Brenda’s story

The highs (mostly) and lows of my 70th year

2018 was the year I reached 70-years-old and I was determined to make the most of the fact that I’m still in remission. The first thing I thought about was what to do to raise some money for CCUK.

So many people know how much I love knitting, so it seemed like a good idea to use that love for a good cause. I was then challenged to knit and sell 70 scarves for the charity. ‘I can do that,’ I thought and I began buying wool and knitting. It didn’t take long before the donations of wool came flooding in and I will be forever grateful for the amazing support I had with the challenge. One thing I hadn’t thought of, was the amount of space the wool supply and finished scarves would need, so by the time I did the craft fair to sell them in December, every drawer in the spare room was full of wool and there were boxes of scarves everywhere.

It was so wonderful though, because I did raise £429 and I feel encouraged to carry on knitting and selling my scarves. I had about fifteen scarves left after the craft fair, so I called the local homeless shelter to offer them, but as it was so close to Christmas they’d been overwhelmed with offers and couldn’t take them. I took a few at a time into our town centre and handed them out myself. I can’t even find the words to explain how wonderful doing that made me feel.

The celebrations for my birthday were amazing. Sam Smith at the O2 and the #GetYourBellyOut party where I had such a wonderful fuss made of me. I was spoilt so much on my actual birthday by my family, with so many brilliant surprises, which all left me feeling very special and so thankful that I was well enough to enjoy it all.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to July I’d started to feel a little less well. I was found to be very inflamed and started having a flare-up. Luckily, it was a short flare-up and I didn’t feel too poorly for too long, but it left me feeling quite weak and fatigued, so I’m now having B12 injections in the hope of getting some energy back.

My Fitbit (my birthday present) is feeling a bit redundant at the moment, but I’m sure I’ll make it feel useful again soon ha ha!

I’d like to say thank you to several companies, including Pelican, who sent me many awareness items to hand out at the craft fair.

Thank you for reading,

Brenda Meakin