs cannabis to feel high anyway!

Carly will often bargain herself out of a run. She convinces herself that maybe she was going to cycle later? Or she did one of those very energetic 7-minute workouts to Tabata music with lots of swear words in it. She is no stranger to swear words. But actually, this workout takes nine minutes and that can sometimes be too long. She has found equally good ones that last 2, 3 and 5 minutes. All prime number minutes. Really, Carly admonishes herself. This is pathetic. It isn’t like Carly has run out of energy. Ever. Nope this just won’t happen in her lifetime. It is actually how she decides to spend it ​- this is actually the issue here. When she was younger, she worried that if she ran too hard and with great exuberance, she would knock herself out with her enormous breasts bouncing uncontrollably upwards. But for the most part​, this is only theoretical as they are pretty much encased in leaden lingerie that cost a fortune. At least during daylight hours. Another ridiculous excuse. Like telling herself she will need to shower afterwards. But she never really gets that sweaty as she half-jogs and half-walks.

When Carly is off out on a jog an idea or thought will often, without warning, pop into her head. That really is no revelation. All humans have the propensity to think all the time. Carly knows this and has tried to quiet her buzzy mind with mindfulness and meditation. But she cannot allow her mind to be in a vacuum​, however hard she tries. She is Carly. And she just cannot concentrate on absolutely nothing. She is a person of motivation and direction. So, when she is out jogging and a fascinating idea comes into her head, rather than banish it, this idea becomes the perfect excuse to slow down to a walk to consider it further. When you want to consider something seriously you need to see it from all directions​, and how can you do this whilst going fast? Honestly, any excuse will do.

She is quite good at getting others to run. On Saturday afternoons she was in charge of her two younger brothers whilst her parents had their regular, weekend snooze. Sometimes they would watch a dull black and white film on BBC2. At other times they would practice and then perform a play. Carly would play the ugly character like Rumpelstiltskin; one brother was a princess and the other a horse. And if the weather was dry, Carly would march them up to the local library. She would make them run between even numbered lampposts whilst walking between odd numbered ones. This seemed to keep them amused for years! She had also run gym club in the morning when they would line up and do rolls and flips on her bed. And there were always lots of rounds of ​’over-take, jelly-bake​’ in the garden on bikes. And there was always the ​’throw-your-shoe-the-furthest​’ whilst swinging. Carly delighted in this as she always won. Not surprisingly as she is not only highly competitive, but she is six and seven years older than her brothers. Sometimes their sister joined in the plays. But she was adamant she had to play the queen or princess leaving the boys to be beasts of burden only. They objected to always being assigned these tedious roles. But not as much as Carly objected to how spoilt her youngest brother was. She had to eat all her food put on her plate. This wasn’t negotiable. But her youngest brother would lob most of his food into his pelican bib and still be allowed to have a chocolate penguin. How totally unfair, remembered Carly.

But this story is about jogging and not childhood memories marked by sibling rivalries. Normally Carly jogs when she is on holiday. It is part of her plan to allow her to sit around for the rest of the day. This is particularly pertinent when she is on one of her sedentary craft retreats. In Limoges, France she finds one circuit and sticks to it. Always clockwise. And always before breakfast. Otherwise, she will never do it. Elsewhere “The Jog” is tied in with a congratulatory-end-of-run coffee. This happened particularly on her sabbatical in Pushkar, Rajasthan in India. She’d run and simultaneously decide which coffee establishment she would visit at the end. This would help plan her route. One night she stayed at The Secret Garden. The circuit she chose was pretty small. It was a secret garden after all. So, she thought she would run around it 19 times. This is her favourite prime number after seven. But she became confused which round she was on. She had a marvellous idea and picked up one fallen amla fruit each circuit and put it in a pile at the end. 17, 18 and finally 19. Time to collapse in a heap.

