Wheelchair Lessons

I have had five weeks now of being non-weight-bearing.  That means not setting my foot to the ground, allowing bones to knit after surgery.  Around the house, I’ve been on a knee-scooter and zimmer frame.  Outside, in a wheelchair.  

I haven’t taken any chances.

Dawn said “I think every teenager should have to spend a spell in a wheelchair as part of their education.”

It has certainly been interesting.  I don’t know quite how to react when cheery strangers look at my plaster cast and ask “What have you been doing to yourself?” 

It reminds me of those times in pregnancy when somebody says “Can I put my hand on your bump?”  I’m all ready to resent these intrusions. 

But actually, these are usually the same people who make sure I am okay.  The majority don’t intrude, but neither do they check to see if there’s a wheelchair just behind them as they let the door swing in my face.

On a personal level, I have had to juggle patience, ingenuity and risk in a whole new way.  Stuck every day in the house, small housekeeping issues catch my eye.  Can I be patient and wait until Nigel has a moment to deal with them, or can I find a safe(-ish) way to reach/clean/lift it myself?  

I have discovered that I am a one-legged acrobat and a champion nag, but not terribly patient…. Definitely an education!

A Cure for Cabin Fever

I’m currently spending the long summer holiday with a foot in plaster.  I mustn’t put any weight on it.

Nigel has wheeled me out on several occasions and pushed me around manfully.

However, I had given up on the idea of a girls’ outing and a giggle.  And I was getting cabin fever.

But then Jennie had an idea.

She researched attractions and accessibility and recruited two other heroes – Ann and Gill.

We were going to Kew Gardens.

I am hefty and my borrowed wheelchair primitive, so I packed a novel, ready for the moment when they could push me no more.  Frankly, I was expecting to be parked.

However, we had a glorious day, trundling past a grove of giant sequoias, a shady border of toad lilies, a pond floating delicate waterlilies.

My friends helped me to get close enough to smell the roses, to stroke the pom-pom centres of echinacea. Above, we could hear the kazoo squawks of parakeets, and in between that feast for my senses, I enjoyed the chat.

Even in the face of uphill gradient and difficult camber, the ladies refused to park me until right at the very end, when the waterlily house was just too challenging. 

Naturally I spent the journey home complaining that I hadn’t had time to finish my novel.

A couple of palm trees that Ann found unaccountably amusing.

Like a dachshund on wheels

Three weeks ago, I had surgery on my foot.  Three joints were fused so that eventually I shall be able to walk with less pain. 

I am not allowed to put my foot to the ground for six weeks and I have just passed the midpoint of that period.

I have hired a little scooter called a stride-on which is good for whizzing round the house.  
Outdoors I’m in a wheelchair.

It means that my life has been less full of incident than usual.  The main source of excitement is the odd occasion when I reverse my scooter too fast and whack my foot on something.

I have to keep citing the research that says swearing is a good tool for reducing the severity of pain experienced.

Perran has helped by finding Youtube videos of amputee dogs who have had wheels attached to them.  Apparently that is what I look like on my scooter.

Ha, ha, ha.

I have been torn between engaging my mind to devise clever strategies for achieving everyday activities, and simply saying, “Nah! Can’t do that.  Somebody else will have to pick it up/put it away/carry it upstairs.”

I’ve also used the time to force myself to do some of the World’s Dullest Sedentary Tasks:

Tidying my hard drive,

Reorganising my paper filing system,

Investigating my various bits of cloud storage.

I desperately hope that my foot heals according to plan or there’s a very real danger I might have to tackle the chest of drawers containing all our old photos and negatives.

House Party

“Me and Perran and Zac and Ella are going to dress up as ABBA,” announced Carenza, “For our house party. The theme’s going to be Pop.”

“Oh, that sounds fun,” I say, “When’s that going to be?”

“So we’re having a look at cheap platform boots.”

A week later and Perran is musing on the party.

“We could decorate the house as if it was under-water – I know this brilliant way of attaching streamers to umbrellas to make them look like jelly fish.”

“Great idea.  So when is this aquatic-themed Abba party going to be then?”

“Maybe not, though.  Better just to stick to the idea of Pop.”

Nigel says, “Perran and Carenza are really looking forward to this house party they’re having, aren’t they?”

“Yes, although I’m not sure when it is.  Do you know?”

It turns out that although both of us have asked, neither of us knows.

