108-year-old woman says secret to long life was to have dogs and not children
A 108-year-old woman credits her long life to having dogs instead of kids.
And honestly, I have to agree with these pearls of wisdom.
Ada Daniel was the proud owner of ‘a lot of greyhounds’ when she was younger and joked that her canines were the secret ingredient to a long life.
Well, you know that famous saying: a greyhound a day, keeps the doctor away..
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Ada has lived at Codnor Park Care Home, in Codnor, Derbyshire, since 2015, and when her special birthday was approaching, her home launched an appeal for cards, resulting in almost 300.
What a popular gal.
Staff at the elderly home surprised her with hundreds of cards at her intimate birthday bash, which also featured afternoon tea and balloons that had been donated following the appeal.
Kelly Goucher, the activity coordinator at Ashmere, which runs the home, told the BBC: "Ada hasn't got a lot of family left.
"She never had any children so she doesn't have any grandchildren so we just wanted to get her as many cards as possible.
"She quite likes the fact that people know about her because of her age."
Kelly decided to launch the appeal on a local Facebook page and was shocked at how many people wanted to send their best wishes.
"I woke up to 135 messages the following morning of people wanting to send cards," she said.
The care home launched a similar appeal to mark Ada’s 105th birthday - which happened to fall during lockdown - and received more than 200.
Kelly explained that Ada didn’t have children but was a mother to plenty of fur babies at one point.
"She had a lot of greyhounds,” she said.
Kelly added: "She's definitely a character. I did ask her what her secret was once and she said it was to have dogs, not kids."
Amen, girl.
Speaking to Derbyshire Times, Kelly revealed: "She's literally been on about her birthday since April and she's been on countdown to the big day.
“We didn't tell her we had made the appeal and the amount of messages we got was just through the roof.
"We've also had a lot of donations - so people have given us banners with her picture on and balloons with her name on."
Charisa Bossinakis