Another time in India, on an aptly titled “Knit for Peace” holiday she found a local park and she increased her laps by one every day. She enjoyed changing her route by making the rounds clockwise, anticlockwise, figures of eight and any other configuration that took her fancy. So, her runs increased by 0.2km every day until she reached 5km. Luckily the holiday had finished at that auspicious milestone or there would not have been ample knitting time. Oh no! that wouldn’t suit Carly at all. Not one little bit. Knitting always trumps jogging. Especially if she is knitting for peace. Unlikely, muses Carly. She knits for herself!

For many years Carly would jog with her personal trainer every Monday morning. Come rain, shine, hail or snow​, off they ran through Highgate Woods. They would jog slowly to be able to chat and break up the tedium of jogging with a raft of exercises deemed good for you! But at £50 a pop for a jog around the woods it was actually rather costly. Surely Carly was committed enough to do this alone? For sure the dogs would join her anyway, and this left lots of extra money for yarn (passion #1) and coffee (addiction #1). She wonders if she needs to deal with her coffee addiction. Maybe there is a group like AA for alcoholics anonymous or NA for narcotics anonymous? CA ​for caffeine or coffee anonymous? Maybe she needs something more specific. For those addicted to independent coffee establishments. How would the 12-step programme work? And what would her sponsor be like? Maybe she could combine it with JAA? Jogging avoidance anonymous. And KA? Knitting anonymous? No really, she doesn’t need any more knitting friends!

Maybe these pipe dreams need to be kept in check? And when on holiday she should continue with all three. Jogging before a full-English, knitting as a mindful pastime and one coffee a day. Surely one vice is ok? And she has to use her trainers if she brings them with ​her. They are her trusty pink footwear with their red embroidered spiders closing the holes made by her big toes. Recently, Carly went jogging on the Isle of Wight. She heard loads of birds, saw a gaggle of friendly dog-walkers, ran around a castle with a moat and saw three rabbits. In the purple mist. Good job she ran. Yes. It justifies slothfulness the rest of the day. Sort of!

Carly was not good at being a slave. Being told what to do was something she had always struggled with. Carly didn’t see the point in making bricks which were all the same shape and colour. Carly asked Pharoah if she could make purple bricks instead; he said no. Carly asked Pharoah if she could knit him a blanket instead of making bricks; he said no. Carly didn’t like being made to line up for everything; she asked Pharoah if he had autistic tendencies; he said no.

Carly decided to ask Pharoah if the children of Israel could leave Egypt. As she didn’t use WhatsApp anymore, she had to write him a letter. He didn’t reply. Carly asked her daughter to send Pharoah a message for her on Facebook. Carly’s daughter said no Mum – you swore never to go on Facebook, and we all know you always do what you say you will do.

Carly took herself down to Pharoah’s palace on her electric bike, once she had worked out how to unlock it from the Pyramids. The guards tried to stop her entering so she gave them a big kiss and they ran away. She entered and found Pharoah in his hot tub. Carly said to Pharoah – “I’m Doctor Rude, who are you?” Pharoah didn’t think that was funny, which Carly said confirmed that he was probably autistic. Carly said, “Why won’t you F—king let my people go?”  Pharoah said her mother wouldn’t like her using language like that.

Carly asked Pharoah to describe his relationship with his parents as she had lots of experience of dealing with problem children and their neurotic parents. Carly suggested that Pharoah might find having a cat therapeutic, but not a dog.

In the end, Pharoah and Carly did a deal. He said the children of Israel could leave and go to Tel Aviv. In return, Carly had to give him a cat and teach him how to make a knitted blanket. Carly said ok but she needed a coffee first; in a proper china cup and none of that instant rubbish either.

So, Carly taught Pharoah how to knit, using her specially made psychedelic glittery yarn and the children of Israel made it to Tel Aviv, although the security guards at Ben Gurion kept asking whether the matza, they packed had been given to them by anyone else.

Actually.