They are clearly worried that we will turn up and embarrass them.

The very idea. 

After all, it’s more than a decade ago since we traumatised them by leaving the house for an Eighties Party with Nigel dressed as “Frankie goes to Bricket Wood”.

Harumph.

I Whatsapp them: “Am ordering my white satin cat-suit and want to make sure it arrives on time.  When did you say your party was again?”

No reply.

“Your father’s Gary Glitter chest wig has arrived.  Could you please tell us the date of your party so we know if we need to extend the hire period.”

No reply.

Eventually, we wine them and dine them and the date just slips out.

On the evening of the party, I Whatsapp again:

“We should be with you by 6.25.  Hope that’s not too early, but we want to allow plenty of time for pre-loading.”

Then in the morning:

“We knocked for ever such a long time, but nobody let us in.  Perhaps the music was too loud?”

I turn to Nigel: “Oh well.  I’m not convinced a white satin cat suit would have looked good on me anyway.”

Love Island

"I can't believe you watch Love island" said Ann. And she's not the first. I guess because I'm a Latin teacher people think I'm high brow. 

And up to a point I am. 

Carenza who also watches Love Island says "It's vacuous and pointless but strangely fascinating "

But I think it's more than that. I think it has a timeless, epic quality.

Imagine "A Midsummer Night's Dream", but with an infinity pool.

ON ITV2, love is confusing and deluding and rewarding but so has it always been through the millennia.

And for me as a Classics teacher, the bronzed and fabulous beings on my screen recall the Greek gods. Never more than when they are duplicitous and steal a kiss behind their partner's back.

But the main way in which they differ is in their morality. 

The love islanders display a clear idea of good behaviour and morality. Mainly it is around being open about who you are pursuing and clearing the air if you tread on somebody's toes. 

The Greek gods indulged in prolonged deceit ( the affair of Ares and Aphrodite, even though she was married to Hephaestos). They had no interest in whether a woman consented or not ( out of many, many examples, Zeus and Europa, Apollo and Daphne). And women  would seek revenge on one another like Athena on Medusa, when it was all clearly the man's fault ( Poseidons). 

Nothing I have seen on this year's Love Island has touched this level of immorality.

Jack and Dani particularly, are the undisputed King and Queen (Zeus & Hera ) of the island, but none of the other bikini- clad beauties has turned Jack's head and the gracious Dani has no need to turn vengeful unlike poor Hera.

So which is a better example for our times? Love Island or Classics? 
I say Love Island.

....Like a newt needs a bicycle

I love my bike now.
I have pimped it with fake sunflowers and a large yellow Van Gogh bike bell. My kids bought me a bike helmet a bit like the cool gold one Mary Beard wears, but bronze.
The only bit I don't like is when I arrive back at my bike having bought a large bunch of lilies or a dozen eggs and think "Now how am I going to get THIS home?"
And that's exactly what happened last week when I ended up pedalling across town with two young newts in my bike basket.
Having lunch by Carole's pond, she confided that she had almost too many newts. Apparently they were annoying the frogs.
"How? Blowing tiny amphibian raspberries? Calling them slimy names?"
"No Clare. Eating the frogspawn."
Not put off by their uncouth behaviour, I mentioned that our brand new garden pond lacked newts.
Together we squatted down and set about pond-dabbing like six-year-olds.  At first we gathered only a bunch of slime.  But then two baby newts for me to take home.
Then I remembered I was on my bike.
I would like to report that the newts sat up  straight, peering alertly through the bars of the bike basket and enjoying the wind in their crests.
However Carole kindly provided a yoghurt tub to give them a safe journey home.
They  seemed none the worse for it as they swam off into our pond. However I think it's likely that the only cycle they'll be interested in in future is the newt life cycle.

New Frock

It’s one of my rules – if there’s an event coming up, don’t go out shopping for The Frock.

The Frock is something you never find when you’re actually looking.

But unfortunately, I sometimes have giddy moments and break my own rules.

I had a few occasions to go to this summer and I thought maybe a new dress…

.

I prowled the internet.  Hopefully it’s the closest I’ll come to internet dating.  Many handsome frocks, but none of them looked like The Frock. 

Plus, I was pretty sure that when I tried them on, they wouldn’t look as thin and gorgeous as they did in their profile pictures.

