Fear

The March challenge topic for today was 'fear, what are you afraid of?'
This image portrays two of the things I'm most afraid of. One of them is idle hands, boredom. I fear having nothing to do! I've never had to think about this until I recently retired. When you're a teacher there is no such thing as 'nothing to do' and this had been my life for 32 years. Suddenly I had to wake up every morning and find things to do. There was no timetable telling me what I should be doing when and for how long. There was no bell telling me to stop one thing and start the next. There were no children needing me to provide things for them to do. I have found it difficult and there have been times when I just wanted to give up and apply for my job again. They even offered it back to me just before Christmas and I had to force my mouth to say 'no thank you'.

Ian (my husband), on the other hand, has taken to retirement like a duck to water. He soon discovered that the famous cliché 'I don't know how I found time to work' was very definitely true (for him). So I'm trying, really trying, to get the hang of it. We are off to Australia next week and I know that couldn't have happened when I was teaching, so I console myself with those kinds of thoughts. When we get back I might offer my services to a primary school on a voluntary basis just so that these hands (and this brain) can feel a bit useful some of the time.

Oh and the other thing I fear is getting old and looking at the state of my hands when I took this shot I fear I may already be there!! I tried lots of 'arty fixes' to try to hide the wrinkles but to no avail. Settled instead for accentuating them. Very brave for one as vain as I.

Oh and thank you blipfoto for helping to keep me amused. Taking a shot of both your own hands does require a bit of thought!!