The NYTimes is running a series of articles to encourage creativity and one of them asks the reader to use a set list of words to create a poem.
In the comments to the article, there is a series of poems, long and short. People have engaged with the challenge but also want to share their creation.
Under our aches
Wakes our devotion
Scatters our might
To bear the impossible
Creation within constraints seems so much more achievable to people, and ever more meaningful if it can be shared.
We chase old age.
It might not feel so, to the young, but we chase old age. It is a target that moves further away the closer you get. Old? Not me. Even though as a child, being thirty was enough to qualify as old, suddenly nearing sixty seems inadequate to the definition.
There are some milestones along the way. Parents dying is strangely more ageing than birthing children. The latter makes you tired. The former makes you mortal. Perhaps the problem with all of the healthy living advice is simply that no twenty year old can ever believe that they will die. Not might die. Will die. Life is a zero sum game, after all.
And so on to sixty years of age.
The body aches but still manages to run and jump albeit with a longer recovery time. The mind is still sharp even though it holds so much more than my twenty year old self, most of it not about myself. Sometimes I wonder at the freedom of my younger self, to worry only about my needs, my own interests. None of these other people to concern myself with, neither the ageing partner nor the bright young adults; one negotiating the challenges of infirmity the other still making places for themselves in this world.
Now constrained not by money but by too many ties to other people and their care to actually let rip, to leave and head off on adventures.
We chase old age. It is ever out of reach. Until suddenly it isn’t.
It is harder to lend money to people than you’d think, at least if you want to get it back.
The bank of mum and dad provides around a fifth of finance for house purchases in the UK, mostly unofficial or at least unrecorded and therefore unregulated. Part of that it because the regulation that exists makes the process of lending awkward.
To lend money in the UK, basically requires a person to register with the Financial Conduct Authority, a body set up to regulate the thousands of financial services firms and the financial market.
By registering as a credit broker most of the problems associated with lending to family members go away but the process takes 6-12 months, so by the time most people find out, it’s too late and anyway, it’s a lot of faff filling in forms etc.
So then they may look at what exemptions there are within the regulations, and yes, there is an exemption for non-business loans made to family members. Since most people making loans to help get their kids on the property ladder are non-business ie there’s no interest or other benefit to the parent, the lender, then that isn’t a problem for most people. It would be fine for our situation except the idea of family is defined in law, and would not include the fiancee/boyfriend.
He was a bit cross about that, a bit indignant that any loan we made to him would likely be unenforceable in law, and that’s really not somewhere we want to find ourselves. They’ve been dating two years. He’s a lovely boy. Still, let’s not be daft. The laws exist to prevent someone (anyone really) setting up as a loan shark and fleecing desperate people of their hard earned cash. It’s not reasonable or at least not as unreasonable as expecting your girlfriend’s parents to effectively gift you a couple of hundred thousand and feel good about it. When your own parents will not.
So we could lend the money but only to our daughter, making her the 80% purchaser and therefore 80% owner of the house they planned to share as tenants in common. Cue much soul searching and entirely valid (though fundamentally frustrating) feelings around whether or not he could proceed as the ‘minority interest’ stake holder. Until his uncle told him to get a grip, get his head out of his arse and grab the most favourable arrangement in the history of spoiled North London boyfriends ever. Quick.
So we’re all agreed. What next. Apparently we’ve taken far more care with this than most people already in having the discussion because the biggest problem with family loans and the bank of mum and dad, by far, is simply that they’re not documented. At all. Which leaves some huge problems down the line for people when mum and dad want their money back and their child doesn’t want to give it back. Or can’t. Or (God forbid) has died and someone else just doesn’t recognise that a loan ever exists and mum and dad can’t prove it was a loan rather than an outright gift.
And the friend of a friend who is walking me though all of this then points out that the loan agreement is actually a very straightforward thing to draft unless there’s anything weird going on. And that it probably isn’t necessary to secure it against the house, providing your kids are on good terms but perhaps more importantly providing the loan amount is a relatively small part of their parents estate. No one is going to refuse to repay a loan when it costs them a huge amount of their inheritance.
So we have agreed on a five year loan with no interest chargeable for the shortfall in the house cost, to be made to my daughter only, unsecured on the house, but drafted, signed, enforceable in law, with a minimum repayment a month but no maximum and no fines or penalty charges if it’s repaid early ie if she takes out a ‘proper’ mortgage to buy out the loan. The agreement is drafted and will be signed by parents and child, witnessed and a copy kept in the safe. If it all goes tits up then the agreement will be enforced.
It’s a bloody marvellous deal for her.
If she defaults we can go to the courts and ask for repayment of the capital amount. Her only asset large enough to make good the loan is her 80% share of the house so she’d then have to sell. Hmm. What about the boyfriend?