A quick sweep of Monsoon (accomplished at a moment when Nigel was texting me ‘Where are you?’) had left me with a fleeting impression of a lace dress in flaming orange and hot pink.  It was the kind of dress that already seemed to have a red rose gripped between its teeth.

I didn’t have time to try it on.

On holiday, Carenza encouraged me to buy it. 

It looked good on.

And that should have been the happy ending.

But then I needed a jacket – it had to match either the hot pink or the orange – I found one in orange.

Then a clutch bag.  Hot pink!

Then shoes – something neutral.  But no, the ones that fitted best were rose gold.

I became afraid to look in the mirror – scared that peering back at me, I would see Grayson Perry.

I wore it all to Hannah & Joel’s wedding.  It certainly ensured that nobody could miss me -  the brightly-coloured woman three rows back who was trying to stifle a coughing fit during the vows.

But after all, at least when the dancing started, it made me feel young.

Military Might and Orchids

We thought we should learn more aboutWWII The twins still have nightmares from an earlier visit to La Vallee Museum, based in a German Underground Hospital excavated by slave labour. So instead we cycled the German Occupation Museum and then to Pleinmont Observation Tower.

The man who admitted us to Pleinmont Observation Tower was the same person who had taken our money only hours earlier at the German Occupation Museum so I imagine WWII heritage is preserved by a small and dedicated band of people.  Locally this man was a star having produced the introduction to the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie film which was out this year.  However, he did admit that it was only the Channel Islands version of the film which had his introduction.   

The tower itself had the purpose of monitoring plane and ship movements out to sea, although thrown up in a matter of months by the Germans and with an emphasis on being secure, even against gas attack, it was still an elegant example of brutalist architecture.  However, whether this souvenir of the Nazi occupation will ever be admired more than it is hated is hard to imagine.

In complete contrast to all this history of ruthless military aggression, there was something else I very much wanted to see.  Googling, Pascoe and I had discovered by chance that 1)There was a spectacular wild Guernsey orchid.  2) It was in bloom now, 3) There were some fields near the coast where it thrived.

It sounded like a potential wild goose chase to Nigel but I was determined, and we pedalled to the right area.

I eventually spotted the exotic purple flowers over a hedge and slammed my brakes on to much swearing behind me.  

The loveliness of these lush, flower-tapestry water meadows  was beyond me to describe.  Suffice it to say that there were four types of orchid including the loose-flowered Guernsey orchid, and also delicate ragged robin, yellow bartsia and yellow flag irises.  It is not promoted to tourists so, apart from one other equally astounded couple, we had the meadows to ourselves. Maybe Heaven will be a bit like that.

We ended the day by playing Frisbee on the beach then had a glass of Prosecco while the sun sank behind a rocky island.

At sunset, the tide had dropped enough to allow us to clamber across to the island, just in time to see the sea flush rose.

PHOTOS BY CARENZA

Dolphins and Sea shells

We cycled to St Peter Port and caught the ferry to Herm.  Many people are drawn to Herm because it is the picture postcard ideal of an island.  Above the white sand beaches, brightly coloured flowers and tall New Zealand flax make it look tropical.  But I had another goal in mind. 

On the ferry trip over, more gleeful dolphins accompanied us, although Perran and Carenza and Will, sitting inside the boat, missed them.  Once on Herm, there was little consultation as to what we should do.  I set off marching purposefully and the others fell in line behind me. We were heading to the north east of the island, to Shell Bay where there was rumoured to be an extraordinary and compulsive array of shells.  

When we got there, we did indeed find everything from massive common "otters" through to the tiniest cowries.  Plus many shells which I had not seen before. Ever since childhood, I have had a weird compulsion to collect shells, without any thought of how to make use of them.  They seem to me exquisitely beautiful and I derive visual pleasure from picking them out, then enjoy sorting and categorising them.  

I have a tradition with Carenza that the first one of us to find a cowry on holiday gives it as a gift to the other.  Today, our hands were overflowing with them.

Too soon, it was time for the last ferry and home.  On the way back, Perran and Carenza who had previously missed the dolphins sat on the top deck in order to be sure of not missing them.  Naturally, there were no dolphins this time.

Chapel & Chips - Family Holiday, Guernsey

Cycled to the charming Little Chapel, hand mosaicked in multi-coloured china and tile by a monk about 100 years ago.  Nigel remembered visiting here on a childhood holiday.  We came again when our own children were tiny and I remembered accidentally leaving my copy of Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth here.  I had a quick look round but it seemed to have vanished during the intervening eighteen years. 

