A survival guide, and more, for 50-somethings
I don’t want to be Mr Potato Head any more
I’m thinking seriously about ending one of the longest and most satisfying relationships of my life.
It’s one that’s gone on for longer than my marriage and for more time than I knew my Dad, or my Mum.
But I think it’s finally time that I stopped eating crisps.
Continue reading “I’m A Runner, Not A Walker’s”It’s time to ditch the prejudice that older people can’t work with technology
THE POST-MATCH huddle after my son’s rugby on Sunday was a bit unusual.
Normally, the Under-18s all squeeze together briefly to review their rush defence, the lineouts and what not, but The Coach had a different message for them this time.
“Lads, your parents are struggling,” I heard him say.
“They can’t do this new RFU* computer system and if they don’t get their heads round it and register you, we’re going to have to cancel games.
“So can you sit down with them, lads? Help them with it?
“You know what old people are like when it comes to computers…”
Continue reading “Get Over It – I’m Middle Aged And I’m Tech Savvy”So what if it’s an elitist, minority sport? I can’t get enough of rugby’s Six Nations
I AM, in the words of the great Stu Francis, so excited that I could crush a grape…
Because it all gets going tomorrow: my favourite sports event, the year 2020. Everything…
Rugby’s Six Nations Championship is back. Back, back, BACK, baby!
And I – for one – cannot wait to see what they will do next…
Continue reading “I Am An Egg Man…”If rock ‘n’ roll’s never gonna die, it’s my kids who’ll be keeping it alive…
“Oh no!” I said, sitting in bed, reading the news. “Neil Peart died.”
“What?” said the Missus.
“Neil Peart died. He was the drummer in Rush.”
“Tchah!” she said. “When you went ‘Oh no!’ like that, I thought it was something important.
“My life hasn’t been affected in any way by Rush. I couldn’t name a single Rush song.”
Two thoughts occurred to me at this point: No. 1 was that this was probably an inadequate epitaph for Peart – a clever, kind man once voted Rolling Stone’s 4th best drummer of all time.
No. 2 was: will Heavy Metal ever get the respect it deserves?
Continue reading “Heavy Metal, Top Of The Class!”I love a Podcast and follow a ton of sport on iPad – but I mustn’t forget to live my own life
NOW THAT I’M older, I’ve become a total homebody.
I write this blog at home, I do my house husband/housekeeper stuff at home, and there ain’t no-one with me for looong stretches of the day. *
I’m too lazy and introverted to make coffee dates with chums, so I turn a lot to los medios** for company.
Continue reading “Driven To Distraction”When I was a teenager, Nature ruined my life. In middle age, it helps make it worth living.
TODAY IS a bloody excuse for a summer’s day: grey skies, pissing rain, flood warnings and uppity winds. More like early March than mid-June.
About a month’s rain fell in a single day on Monday, but there seems to be no water shortage up in the Heavens as a result.
The 2019 Cricket World Cup is already the most rain-affected ever and, right now, Jupiter Pluvius is still messing with almost 80 per cent of the domestic games that are supposed to be taking place.
It doesn’t look like we are in for a re-run of last year’s fabled summer. But it’s all right. Ain’t nothin’ gonna break my stride. Or, indeed, slow me down. Because I have started the day happy, and I trust myself to manage my mood from now on.
Over the years, I have got quite adept at noticing the things that leave me feeling chipper, and finding sly little ways of ensuring that I do them.
Continue reading “Where I Find My Heaven”It rips my life away, but it’s a great escape…
I HAD A SPOT OF LUCK the other day – I caught a cold.
It wasn’t so bad a cold, just bad enough to stop me working.
And I got it on a sunny day, meaning I could sit in the garden with a book.
The book I had to sit in the garden with – Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje – was a very good one.
Which meant I could sit in the garden in the sun with a very good book and read all day.
I told you I was lucky. Because what my cold had given me was the certainty that I would now be happy for the day. Not so shabby, eh?
It’s not an exaggeration for me to state that I would find this life much, much harder without books. So far, they have been one of my few truly reliable sources of happiness in this world and, since I first learned to read, my constant and true companions.
Continue reading “Head Stuck In A Book – For 53 Years”Cricket was my first love – but we’ve drifted apart since the kids were born. Can this year’s ‘once-in-a-lifetime summer’ bring the feeling back again?
I WAS ELEVEN, breathlessly waiting for it all to start.
England versus Australia. Summer 1977. Our living room sofa. I sat, cross legged and leaning slightly forward, with a cheap paper-backed scorebook open on my lap; orange squash and a biscuit by my side.
Shaggy-haired Bob Willis charged in and bowled the first ball of the day – as I remember it, the first ball of the entire Test – to Rick McCosker.
Continue reading “Sort Of A Cricket Person Again”
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