Well, he’s not part of the loan arrangement at all, other than needing to be okay with selling the house if she defaults.
The friend of a friend did point out that the tricky bit in law would be agreeing a declaration of trust (or cohabitation agreement) between my daughter and her partner, laying out the terms on which they planned to live together in the house they’ve bought. Will they take into account capital sums invested in renovating the house? What about shared running costs? What happens to dividing up the sale proceeds when the house is sold, the costs and the profits? Under what circumstances can they sell the house?
So having sorted out our best option for financing our daughter, we’re (or at least they are) now getting advice on a legal agreement for them living together, something that can probably be a precursor to any prenuptial agreement they may need.
If it sounds less than romantic it’s because it’s a lot less than romantic! But most arguments in marriage are because of money. Marriage is not especially romantic at its heart – it’s still basically a legal agreement based around property transfer and the laws that govern property.
Money can and often is used to control people, to limit and constrain them. It is often a proxy for love and attention in peoples thoughts. And it makes people nervous to talk about money so they tend to make assumptions and to push it to the back of their minds and relationships. It’s only when money gets tight, or runs out entirely that those assumptions come back to bite. Everyone needs to shine a huge light on that stuff before it gets to that point, not afterwards!
I am always going to be salty about the fact that his parents are unwilling to financially support their son as well as we propose to support our daughter but the biggest red flag in these conversations has been the difficulty that the boyfriend and his family seem to have about talking openly about money and finance. Ho hum. She loves him. He’s a very nice boy. he says we shouldn’t worry, that he’ll never leave her, never be unkind.
& I really don’t know how to break it to him that he’s not the one we’re worried about. If she leaves him, he will get tricky, whatever his current plans or beliefs.
North London is a great place to live. For all of the criticism levelled at London in general (too busy, too dirty, too diverse, too much of everything really) it remains a great place to work, to live and raise a family.
Yet every family reaches that stage where the kids are grown and ready to settle down on their own and North London is fiercely expensive, unaffordable on almost kind of salary for a first home, not so much for the mortgage cost but rather the need for a deposit, a lump sum reassuring the banks that they will get their money back even if prices fall somewhat.
My daughter’s beau started out working in the City on a huge salary but, for one reason and another, he left and is now re-starting life as a civil servant on a much more modest salary. By London terms, their pay is okay at around £40k each. In national terms that makes each of them above the median wage of around £35k, yet faced with an average house price of £725k even a combined salary of £80k is not enough.
Obviously they wouldn’t be buying an average house. But that average includes a lot of houses quite a long way away from me, and in an ideal world, I’d want my kids to live close by and to be a useful sort of grandmother if they chose to have their own kids.
North London is expensive.
So privileged wealthy parents want to help their kids buy their first house. Most of them. I’ve definitely come across some who are entirely unwilling to chip in, even when their kid’s partner is getting considerable help from their parents. And I can see where they’re coming from, having set their children up with expensive educations etc: they feel they’ve already done their part.
But I want my girl to live close by. Both of them honestly, but one has already up sticks and moved to Newcastle so unless or until she moves back, there’s nothing I can do to change things for her so I’m focusing on the eldest.
Chatting with people (everyone, honestly) of the same age, whatever the wealth or lack thereof, we’re all struggling with the same issue. There seem to be a couple of options.
Allowing the kids to use a property owned by their parents. I’m certainly not rich enough to have a spare flat or house in London, but I know people who do. By offering the kids a flat to live in, they keep control of the asset but can keep their kids safely close by. One step towards this is buying a house with the children, that is, owning a share, perhaps a controlling share, in the property they buy. Even if I had the money, I’d hate the option. Aside from just not wanting the hassle of another house to manage, the children are kept as dependents. It feels controlling.
Outright gifts. A friend has basically bought a flat for her three kids and put the deeds in their names. I don’t have the money for this but if I did, it would still feel a bit too much, over generous. I don’t have any hang ups about giving them money or assets, but owning a house outright at the age of twenty five would mark them out from their peers in a way that brings its own issues. It feels as if they should have some of their own skin in the game, have to work and maybe take some personal risk to create their own home. I would want my privilege to cushion the bumps in life for my kids, not insulate them from reality. It does feel okay to help with the deposit though, as an outright gift.
Loans. A friend, accepting that their daughter would never earn enough to buy in London, decided to lion her enough money to buy a flat. Having a legal husband (barrister, now judge) they wrote up an agreement and instead of paying money to a bank or building society, she pays them. They decided that interest wasn’t important to them, just a straight forward repayment schedule. Hmm. I quite like this idea as a way to help the daughter whilst not removing too much autonomy. Maybe a loan secured on the house bought would work best.
Her situation is a bit complicated by her beau, who wants to live with her and build a life with her in a house owned 50:50, without parents who are willing to match what we’re willing to give. Hmm.
