Learning and 'you can teach an old dog new tricks'

I am learning to play piano at my great age which I shan't reveal - suffice it to say ad that I am over 40!  I haven't the money to pay for a teacher and am struggling along with books and a small organ.  So far, I have managed to  play Ode to Joy with one hand, Three Blind Mice, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow and Drink to me only with Thine Eyes with two as well as a few obscure tunes which I hope to recognise in due course.  When I first played Ode to Joy laboriously I didn't recognise the tune at all - it was only when I got into the rhythm that I did. I sincerely hope the same thing will happen with them.  Now that I am more comfortable with playing and am more committed to practising I shall see about getting a few lessons to help me along.

Then I got to remembering when I learnt to drive and I was over 30 then.  I have to say that it was faintly embarrassing to be instructed by a pony-tailed young man with acne who called me 'babe'.  Anyway, he was a good instructor and by the time I tried again to have lessons, having struggled and failed tests the previous year, I had to 'parallel park' something I am hopeless at to this day.  I struggled with it particularly and the third time I failed it was because I shot backwards trying to park and the examiner had to put his foot on the brake.  I said 'I  almost hit the pavement, didn't I?' and he replied with unconscious irony that it had been the tree he was concerned about. (I hadn't even seen the tree).  My youthful instructor had warned me that if the examiner had to intervene (i.e. brake for you) it would be instant failure.  Eventually, I passed the fourth time and was so ecstatic that I almost got knocked down by a passing car as I leapt out of the driving seat.  Then I couldn't drive the family car because it was a hot hatch and they wouldn't insure a 'new' driver, but that's another story.  I think it might have been easier if I had learnt at 17 - certainly less embarrassing.

I remember, also, the advent of Word replacing Wordperfect - us secretaries were very anxious about having to change to Word and I recall one of the IT men saying that if he heard one more person say 'but it doesn't have reveal codes' he would jump out of the window.  Now, of course, I can't imagine using anything else, but we were all very disturbed about the change.  I realised then that it isn't just 'old dogs' but the whole of man/womankind that fears change.  Incidentally, maybe we should come up with a new word to replace 'old dogs' given the  use of  dogs as a derogatory term for women - or maybe we should stop using the expression  altogether.

My next challenge is Windows 7 - I have been on the previous incarnation for years.  I can see that it is very clever and that there are things you can pin on to your worktop etc., but I am really struggling.  My partner says it is because I refuse to look at the instruction which is of course worded in computer-speak and I always find manuals a yawn.  Anyway, he can talk - I don't think he looked more than cursorily at it.  There is a video of course, but I usually find myself distracted by the way the person talks or the way they look or something which only goes to show, I suppose, my small concentration span.  I will get it in the fullness of time ...

My partner, being a sailor, tried to teach me how to sail but I couldn't grasp the wind and how they affected the way the sails worked etc., although I did love just sitting on the deck enjoying the experience.  It didn't help much that I didn't actually know which way went out to sea and which towards London - bit of a disadvantage for boating.  However, I did learn to steer - a kind, patient man was able to teach me - encouraging, since my partner couldn't. Sadly he is a very impatient teacher and thinks if he can do it anybody can!

Anarchy/Government/Voting and the rest of it

I have never considered myself to be particularly interested in politics, but it is hard to escape the forthcoming election and decide how to vote or indeed whether to bother to vote at all.  It is hard to respect  MPs who have lied and cheated about their expenses, and I really wish we had been supplied with a list of those who didn't play fast and loose with them.

The mess that successive governments have made of the economy, the health service, the schools, housing etc. - the list goes on and on so that is difficult to make a case for having government at all.  Perhaps we should try anarchy which would make a change from our British apathy.  Maybe we need to have a revolution - there never has been a serious one in this country, but we came pretty close in the Poll Tax riots.  Pity serious marches and demonstrations are ignored - there have been marches against the Iraq war, but nothing has been done to curb it.

All very depressing and enough to send people running for cover - easier for the rich to decide to desert for another country or a handy tax haven.  Whoever said life was going to be fair?