GrumbleSmiles

After surfing through many more bloggers’ diaries of daily grind, I at last found another gem.

A guy called Scott who lives in America and has been blogging since 2011 about all the race events he has taken part in.  Remarkably he is intending to complete 100 races and walk 10,000 miles before he retires!

Each blog is about an event he has taken part in – illustrated by photographs he has taken along the route.  Everything from 5k walks to 10k, to half marathons, marathons and a 32 mile hike, all around the outskirts of Manhattan.

I first wrote about walking as good exercise way back in November 2010 under the heading “Walk for Life” (you can find it in the ARCHIVE).  Since that time it has been a recurring theme, prompted by research studies about exercise being a good preventative, in terms of ill health.  Scott’s approach seems to me much better because it doesn’t turn exercise into a boring routine nor a mindless heart pumping exercise in the gym.  Scott gets to see new places and meet new people.  What a great idea!

It stands out among all the other diary type blogs and it is well worth a visit.

You can find it by clicking on the following link:-

“Walking to Retirement”

I have spent a large part of August exploring the hidden depths and dizzy heights of the internet.  My search on the internet for positive stories about ageing goes on.  You can see earlier posts on this theme by clicking on “CLOUD SURFING” in the TAG CLOUD”.

So far my hunt has been time consuming.  It has been interesting nonetheless and I am beginning to gain some insight about how the internet is being used by older people, mainly of course in America.

I have found lots of blogs written by older people, thanks to a site put together by Ronni Bennett called “TIME GOES BY” (click on the link to see it).  It has a massive blog roll, which is a list of links to blogs mainly written by older people.  Most of them are written as diaries of later life and they give you a great insight of older people in America.

Most of what I have found has been in the USA and so I feel like Christopher Columbus with his trustee telescope searching for “land ahoy”.  Thanks to Ronni Bennett’s website, my search has been made easier and it’s obvious that there is much more active involvement with older people on the internet, and blogging in particular, in the USA as compared to Great Britain.

Here are a few first impressions of what I have found so far:-

• Most positively, publishing your thoughts on the internet is a new hobby for many elders;
• You find some great examples of good writing and some brilliant photography;
• Geneology features in quite a few blogs and shows how the internet is being used to allow people to explore their family history;
• On the challenging side of later life, health issues feature quite prominently in a lot of peoples’ blogs;
• Families and support from friends also feature quite frequently;
• Most of all, you see great examples of people grasping the opportunity to learn new skills and seek new adventures.

Thank you Ronni Bennett for giving older people the chance to communicate their skills and wisdom around the world.  I have found lots of interesting reading and several inspiring stories of how older people have created a new life for themselves in retirement.  I’m still only half way through Ronni’s Elderblogs list, so I will continue my search in the following month and report back on what I find.

Continuing to surf around in my quest for interesting blogs by older people, I eventually found a piece of treasure.

A blog by Millie Garfield – a 91-year-old young lady who lives in Boston, USA.

Millie has been blogging since 2003, so must have been one of the first older bloggers.  What caught my eye was her latest blog about a manicure she had – not a natural thing to grab my attention except the picture of Millie showed her looking years younger than her age and her new varnish was BLUE.

A great example of someone who is younger than their age.

Looking back through the blog, I find Millie has in the past made YouTube videos on the difficulties of packaging for older people, which is a theme I have often blogged about (click on “Packaging” in the TAG CLOUD).

Millie, you’re a star and I am glad I found you.  You can see her if you click on the following link:

“My Mom’s Blog” by thoroughly Modern Millie.

I am continuing on my summer surfing holiday exploring the internet for interesting and positive sites about older people.

Like the early explorers searching for “the new world”, you’re not sure where you are going, nor exactly what you are looking for.  Inevitably there are lots of blind alleys which turn into dead ends.  It can be very frustrating and it is not always easy to re-trace your steps, even with your computer’s history leaving your tracks behind you.  Hours can go by, 100’s of web pages written and read and you still don’t find anything interesting.

Almost all internet searches pull you towards America and somewhere on my travels I found a reference to a statement by the American Association of Retired Persons which claimed that only 3% of all bloggers are elderly.

So I find myself like Christopher Columbus sailing through unchartered waters, absolutely sure that there are new things to discover ahead of me.  So far though, my cloud surfing has revealed no new worlds.  I will redouble my efforts, hang off the highest masts with my telescope and look for “land ahoy”.

Tomorrow is another day!

This follows on from my last blog where I am looking for positive images of older people.  If you start off by surfing the net and type in “Old People” into Google, what you tend to find is adverts for the largest national old peoples’ organisations, old peoples’ health stories and Government organisations for older people.  Valuable as they are, these sites are not exactly inspiring.

As an alternative, I follow a number of subjects on a “Flipboard” site and after searching through a number of magazines, I eventually found a reference to a number of sites of interest to older people.  The one that struck my attention was “Road Scholar”.  This is an American travel site which specialises in educational tours.  It’s a not for profit organisation with headquarters in Boston and is primarily geared to educational travel tours for older adults.

I’m not sure if their holidays include cloud surfing or are quite as adventurous as the 100’s of people that went abseiling, climbing, canoeing and horse riding with the ExtraCare Charitable Trust in Devon, but they certainly go to some exciting places around the world.

Last year they offered 4,600 trips throughout North America and around the world and offered services to over 100,000 people.

I think this is a great example of an organisation that has built itself into a positive image of ageing.  It’s offering an opportunity for individuals to travel in a safe and organised environment and fulfil ambitions that they may not have the confidence to complete on their own.

To find out more, click on the following link:-

Road Scholar

In the five years that I have been writing this blog, I have routinely scanned the news media and the internet for information about ageing and older people issues.  There is a torrent of information out there, but when you specifically add the rider that it must be about old people, the elderly or seniors, what you get back is overwhelming concerned with just a few central themes which are common to all countries:-

Demographic Time Bomb:-

The rising tide of older people is a worldwide phenomenon as we all live longer.

Ill Health:-

The spiralling cost of healthcare as a consequence of greater longevity and improved medical techniques.

Inadequate Finances:-

Insufficient funds set aside by the state and individuals to cover the cost of later life, particularly health care

Inadequate Care Provision:-

Both in the public and private sectors and by many absent relatives.

The responses to this situation on a national and global scale are at best, strategically very weak and at worst, border on panic measures.  National strategies, in the main, seem to be defensive, for instance, postponing retirement age or denying some treatments/drugs to older people.  The panic measures include legalising assisted suicide.

This all makes for a very gloomy outlook and sure enough this is reflected in the information and news media.  The residual image is of older people as a burden on society.

GrumbleSmiles is about turning around that perception into something much more positive and I am sure that there are many people and organisations out there trying to do the same thing.  It’s just not that obvious from the exposure they get in a media that focuses more easily on negative things.

Over the next month I am going to turn my attention to trying to find websites that present positive images of ageing.  I know from past experience of the internet that this will not be easy.  There’s plenty of information out there about medical conditions and there is a huge amount of research into the “problem of ageing”.  There’s also lots of stereo typical images of old people falling over or being made fun of.

I intend to find things that are much more positive and I will publish them as a succession of follow up blogs to this post.