Carly didn’t write this story at all. Some friends invited her over on the first night of Passover 2021 to celebrate the yearly escape as slaves from Egypt. This of course includes lots of wine and indigestible matzos which are like water biscuits. This was very kind of the family to ask her to join them. They had heard many of her Carly stories and so, as a family, wrote one for her in which she played a starring role. Carly isn’t quite sure if she wants others to ape her work. It certainly isn’t the requisite length of story that Carly has decided is optimal. This has to be between 1307 and 1703 words. Carly is quite a stickler for this rule. Clearly not lots of other rules. She isn’t even sure she was supposed to be at this family during this particular time. Actually, she is quite sure. She shouldn’t have been there, but Carly can be influential and get others to break rules if this suits her purpose. Anyway, she is grateful they wrote this story. And in this collection of short stories (averaging of course 1505 words) she has Carly-style quotes from her daughter Boo and her good friend Zoë. And even though she could find out about the law surrounding copyright she isn’t sure that the Carly style is that unique. Shame thinks Carly. Would have been nice!

It started as a bit of a joke. My neighbours wondered if my obsession with barbies was kinky or weird. I said both. And on my way to Thessaloniki I was in a newsagent at Savidor train station and found a Barbie with a furry (lilac) coat. So I bought her and took her on lots of adventures. Particularly around the Museum of illusion and deception. We both had a lot of fun together.

Which is your favourite image?

Whilst on holiday in Thessaloniki with my son Tobias, I woke up early every morning and made 17 purple dreamcatchers. I now give them away – I let people chose one they want, so I need to replenish my stocks and here is record of them before they go. I bought some metallic paint, puff paint, heart stickers and oval stencils at a local craft shop. I have also used some shells from the beach and some plants I also collected whilst there. I took with crayons, an in pen and some other felt-tip pens. I found some pins in the apartment too. Besides plants I picked, I used flowers from tea. All made 10 – 12 May 2024.

Enjoy!

It is very easy to take these home from a restaurant. They are from New Zealand and supposedly good for arthritis! I cleaned them out and divided them into a left hand pile and a right hand pile. I found this piece of wood on my travels around Jaffa. I filled the left handed shells only with foods, spices and flowers from my kitchen.

Glued, lined up and ready to receive foods!

22 in order from left to right. Indian masala tea, hibiscus, green split peas, mallow flowers, chilli seeds, sunflower seeds, desiccated coconut, black peppercorns, sage, sushi rice, walnut, clove, poppy seed, saffron, pickling red peppercorn, cardamom, mung beans, pine nuts, caraway seeds, sesame seeds, Himalayan salt, nutmeg.

I lined up the right handed shells in size order and glued them together with my glue gun to create a solid object. It could be used as a paper weight – but who uses them anymore? I leave it in my garden as a decorative piece.

An of the moment project to see what I could make.

For a long time, I have been wondering what to do with my collection of zips. I have had them for years and clearly I am unlikely to use them. They are also very long. I asked Benji to lay them out in a suitable colour order.

Here it is complete. All of them are sewn at the top to create a loop and then placed on the bamboo stick. The beads and hoops at the end are just for decoration.

My plan was to open the zips to various lengths but it is quite high for me to reach. So they remain steadfastly shut.

My fun zip project to brighten up a very white wall and use up things I have which I would probably never other use.

I was given some material from a friend of mine Lior. She had come to my craft evenings in Jaffa and was gifted fabric from a friend of hers who used to visit a holocaust survivor who loved textiles. She had recently died and wanted to know if I would like some of the fabric. I took a big bagful and left even more behind. Lior recently got engaged and I made her a challah cover with some more of the fabric – see here – https://howtimegoesfasterasyougetolder.blog/challah-covers/

I had an idea of making my lovely neighbour’s child Raphael a kanuka present and what better than a book? I had a few pieces of different coloured felt and the fabric I chose had animals, fish and plants and so voila – I made the book below. I used puff paint to write the names and messages.

I gave it to Raphael and we lit the menorah all together and sang all 5 verses of moat tzur.

I really enjoyed making this project connecting the old (fabric from a holocaust survivor) with the young (Raphael).