The ceramic decoration was mesmerising - themes and patterns would emerge over certain sections, but would then meld into the general melee of varied fragments.  There was a pattern of ormer shells on the vaulting above the Virgin Mary.  And what I didn’t expect, the Chapel took the visitor on a journey through to a further two tiny chapels at lower levels.  

Nearby were Guernsey clockmakers, inventive and imaginative yet tacky at the same time – segments of each clockface split, unfurled and twirled in time to Swan Lake or The Waltz of the Flowers, accompanied by motifs of tutu-ed ballet dancers or tulips, and regrettably studded with Swarovski.

Then north west on our bikes again, along lanes lined with a braid of red campion and wild sorrel.

We visited the tiny ancient chapel of St Apolline, the patron saint of toothache (following a  gruesome martyrdom which I'll leave to your imagination), and appreciated the exquisite mediaeval wall-painting of the Last Supper.

Then back in time for the Fleetwood Mac Tribute balcony concert at Cobo Bay Hotel.  Thousands of people thronged the coast road and beach to chill out  to the music, but I had something else on my mind: there was a chippie very close to the concert.

So last time we went on holiday en famille, I had brought with us salt, white pepper, malt vinegar and ketchup, all in anticipation of fish and chips.  However, Nigel had discovered that the chips that time were fried in beef dripping, thus putting them off-limits to four family members.  I had sadly taken home my condiments unused. 

This time however, Nigel solved the problem by not asking what their chips were fried in and I colluded by not questioning him.  Instead, I opened the fragrant paper parcel he had purchased, pulled the Sarsons malt vinegar from my ruck sack and drenched the delicious fish and chips.  They were so good that I barely remembered to feel guilty.  And as if fish and chips were not enough to make the Halleluiah Chorus play spontaneously in my head, we were eating them perched on a sea wall, my favourite spot for making any food taste twice as good.  Plus, the Fleetwood Mac Tribute was playing in the background.

After the chips, we lolled on the beach like seals, happy in our own blubber and decided we would wait on the beach for the sunset, even in spite of the fact that some local twenty-somethings came and began to hurl a rugby ball around far too close to us. 

One dropped the ball:  “You’re so gay!”  “I may be gay, but at least my dick’s bigger than yours.”  An object lesson in witty banter to be treasured by each one of us.

Family Holiday - Guernsey - Day 1

In the morning, mist and “why didn’t I bring a jumper” were the order of the day.

We cycled over to St Peter Port, along narrow, high-hedged lanes bright with red campions, three cornered leek and pennywort.

In the town, Carenza and I spied beautiful shops and became unpleasant and haughty until the guys eventually shouldered the massive hint and left us alone to browse and drool.  Although, as Nigel said,

“You’ll want us again when there’s shopping to carry.”

Carenza bought a gold and green necklace and I bought a pink and orange dress.  She carried them.

We went en famille and explored the Castle (Castle Cornet) with an amazing tour from the Norm, an islander who recalled the WWII occupation and disliked anybody from Germany.  But not as much as he disliked anybody from Jersey.

After he finished, we enjoyed a scented garden with a chamomile lawn, followed by a dressing up room.  However, some of the historic costumes were too small.  It was almost as if they had been made for children.

By the time we pedalled for home, the sun had finally broken through.

That evening we set off south along the coast beside the drifts of wild gladioli, pink thrift and yellow mustard and dined at the Rocks Restaurant overlooking Cobo Bay, its picturesque rocks and romantic sunset.  The restaurant coped well with both vegetarians and vegans, although they did accidentally serve Nigel The Wrong Pie.

Best of all though was the thunderstorm that broke on our way home in the dark.  We were arrested by the spectacle out to sea and stood watching from the dunes near our house.  Sheets flashed and forks writhed across the sky, turning the whole sea into a mirror.  We oohed and aahed as if it were November 5^th.  

In the electrified blackness, plastic glowed weirdly.  Nigel scooped up in his palms what he thought was a glow worm but turned out to be a plastic sweet wrapper.  Hahaha.

Nazi graffiti, Castle Cornet

Family Holiday - Guernsey - setting off

We never know when it'll be the last holiday when we succeed in enticing all the children with us, but we managed it this year.

Got up at 5.15am, rolled out of the house into the heavily laden car.