I’m stuck wondering how that works out five years down the line if they break up. Suppose that we Make them a loan, no interest, for £400k for which they both are liable, secured on the house. Do we have to arrange it so that we loan her £200k and him £200k to make them both independently liable?
In five years time, he would have to repay his share of the loan but would also walk away with 50% of any capital gain on the property, earned though our generosity. Do I care enough about that to refuse to help? Are any of the alternatives any better? I don’t mind transferring my wealth to my children but other people’s children are not my responsibility, surely? Though he is a lovely boy, and treats her very well.
Privileged problems.
Dear God (dess) send me the grace of a perfectly average man,
overweight, rather short, fond of cereal and sliced ham.
Send me the confidence of the inadequate and over-valued,
Paid for all of his thirty-nine hours,
Praised for the sixteen hours scraped away at home,
and assumed the next sixteen spent watching the woman work,
On and on, while he watches telly
And she raises the kids.
Send me the honest bewilderment of a man recently divorced,
By the woman, on average, twelve years in, fifty years old and kids still to raise
Can you really be that bad, that useless,
For her to make a rational decision to lose your wage and raise the kids
Alone and poor,
rather than spend the time and emotion on you as well.
Lady, send me the gob-smacking arrogance of the middle aged man,
who sits down at the table and says to the woman on his right,
“Let’s talk about me!”
How much longer must I spend my time
Pretending the man sat next to me is interesting.
How much longer must I spend my time
Looking after someone else, anyone else
children, parents, him.
As the body sags and settles into itself
and the fire inside burns hotter
day by day, year by year, decades pass.
Begrudging every minute,
As I see the same path mapped out for my daughters.
Sing out my soul, let the humble rise up
Now,
Not later, not constantly waiting for changes that never come,
How much longer must we wait for nothing more than our due
Growing old, waiting
For the never-ever promises
Give me my time, my space to be me
not someone’s mother or lover,
Now.
Do not make me wait for something you know will never come
Old women are too often angry women,
fuelled by broken promises and dreams
And the not-apologies of men.
Item satsuma:
50 1 satsuma,Satsuma, or
28, 1 fruit, Asda, or
53, 100g Sainsbury, or
Bigger, fatter, juicier?
It’s only a fucking orange, easily peeled.
10 minutes, thinking, considering, counting
Working through the trade-offs.
Item: potato:
265, 1 medium, jacket
92 100g jacket
278, 1 medium, homemade
Oh for fucks sake. Is that with or without butter?
Another five minutes thinking about what it means to be a large potato in a preferably small world
Lose weight they say.
Calories in, calories out.
It’s just will-power, they say.
Looking at you and finding a lack.
As if a worldwide epidemic could be fought patient by patient,
could be reduced to nothing more than positive thinking
and paying attention.
Each pound of fat worth 3500 calories,
almost two days worth of eating, restricted.
Assuming we’re average, which clearly we’re not.
And fat cells never die, did you know?
We add them as we put on weight,
but when we lose they just shrink
like a sponge squeezed free of water.
And they keep sending out these messages to the brain,
Screaming feed me!
Feed me! FEED ME!
What does it mean when it is the fat that is hungry not the person carrying it?
Will power.
An entire industry set up to make us eat,
and once we’re fat our own bodies do their work for them.
Cos the only way to be slim, is to stay slim.
But the bastards tell us all we need is willpower,
The power of an individual person’s mind to defeat an international superpower,
The power of an individual’s will to defeat their own body’s screams,
not once but always.
Each day. Every day.
Will power.
Learn to ask better questions,
And listen to the answers,
So many answers.
Listen to the stories women tell,
To their needs
Be sufficient.
Move yourself off centre stage,
And let someone else be lead
For once.
Take up a hobby, an interest,
No dragons or dungeons,
Or porn.
Volunteer and be useful,
Old people, sick people,
Find value.
Maybe travel far away
And enjoy an adventure
Solo is okay.
There are worse things
Than to be happily single
So be happy, single.
And maybe move out of your mother’s house,
Shower more often,
Stop killing
Nice chat.
In lockdown, my partner was diagnosed with Pakinson’s Disease (PD) and that would be properly gutting, if another friend hadn’t been diagnosed with motor neurone disease at around the same time.
The peculiar thing about ageing is that there’s always someone else in a worse situation, and whilst that doesn’t make our own individual situation better, it does make it more difficult to complain, at least out loud. Motor neurone is seriously unpleasant with a short prognosis, limited life expectancy and a rapid physical decline. The woman we know has gone from full out athleticism to unable to eat or drink, slurring words in speech and now struggling to walk, all within six months. She will die soon.
Finding out that your husband has PD is bad, but not that bad. It won’t kill him (probably). It will be the shape of his old age.
What does that mean?
