About the Book

Bloomer: embracing a late-life flourishing

At sixty, we've reached the life-stage described by the father of psychoanalysis, Carl Jung, as 'the afternoon' of our lives. ButJung insisted that 'the afternoon is just as full of meaning as the morning [youth]. Nature', he said, 'did not give us decades beyond mid-life for no purpose'. My memoir, Bloomer, explores the challenges and pleasures of these 'golden years'. It recasts the Boomer generation as Bloomers and urges them to actively resist ageism in all its forms - institutional , interpersonal, and self-directed. Bloomer engages with many aspects of our ageing, from the sense of becoming invisible to the potential for loneliness and even homelessness. Joy tends to spring from things one might have overlooked in one’s earlier years, such as following the seasons through a small suburban garden ,growing plants from seed, and nurturing the garden’s birdlife. Bloomer is an…