There were the usual holiday happenings – Five of us had to fit in the car so I  had weighed up carefully my choice of clothes and laid out my outfit so I didn’t have to take any decisions while befuddled in the early morning.  I got dressed but left my jumper, intending to put it on just as I exited the house.  At the point of departure, it was nowhere to be found.  Five adults searched every room.  Clearly aliens had abducted my pullover.

Nigel had allowed loads of time for the drive and we arrived in plenty of time. But parked tightly on the ferry we had the usual scramble to prize ourselves out of the car with our bulky daysacks, plus phones, books, computers and not quite enough hands.  It was as if, even after queuing on the tarmac for half an hour, we had never guessed this moment would come.  We Hobbas are also the people in supermarket queues who look surprised when asked to pay for our goods and spend a long time looking for our wallets.

As we boarded, I said to Perran, “Really feels like we’re on holiday now.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if we saw dolphins?”

On the ferry, mist closed in and there was an announcement not to worry as the ferry foghorn sounded.  I began to hum the Titanic theme.  Hackneyed, I know but worth it for a view of the occasional truly worried rolling-eyed passenger.

But then, a miracle, on the way into St Peterport harbour.

Six to eight dolphins accompanied the ferry in, riding in the bow wave and the wake, leaping completely out of the water.

This was going to be a great holiday. 

Later, from our holiday cottage, we wandered along the sand of Cobo Bay.  West-facing, the sunsets are legendary, but not when the sea mist rolls in.

But that didn’t stop the beach art.  Nigel and Pascoe made a henge.  Perran inscribed a huge organic pattern in the sand with his feet.  I made a watercolour of Cobo Bay in the mist and Carenza took photos.

The Tummy Machine

Since January I've been going to the gym a couple of times a week. 

It was grim at first and only the prospect of watching an episode of Frasier on the gym TV took my mind off the fact I was pedalling furiously.

But lately I've been feeling proud of myself. I'm a smidgeon fitter, a soupcon trimmer. I occasionally allow myself a peek in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors nowadays.

On Tuesday I was pedalling up an imaginary hill, with only minimal wheezing, when a woman I hadn't seen before came in. Of medium height and build, there was little remarkable about her, except her manner. She paced rapidly around the gym as if looking for somebody or something. 

I was the only person there and she began to approach me between the rows of machines, but then as she drew close seemed to change her mind. Instead she retreated and went on looking around the gym. 

Eventually a lovely young woman entered, all swinging ponytail and pert lycra, and stepped up to the cross-trainer. Immediately my searching lady approached her. 

"Excuse me, love, where's the tummy machine? "

"Sorry?"

“The tummy machine - for giving you a nice flat stomach."

"Um...I don't think there is one."

"But I've got a wedding to go to on Saturday. There has to be a tummy machine!"

Eventually she took herself off to search for her miracle cure elsewhere. 

I was chuckling to myself, but then I stopped. 

A thought had occurred to me - 

What exactly was it about my appearance that made her think I wouldn't know where the flat tummy machine was?

Car Share

Our little Ford Fiesta did umpteen years of school and supermarket runs . All three children learnt to drive in it . There were still claw marks on the sides of the passenger seat where I had hung on in terror during sorties onto the dual carriageway. Scrapes on the wing showed where one of the kids found the garden wall before the steering wheel.  Dents along one side show where Perran used to rest his bike while preparing for his paper round.  Until one morning I got up very early and discovered him doing it.

The Fiesta had even once taken me and three fully grown children on a camping trip all the way to Cornwall. The boot was so full I had to remove the cherry tomatoes from their punnet and insert them individually amongst the other luggage. 

Now however Nigel commutes by train. I drive the daddy car as it is more fuel efficient. The Fiesta has faded gradually, moss growing on it, its various mechanical failures totting up.

Why did we go on taxing and MOTing it?  Because we thought one of the children might want it. However since they live in Edinburgh and London a car can be more of a liability than an asset and none of them is interested. 

Couldn't we buy a paddock and put it out to grass? I ask Nigel.
No.

I am out on the day that the scrap merchant takes it away.*

Sometimes I look at the space on the drive and sigh.  I feel somehow I let the Fiesta down. If we'd sold it on sooner it might still be alive now.
Did I just say alive?

But then good news.
Some friends from church are taking the opportunity to work in Australia for a year. Their car needs a foster home.  Nigel is mystified as I volunteer our drive enthusiastically.

