The Rolling Bones!

Last week, I watched The Apprentice, Lord Alan Sugar’s TV romp. I have to admit, I was amazed at what some of those youngsters got away with. The task was to programme a robot and choose a niche market. The lads’ team chose oldies as their target audience, (over 65’s). After all, my age group gets lonely and we are rich so can afford one of these gizmos (so the lads had heard) and we need someone to talk to, so couldn’t we could talk to the little plastic robot? Wouldn’t one of those little robots keep us company? They programmed the little plastic thing to perform yogic bends and stretches to remind us oldies to do our exercise (helps prevent depression!) They also programmed the robot to remind us to take our medication!  The robot might even teach us how to use the phone!

All I can say, dear readers, is that myself and my husband practically spat our single malt all over the floor, as we gasped in disbelief at what appeared to be astonishing, patronising ignorance of my age group.

We had a bit of a laugh at how those particular youngsters took themselves and their ‘great ideas’ so seriously. I can’t blame them for that. We also took ourselves seriously in those far distant days when we reveled in our youth, intensity, and arrogance.

We came up with an alternative brand-name for their robot (that wasn’t programmed properly and kept falling over when performing its yogic moves).  After-all, mid-task, one team named the robot one thing while the other sub-team, doing the story-boarding for the presentation, named it another. This led to a delicious confusion during the sales-pitch to the buyers.  We decided to give their little robot a name of our own: ‘The Rolling Bones!’

Personally, I have been forced to learn more than how to use a phone. Still living every precious moment of life to the full is a challenge; being open to learning new things; remaining humble; valuing each other; treating our fellow inhabitants of planet earth with respect is a challenge, and by that, I mean the animal and vegetable kingdoms also; not to mention being full-time, hands-on adoring grandparents to our new, effervescent baby souls that have come to play among us to remind us of the joy of curiosity and of how beautiful the world is. But where would we be without a challenge?

 

This morning, I found an inspirational video on Facebook: How I became an entrepreneur at 66.

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I took courage from it as Paul Tasner talked about pouring 4 decades of experience and passion into what he does now: helping to pass on a cleaner environment to future generations.

I wonder if some of us oldies could give the Apprentice contestants a run for their money! Especially, when I am just celebrating a tiny win of my own. My fledgling company received a business boost from Retail Entrepreneur Theo Paphitis (Ex-Dragon’s Den). I tweeted (yes! I have even learned how to tweet!) Theo about my business during ‘Small Business Sunday’ and was one of six weekly winners to gain a retweet by him to his 500,000 Twitter followers.  Here is my badge!

 The weekly initiative, set up by Theo in 2010, now has over 2000 #SBS winners and supports small businesses in the UK. Business and retail entrepreneur and self-confessed shopkeeper, Theo, re‐tweeted my message to his almost 500,000 followers and as a result I accumulated more followers and won extra orders for my new release: Find My Name In The Alphabet Train my personalised children’s book. All winners are also profiled on the #SBS website (http://www.theopaphitissbs.com) exclusive to all Small Business Sunday winners.  Theo obviously liked finding his name in the alphabet train.

We roll on, my husband and I; occasionally donning our Che Guevara hats and glad we are not yet in need of a hip replacement or a plastic robot to talk to!

Oh Well! Back to the Rolling Stones and in my case, working incredibly hard, writing and creating fun, educational, passion-soaked personalised Dr Niamh Children’s Books for the little creators of the future. Find them HERE 

About Dr Niamh Children's Books

I spent many an early morning dancing to the tunes of the little people. Very soon, they began to trust me, (Fairies seldom trust humans, as humans do very strange things to fairies and to fairyland), but I could dance a fine jig, pirouette often, sing a long song and recite a poem, all of which is of very great interest to fairies. They taught me some of their ancient secrets about bees and butterflies, worms and magic bears who know such an awful lot about everything. They also taught me secrets about science and the sky, and how to grow up into someone who is wise (wise enough to still believe in fairies). I like to share some of those mysteries with boys and girls (and grown-ups who still have magic in them) who are inquisitive but can also keep a secret. Sssssssssh! Promise you won’t tell anyone… Are you ready? Now listen well, to the stories I will tell…

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