Meet Myvanwy

My 8-year old nephew recently asked me if when he’s my age I would still be alive?

The obvious answer was I bloody hope so (of course I didn’t say the ‘b’ word to an 8 year old, I’m not completely without manners). At the age of 28 I’m aware that I am positively ancient to the under-10’s who like to peg my age at anywhere between 40 and 60, but I’m surely not that far-gone that I need dwell on my mortality just yet. I mean I haven’t even found my first grey-hair (that doesn’t mean I don’t have any it just means I haven’t found the treasonous shafts yet. Although I fear they will appear before 29th Birthday as I vowed not to dye my hair for entire year).

Putting my follicular-obsessions aside if I do by the grace of God reach my 90’s I intend to age in the manner of my latest charge, 92 year old Myvanwy. As she is amazingly compos mentis and able bodied we are able to enjoy sparkling dinner conversation. As a further advantage her good health means that I never have to see her naked (a rare perk in this job – I’ve seen more geriatric nudity than is good for one’s ocular health) or study the shape of her bowel movements. I’ve always been told that keeping a few secrets from each other is vital in any relationship and it would appear this is the case in the carer-caree relationship. For by keeping the mystery about what happens behind closed toilet doors I am able for the first time in this job to enjoy a sort of gromance (geriatric romance).

Myvanwy is fabulous, she swathes herself in pashminas, wears dark glasses around the house in the manner of a movie-star and has small stashes of Brandy throughout the house in case she should ‘feel queer’ (she even has a ‘water bottle’ full of Brandy in the car glove box, presumably in case my driving gives her The Fear, or she feels like channelling any of the characters from Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘The Rum Diaries’.) It’s hardly a job really as we drink red wine, go to the cinema, make tasty little meals together and watch ‘Upstairs Downstairs’ on a Sunday night with our knees tucked beneath little crocheted rugs. A truly bonhomie atmosphere thrives.

Myvanwy’s only age-faulty appliance is her hearing, which in my vast experience is not bad, but in order to preserve my eardrums she likes to have the subtitles on the television at all times. The annoying thing with subtitles is if they are there you will read them. Yesterday’s subtitles on the news read ‘South African President Nelson Mandela has horse’s eyes’, the truth was that Mandela had been ‘hospitalized.’ Egad I thought imagine being so hearing-impaired that you had to rely exclusively on these faulty typings decrying Madiba’s equine eyes! I was very glad to hear (with my own perfectly sound-inductive ears) that Madiba is out of hospital (with or without his horse’s eyes). As he is the same age as Myvanwy and a figure of global adulation I’ve included him in my gromance and rather want the two of them to make a century.