A survival guide, and more, for 50-somethings
I never dreamed older people would try to overthrow The State in their spare time – until I saw pictures from The Capitol
WHEN I STARTED writing this blog, I wondered what the future might hold for me and other 50-somethings.
I thought – correctly as it turned out – that I’d be writing mostly about dodgy knees, grey pubes, baldness, and binge drinking.
But, until I saw the pictures from The Capitol, I never thought about us rioting.
Continue reading “Rioting And The Over-50s”I’m finally embracing my Voltarol Years – and the prospect of Death
THE OTHER day, disgusted with myself after a weekend of sinking lager beers in the garden, I forced myself out for a punishment run in the late summer heat.
I cajoled the legs into completing a slow 10k and felt better. Less trashed, that is.
For the rest of the day, I sat working at the computer. But, by knocking-off time, found I’d seized up, tighter than a Tory’s tear duct.
Continue reading “Clunk-Click After Every Trip”I’m done with books that are just OK, now that my longed-for novel has arrived
I’M STOKED this morning – just because I’m getting a new book.
I’m having to ram my arse down deep into my seat to make myself work, instead of doing what I desperately want to do: leap on my bike and point the wheels towards Waterstones, so I can finally pick up my longed-for new reading matter.
I’ve been stalking this particular historical detective story– Execution, by SJ Parris – for almost a year now. As its publication date shifted, agonisingly, from early spring to mid-summer, I tracked it like Shere Khan followed Mowgli through the tall grass.
Continue reading “Just My Inbetweeners”It’s Mental Health Awareness Week, so I’ll be honest: I’ve had it up to here with this m************ lockdown
“ARE YOU OK? Are you all well?”
Have you noticed that, since the start of lockdown, people are asking questions like that and sounding as if they actually mean them, for once?
It’s one of the nicer aspects of being in the middle of a global pandemic – a sense that the person asking actually cares how you are, and isn’t just doing it out of politeness.
I reckon this comes from a tacit acceptance that we’re all vulnerable at the moment – so it’s all right to admit to a certain weakness.
Which is not the worst way to be in Mental Health Awareness Week.
But even now, when someone asks if I’m OK, I’m not laying my entire soul on the line.
I might say something guardedly revealing of certain susceptibilities – and then slap back on the stiff upper lip and add: “Of course we’re coping better than expected.”
So it’s not exactly full disclosure – but this is: today I feel pretty fucking far from OK.
Continue reading “I’m Pretty Fucking Far From OK”Coronavirus is making us strangely productive – the allotment has never looked so good, we’re righting decades-old wrongs and… bleaching carrier bags
Conventional wisdom says that it’s The Devil who makes work for idle hands to do.
But, if our family is anything to go by, the lockdown has actually unleashed the work ethic and creative juices that lurk – if you look hard enough – in the breast of every right-thinking Brit.
We’re still working from home but – as we don’t have to spend time on commuting, make-up or dressing properly – we have become wildly productive in some unexpected areas.
Continue reading “Lockdown = Getting Weird Shit Done”
BACK WHEN the Coronavirus was just getting warmed up, I woke for a few days in a row with some worrying symptoms.
My throat was tender, my body was hot and sore, and I had a blinding headache.
I started to tell my wife, already imagining being isolated in the top room.
I pictured myself sweating and moaning on the lumpy sofa bed, constant bloody Netflix, meals left outside on trays…
Which was when I remembered the five beers I’d had the night before and realised that I didn’t have Coronavirus: it was just a hangover.
“You’ve got the Beer-o-Virus,” my Better Half declared.
Continue reading “How I Gave My Kids The Beer-o-Virus”I dare you to try and steal my asparagus when the End Times come…
WE’RE ALL STUCK at home because of the Coronavirus, even though none of us is remotely ill.
My son’s school closed due to – Covid-19 related – staff shortages yesterday, while my wife’s firm has told all non-essential staff to work from home.
My daughter’s lecturers – who’ve just come off a three-week strike anyway – are teaching online and me….well, I’m always here.
So far, being in semi-lockdown has been lovely, particularly because none of us has to get up early any more.
I’m normally roused at six by the wife’s alarm and then stagger up to make cups of tea, feed cats, clear up last night’s mess and make Ready Brek by 7.15.
But today, since Her Indoors didn’t have to spend 90 minutes commuting in – and because The Lad could get his own breakfast – we slept soundly until 7.30.
And my first thought was: It’s all so quiet.
Continue reading “It’s Oh So Quiet (But The Last Trump Is Coming)”I hate always having to run, but it’s the only thing that turns my mood round
AS YOU MAY have gathered by now, I love running. But, sometimes, I hate having to do it quite as much as I do.
I’d like to be Less Is More and only run when conditions are truly agreeable. I’m thinking: azure skies, green fields, little pink candyfloss clouds and white bunny wabbits cheering as, serenely, I float past.
But lemons, lemonade: some days you have to settle for running through grey South London in the snow…
I really didn’t want to go out yesterday morning. It was just a notch or two above zero, with the winds whipping big wet snowflakes down at a rakish angle and pregnant puddles everywhere I might want to plant a foot.
I had an upset stomach, limbs still stiff from 13 miles at the weekend, and I’d necked an inevitable beer or three the night before – all of which made me feel far from the acme of mature athleticism I like to pretend I am.
I knew it would be unpleasant, going out, but I needed to change the old brain chemistry after a setback in my job search. I kept telling myself it was only a small setback, but they tend to look much bigger when you’re 50-something and haven’t worked for year.
So off I went…
Continue reading “Why I’m The Only One, Running In The Snow”Why did it take me until I’m 50-something to admit I’m nothing special?
I HAD A very dull – and slightly unpleasant – epiphany on the road to Lidl yesterday.
I finally conceded that I was just an ordinary guy. A nobody, in fact.
I’d just bought stuff to top up the Ocado delivery – sausages, detergent wipes, a small pack of rocket.
I self-check-out-ed and walked home the way I always walk: past the library, up the slope and the alley behind the secondary school.
There was a lake-like puddle near the end of our road and I scurried past, so as not to get marinated by the passing cars.
And thought: “I’m so ordinary.”
I wonder: has this flash of insight ever happened to you (assuming you, too, are ordinary), or did you always know?
Please tell me that it’s not just me that’s been walking around for 50-something years, doing painfully ordinary things – but still believing, deep down, that they were somehow special?
Continue reading “A Life More Ordinary”These days, you have to be a bit of a freak to be healthy all the time
I’M A BAD person.
I’ve just gone and made myself a morning coffee, with caffeine in it. Plus three sugars, and some Cadbury’s drinking chocolate on the top so it mimicked a café cappuccino.
I even got out my sad little electric whisk and frothed up the milk. What a loser!
I’m disappointed with myself, you see, because I’m not supposed to be drinking caffeine. The doctor told me.
And, until this morning I’d largely given up coffee, and excised Diet Cokes ruthlessly from my life.
Continue reading “I’m Trying To Keep Making Healthy Choices… But One Of My Balls Has To Drop Soon”
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