My Two Old Aunts

During my annual leave this year, i had my two Aunts come and stay with us for just less than a month, which was amazing, considering their ages, one was 79 and one was 76 and they did the trip from England to South Africa, we lost them in Switzerland, for a few hours, but managed to get them to France luggage and all, and they were only 14 hours late, two amazing old ladies, which i might, add hated when i called them old.
On the first night we discovered that the younger Aunt was terrified of thunder and lightning, and i don't mean scared i mean terrified, my other aunt had neglected to tell here about the storms in case she would not come with her to deepest, darkest Africa, who comes to the highveld in Summer when they are afraid of thunder and lightning........... it must be terrible to be so afraid of something, and the fact that we were having constant storms and electicity failures did little to put her mind at rest, in fact one night she fell out of bed trying to get away from the storm, she was sleeping by the window, silly move on my part i know.
The other Aunt was terrified of anything that moved, we live in Africa, where is there not creepy, crawly things of all sizes and descriptions , bugs, bats, moths, worst still we spent 10 days with my sister who lives in the bush. In the evening we would lie in bed and listen to the masacre going on in the old girls room next door, they insisted on sleeping with the lights on because of the storms, which of course would attract all bugs in i think a 10 km range, each morning the floor would be covered with the dead bodies, of what used to be insects.
In Africa we have small white lizzards called gecco's and my aunts were convinced that these were young crocodiles, and every night we would have to check the rooms, just in case by some fluke of nature something happened to them during the night and became full grown crocodiles, who would devour them in their sleep.
Frogs were the next problem, my aunt had only seen frogs in ponds, in parks, surely that is where frogs belong, never on the verandah of your home, and never inside your house, and certainly never in your shoes, they died when i could not get my shoes on to realise there was a bullfrog asleep inside each shoe, we got used to the screams and didn't go charging to their side after the first 100 screams the urgency factor wore off, and we prayed that the snakes would stay outdoors for the duration of their stay because that i think would just have taken them over the edge........................
Why is this on my mind now, because my aunt goes into hospital tomorrow for a hip replacement, because she does not want to battle to walk, and still wants to travel to a few more places before she is done with life........................................... thats what i want to be, love life to the full and do what ever i can to make it worthwhile........................... and i pray with all my heart that her gamble pays off......................