The PD journey is very individual, dependent in part on how deep you have dug the well of health to start with and how well you have nurtured good habits and health.
Almost everyone diagnosed has had the disease for a good ten to fifteen years before they’re diagnosed, with the weirdest possible symptom, a lack of sense of smell, arriving early in our experience. I’d been pushing for a doctor’s visit and diagnosis for a couple of years, spurred on by a seemingly gradual increase in frailty and a decline in small motor skills (crabby handwriting) but it wasn’t until lockdown that he decided to follow through on it. He’d also managed to push through the pension administration hoops and retired. Having pushed for a diagnosis, I was still gutted when it arrived.
He’s very early on in terms of symptoms and medication. He has occasional light tremors in his hands (not all do) which makes fine work with his hands more difficult. He plays tennis twice a week, has a session once a week of Pilates and another of tai-chi. The tennis is good for his cardio-vascular system and gives him lots of balance practice (lots of chop and change of direction and balance). There is strong evidence that people who work out two to three times a week have a more gentle progression of the disease. The Pilates should be good for his core strength. The tai-chi should be good for his balance and if the worst comes to the worst, should help him fall well. There is some soft evidence that people with PD who practice tai chi fall less or at least feel less at risk.
Having been put on an initial medicine, his tennis coach noticed a large difference in his physical rigidity, but the rest of us really didn’t see much everyday change.
Parkinson’s Disease cannot be cured.
When someone tells you that they have an incurable disease, do not immediately google the disease and come up with helpful new treatments. Just don’t. You will never have the expertise of people living with the problem so it just isn’t helpful. Treatments for the disease are largely centred on managing the symptoms for as long as possible whilst mitigating the side-effects of those drugs taken over the long term.
PD is a gradually progressive neurodegenerative condition. The etiology and pathogenesis remain incompletely understood. The movement disorder of PD occurs largely due to the selective loss of neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta, with consequent depletion of dopamine in the striatum. The drugs work using a number of different methods, by being metabolized to create dopamine, or by activating the dopamine receptor in the brain, or by preventing the breakdown of endogenous dopamine. Currently my partner is being dosed with selegiline, a drug that helps prevent the breakdown of his own dopamine.
Dopamine is the happy drug in the body. It’s part of the fight or flight response as well. As a result, when the process to create and use dopamine is interrupted as with PD, the physical results can (and in our case do) include anxiety and/or depression.
My partner is routinely anxious. All day, everyday. Nothing is too trivial to worry about.
And anxiety is tiring. He’s lost weight.
My partner is also routinely glum. All day, everyday.
It’s wearing.
I have spent most of my adult life caring for my children. I had expected to have maybe a decade or so of freedom before finding myself caring for my older husband.
It’s difficult to express how very angry the diagnosis has left me feeling and almost impossible to share the frustration living with this disease second hand. My life feels wrecked, though it’s not my illness. It feels as though I’m left carrying the burden of it because he cannot, physically or mentally.
This will be the shape of our old age.
Why do houses keep breaking? You spend a sizeable amount of time in your twenties desperate to be able to afford your own home, only to find out when you eventually own the deeds that they come with a never ending litany of disasters.
So getting the house painted on the inside, top to toe, had been put off for a decade or more. It seemed sensible to schedule the work for when I was away on a trip to Baja, but then who would have though it would over-run by two weeks? I arrived home after more than twenty four hours of travelling to find the house in chaos, dust everywhere bar a one metre square on the sofa in front of the television where he obviously sat down each day. All else had been left to gather dust and debris.
Two weeks with workmen in the house is difficult, even if they’re nice enough people who work quite hard to not get in the way, to be pleasant company. And since I was glad they’d been there to keep him company (and were on a fixed charge) I couldn’t get too cross. Painting was followed by a leaky radiator that required the heating to be turned off for a fix, which in turn was followed by repairs to two toilets. The final fix was supposed to be yesterday, but flushing the toilet led to a flood in the bathroom – at one o’clock in the morning obviously – so clearly we’re not done yet. And that’s not counting the repair to the roof, the trim underneath a dormer window is letting water through and damaging the newly painted ceiling underneath. Joy.
Maybe a better question would be: why do I have to be the one to fix stuff, or to stress and organise the stuff being fixed? Because every family seems to have one person who for want of a better reason gets stuck with this stuff. And in our house that person is clearly me. When the toilet flushed and the floor flooded, it was the second time in the evening. Why didn’t my daughter or partner recognise that there was a problem? At least it would have been earlier in the evening, and someone else would have been around.
It’s got to a stage now where my partner literally thinks of something that ‘might’ break, and feels a need to let me know. What if? And because I’m a manic sorting kind of person who needs to solve problems, once he’s pointed out a possible problem, it’s very difficult to ignore it.
Maybe I just need practice.
