Re-naming ceremonies

Bloody phone - Hebes

I love Here's Teetime, they are brilliant fir flowers arranging!!

Completely off-piste, but . . . Gertrude reminds me of an occasion years (and years and years) ago in Italy. A friend and I got chatted up by two young lads and she told them that our names were Gertrude and Ermintrude. They thought that we were sisters called Gert and Ermine Trude!

I see a Gertrude as a large man-ish sort in cardigan, tweed skirt and brogues a bit like MrsDoubtfire, does this fit your DH Teetime?

I wish to be known as pebble, as I am in tune with all things natural, it is gender neutral/fluid and enigmatic.?

I do see you as a Grace kitty can you see me as an invasive ever spreading bush? Gertrude is in his/her study at the moment- let you know how the rest of the day goes.

Does have to be a flower? Can I be Grace? Then I'd become sort of brainy, willowy and elegant.

I found that when I worked with the elderly (meaning more elderly than us, obviously!) they often used names which they had decided on as teens, rather than their own.

I think I'm a Euphemia!

Scarlette! (shades of Gone With the Wind?)

Gertrude!
I fancy something like Mercedes as my new name. A bit racy (unlike me, but I can dream)

Tsk. Well, perhaps it says something very positive about your DH - 40+ years of marriage have obviously led him to an enlightened space where he feels able to explore and embrace his feminine side ... obviously repressed because no doubt, generationally he would have been gender- stereotyped and deprived of the opportunity to find his true self in earlier years.

Incidentally, I think it was the wonderful John Peel who, in the early noughties dryly commented on the concept of a 'gap year' being needed to 'find yourself' with a remark along the lines of 'I found myself in a caravan in Yarmouth' or something similar.

The ' grumpy old woman' in me, that hadn't been aware of this re-naming trend before reading your post, sees it as symptomatic of a generational trend to be evermore self-orientated / self-obsessed about personal fulfillment.

P.S. I don't think I will be choosing a new name, but I do think it highly likely that I will start wearing purple and learn how to spit as two of my 'new things' when I am sixty ..