The Queen.

My neighbour is 95 and as sharp as a knife - physically finding life a challenge, but absolutely capable of decision making, and keeping herself up with not just local but world affairs. She acknowledges that she is lucky. The Queen is also lucky, and seems to be retaining her sharp well informed mind. Were she mentally frail I cannot imagine she would still be tackling the red boxes.

GSM
The basis of my opinion is not merely based on one person. My mother and my father in law, both 94, are in similar circumstances. My father in law is a little better than my mother. However the basis of my opinion is the care home where my mother lives. It is full of 90 somethings who are unable to look after themselves any longer. They are in wheelchairs, or use walkers, or are bedridden. Before we chose that home we looked at several others. They were all full of very old people who need to be looked after. The home my mother was discharged into after her third fall and her broken shoulder was also full of similar old people. When I visited mum in hospital after she broke her shoulder she was on the elderly care ward, which was full of very old people, and I mean very old, who showed every sign of being exactly the same.
If your experience is limited to one person, then I would suggest with the greatest of respect that perhaps it is you who doesn’t know the true facts. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, and one very sharp old lady doesn’t mean that the majority are the same.

The Queen is a very lucky lady. Despite her physical difficulties, she appears to be very aware and as some say, as sharp as a knife. It’s not the norm at nearly 96, however much we would like it to be.

Thank you for flowers SueDonim.
Seeing how my mother is, I truly do not wish to live to 94/95. My mother is not demented, she still has her faculties, but they are badly failing. But her body has given up, she has to have a hoist to get her out of bed. It’s sad.

A 92 year old man told me sadly last week that, 'You can live too long you know.' His wife had died and he was just too old and tired to go on. Yet he does.

My mother is now much less mobile, thanks to the pandemic, and she doesn’t go out now, sadly. She still feels she had a lot to live for and is always keen to keep up with the news, with family and the latest trends or fads, as she’d say. Tired of life she isn’t.

I have to say that of course care homes and hospitals for the elderly are full of infirm people. The hale and hearty won’t be there, they’ll be out living their lives! The oldest person in our street died the year before the pandemic. She was 94yo (when I saw her she always asked if my mother was still alive. ) looked after herself without any help and then died in her sleep one night after she’d had a pleasant evening with one of her grandchildren who’d come to visit.

Mum’s last cousin died earlier this year. He was 96, again lived at home and was self-sufficient. He was even internet dating until the pandemic put a stop to everything! He died a month after a stroke.

It’s lovely when they’re like that isn’t it? My mum wasn’t really independent from when she came to live near us, but she was okay. After lockdown she went on to have the three falls and that was the end of independence I’m afraid. She often says she wants to die, and even though she wasn’t a great mum, I feel sorry for her and think it would be better for her if she went quietly in her sleep.

Lucca

Here’s a HOS …..
For you Volver
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKHGp1XPv48&fbclid=IwAR3x7FLAXYJLAhf-h5s4jWEehHSI8p2v5paRde6ndfF-xWbCZ2uISQ8XC2s

ooohh....

CatterySlave1

Most 95 year olds would be sitting with their feet up but she is still working. Yes actually working. She has a full Red Box of Government Papers to go through each morning with her Private Secretary, 300 engagements a year, weekly PM discussions, and even mundane things like viewing and agreeing the menu plans 3 days ahead! If a very physically active lady like herself isn’t able to walk her beloved dogs anymore, a task she personally enjoyed and didn’t often delegate to others, and has occasionally of late been seen using a stick, then indeed she must be fairly frail as she’d hate to show it!
As for retirement, absolutely no chance because she’d view it as having failed in her sworn duty, so she’d never consider it! That’s absolutely not saying that she won’t delegate more and more visits and tasks to younger Royals, as she should but she’d never retire/abdicate. Unfortunately I don’t see her living to 100 like her Mother and won’t be surprised if she’s not gone in the next year or two sadly. Our Country will be poorer for her passing.

With the greatest respect to HMQE, how do you know she still does the boxes, other than what we've been told by courtiers? Definitely less than 300 engagements a year now, even if you call a nice chat with Mr Trudeau an "engagement". She was doing 300 a year before and we hardly see her now.

And is it only the Republicans like me that find it distasteful in the extreme to see comments like "she'll be gone soon, you mark my words!!" And only the Republicans that think a woman in her mid nineties needs to be bound by something she said 70 years ago?

We ask too much of her, and saying "she likes it though" is no excuse.

I agree with every word volver.

It’s actually quite cruel of us to expect her to carry on until the day she dies. Everyone deserves to not have to live up to the expectations of others when they’re nearly 96 years old.

Thatnk maddyone

One of sentences doesn't make sense though, what I meant was:

And only the Republicans monarchists that think a woman in her mid nineties needs to be bound by something she said 70 years ago?

I seem to have lost the ability to type...but you know what I mean...

elderly abuse

?

making a woman in her 90s go out to work for God when she cant walk anymore!

Oh yes, I understand. Agreed.

volver

Lucca

Here’s a HOS …..
For you Volver
m.youtube.com/watch?v=PKHGp1XPv48&fbclid=IwAR3x7FLAXYJLAhf-h5s4jWEehHSI8p2v5paRde6ndfF-xWbCZ2uISQ8XC2s

ooohh....

Like you needed any more reasons to “admire” this man !

A 2 minute phone hello counts as an “engagement” in royal speak. How do we know that she doesn’t want to be seen in a wheelchair? Is it because she ( or more likely her advisors) don’t want to destroy the mystique of the position that she is somehow a quasi deity / not like other mortals which is the medieval view of the monarch. Or maybe she is just too unwell to go out and about - who knows, whatever it won’t stop the speculation.

She is 95, her husband died less than a year ago and she has just had COVID. Is it remarkable that she is currently having mobility problems?

After having COVID, I think she should have cancelled all engagements, including the 2 minute ones, for three months at least and concentrated on recovering.

I doubt many people expect her to keep working at her age volver. She expects it of herself.

Germanshepherdsmum

I doubt many people expect her to keep working at her age volver. She expects it of herself.

Because she believes she's indespensable.

Because we keep telling her how much we need her.

Because we keep telling her how wonderful she is to keep "working"

Because she believes she made promise to God, that God expects her to be Queen till she drops.

It's not healthy.

Freedom of choice for anyone in their nineties GSM ? They need to be in homes, and certainly not allowed to vote in any
elections, wills made must be ignored , all rights must be taken from them,

Yes, that's right, that's what we've all been saying.

That's not making stuff up at all.

?

She should be free to lead her life as she chooses. As always happens, one persons choice is not the choice someone else would make, but they should still be allowed to make their own decisions.

Heaven help anyone who tries to tell me what to do should I reach my 90s. My father did and led the life he chose, not the life anyone thought he should live.