Is it really so?

Does the world really become so restricted, or only if we allow it to be so?

Still can’t quite believe the first few times I visited Versailles, I knew nothing of the Queen’s Hamlet, or The Hameau de la Reine. It is now quite possibly my favourite destination, and reaching it, meandering through the grand designs of Andre Le Notre, is my idea of a day beautifully spent. Indebted to Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette for the now eternal love of Rococo, ribbons and a make believe village.

There are many gardens which grip passionately at my heart. In wonderment I pay homage to the finest garden designers and hardworking dreamers who created these artworks, but I think, like with the Queen’s Hamlet and the gardens, the truth is being there makes me feel youthful, inspired to endeavour, and genuinely happy. The Hamlet exudes fun, playfullness, escapism and innocence. ‘That’s it’, she says. ‘Perhaps she will study landscaping. I have yet to fulfil my destiny. I want to begin again.

We can all start again. True, there are some careers, some life changes that may just be a little beyond our years left on this mortal coil - any chance of being a ballet dancer at Sadler’s Wells has flown and I doubt if brain surgery remains an option, but why do we simply look at ‘hobbies’ rather than true, driven passion in an industry anymore. Many are delighted to be retired and I salute them, remaining terrified of ‘is this all there is” and being on repeat will hasten my end from drowning boredom.

Despondent to think that re-training, for two or three years, will have me qualifying and looking for work in my mid-sixties. Brave thought of actual employment, brave souls taking a chance on a recently graduated who could be twenty odd years older than the rest. Does this crush the idea of beginning again? Dreaming big or giving up for the dreams have a time limit?

Many lovely blogs and interactive websites aimed at the over 50’s give such good advice, but also at times, a little patronising. Career changes can involve dog walking, grief counselling and such, and these are perfectly valued, but restrictive. Is it physical ageing that wearies our spirits so? Do we find grow slower and lower with the idea that anything new may just be too taxing to begin? We keep telling ourselves we must be grateful of another day, and the day is disappointing because our minds are foggy and our hearts bruised.

Taking this photograph through a tunnel covered in vines, had me at the innovative photographer moment. I could post it on Instagram, but what if I decided to become a professional photographer? Plenty to learn, and ain’t that magic?

Is it really if we are to believe, time to retire, or rewire as I was told the other day?

Have the chances slipped and why are we believing all the disheartening news. For a long time, the early sixties seemed to me a wasteland of my life, all the mistakes, all the lovely things I had achieved, no longer written plain for all to see, and travel was my saviour. To travel, as so many of us are fortunate to do, is a smartie box of second chances for we witness, touch, explore and believe ourselves worthy or more to do, earn, know and appreciate.

Is it really so? Will I ever be satisfied with a cup of builder’s tea or begin to study every type of tea available, make a plan to visit Twining’s in the Strand and serve the very best in my own pretty shop one day?

In a landscaped garden of my own making, somewhere in France when they can eventually bury me. It’s an option.