So a lot of you might have guessed that I am turning sixty tomorrow. I have deliberated long and hard on what I want to do and changed my mind quite often. Do I want to go out? Do I want to stay in with RD and the puppies? The second option is attractive to me but then a little voice in my head tells me that I should go out, I work from home, spend most of my time at home, I should go out.

But then another voice says to me that it is my birthday and I should do what I want. I shouldn’t feel that I should do something just to conform. I would enjoy taking the puppies to the nearby park, buy them some little harnesses and take them all for a walk. Come home and drink hot chocolate and some wine in front of the fire. On a January day. Perfect.

Back comes the other little voice says telling me that I should make the effort, get dressed up and go out for lunch. I have always fancied the look of the oldy worldly hotel in Ballybofey, with log fires and big old chairs. I have a lovely top that RD bought me for Christmas, just go smart casual…And then I look at the price for Cod and Chips and think ‘How Much?’

We learned to economise so much in France, we learned that we can do without to such an extent that we now tend to not go ahead and spend our money, even though we can afford it.

I have wondered if some of this was part of the pandemic where we have got so used to staying in it is just the easier option. But it is the pandemic? RD and I have always been home bodies and enjoyed each other’s company and that of our furry family. Is it just as we are getting older that we just prefer to be at home?

I find myself questioning ‘Is that what life should be about?’ But then I immediately ask myself the question do I think that because it is what is told to us by the media and other influences?

But then I am only sixty once (although I would much prefer to be fourty – happily the butcher told me that was how old I looked when I told him of my up-coming birthday.) so should I make the effort?

At the moment my mind leaning toward lunch in the oldy worldy hotel, have cod and chips followed by mousse au chocolat (of course!)

But then I may well change my mind and snuggle down and just do nothing – who says it it wrong to love your own company and that of your husband and furries? There it is that expectation again, I don’t think I will be falling for it. I am not depressed, I have been giggling all day today with someone I am working with on line, I am just happy with my life. And more often than not people get on my tits!

Let’s see what tomorrow brings – life will show me the way.

Rosie