When the car arrives it looks as if not merely three children but possibly the Waltons or Von Trapps had learnt to drive in it. That's great. 

I pat its bonnet each time I pass by to the carriage. It fits right in. 

*Nigel tells me it was an end of life vehicle dismantler

Our Very Own Horror Story

You know it’s a horror story when somebody is murdered brutally in the prime of life.

You know it’s a really hard-core horror story when the murderer eats the corpse afterwards.

Or were they even dead before the killer began to devour them?  We’re not sure.

And what if it happens twice in the same location?

If this was The Bridge it would take me ten hours to tell this story, but since Saga Noren turned down the case I’ll have to see what I can do in 300 words.

The first incident took place two weeks ago.  I was weeding the pot plants under the bird-feeder.  Nigel and Perran were sitting on the other side of the garden.

“Look Clare.  That little robin’s watching you.”

Then suddenly, almost next to my head, a whoosh and a squawk.  Nigel and Perran both chorused “Sh*t!”.

Out of nowhere, a sparrowhawk had swooped on the robin, thus using the bird-feeder in a manner we never intended.  Although, as Nigel pointed out afterwards, it had at least fed a bird.

The second incident occurred at the front of the house.  An entirely charming pair of pink-beige collared doves had built a nest in the cotoneaster, forcing their way in amongst the thick growth with twigs in their delicate beaks.

I enjoyed their soft cooing and I kept watch as they laid their eggs and began to sit on them.

It was Nigel who saw the black and white cat running away and found the wrecked nest.  I haven’t been able to make myself look.

And this time, no wildlife benefited.

The real horror story is that studies have shown that on average each cat kills thirty-two wild birds and mammals each year. 

So when your beloved moggy passes on, please consider not replacing it.  Wildlife is under enough pressure.

How do we lure our children home ?

Perran and Carenza moved off to rent a house with friends Zac and Ella three months ago now. 

It was the same week that we buried Nigel’s father and we could almost hear the grinding sound of the generations rolling slowly over.

The twins are less than twenty miles from us, but it’s in London. 

We are unlikely to drive there because, as we discovered on moving day, the traffic wardens are super-alert.  Like polar bears who can smell a seal from half a mile away, even when it’s beneath a meter of ice. Not that the polar bears issue seals with tickets – their paws are too big to work the machine.  But I digress.

The public transport links are good.  But why would they want to come out to St Albans?  What for?  Their part of London is full of exciting things to do and favourite friends to do them with. 

Nigel and I have discovered that if we present ourselves in London after work with tickets for a play or exhibition and a table booked for dinner, the twins show up looking smart and make entertaining company. 

But I am after a more sustainable relationship.  

I am developing ways in which to lure them home to us.  We have nice garden to sit in, whereas the twins’ nearest open ground is a prison exercise yard (that’s how come they could afford to rent in that area).  We have a warm wood-burning  stove and decent home-cooking.  Surely that will be enough….

As long as they don’t expect us to be polite to them or make intelligent conversation all will be well.

Where's the Catch?

Last week was Sustainability Week in St Albans. 

Our church ran an Upcycling and Repair Fair. 

I wanted to contribute, but what should I do?

I’ve spent a lifetime putting together charity shop outfits, but Jo was running a stall doing that.

I’ve always altered and mended clothes, but Geraldine was doing that.

In the end, I offered to repair broken junk jewellery.  “Costume jewellery,” corrected Jo.

I packed my pliers, my findings and my reels of cord and wire.

I thought I’d have time to kill, so I brought along my own project.

I needn’t have bothered.  A steady stream of women appeared clutching tiny boxes and plastic bags.

They contained chains whose catches had broken, necklaces which had snapped, spilling beads, earrings which had lost their wires.

I had stipulated “No gold or silver”, so none of these items was worth much in money terms.  Instead, people had kept them for sentimental reasons:

“This was my mother’s.”

“My grandmother gave this to me.”

“I always thought this made me look pretty.”

So repairing them was unexpectedly rewarding. 

Most women could not wait, but put on their mended jewellery straight away with a smile.

And the best was one lady whom I helped to re-string her grandmother’s green and yellow beads.  When they were complete, she put them on, and stood up.  Everything she was wearing was green and yellow to match. 

Before she had even set out that morning, she had anticipated the moment she would get her beloved necklace back and had dressed accordingly.

Now if that wasn't worthwhile, what is?