Halfway to 70

Well, 35 years ago today I came into the world.

Thank you Moomin and Dabbley for having me, and providing the essentials of life: love, food, water, shelter and books.

Especially the books.

Apparently, I am now middle aged:

What exactly is middle age? Is it when you hit 40 or 50 or 60? According to one study, the average person believes youth ends at 35 and old age begins at 58. Therefore, the years in between -- all 23 of them -- constitute middle age.

I went through that list of indicators (which probably makes me middle aged). I discounted the one about golf, because there are no tees in Crazy Golf, which is the only kind of golf us young, crazy, people play - right?

88% (21/24) didn't apply to me, so I take that as a good sign.

Also, I found it reassuring that I now have 23 years between being middle-aged and arriving (genteelly) at old age. When I try to remember what I was doing 23 years ago... well, I was twelve.

So, I get to live my whole life over again from age twelve, only this time no one is going to force me to get out of bed at seven in the morning five days a week, tell me what to wear, or tell me off for swearing. Why? Because you can all fuck off.

Just think. All that time again. Without the hormonal crap, the distress of 'finding yourself,' being cooped up for hours of every day with people you don't really like (unless you have an office job - in which case, I'm sorry), and generally the freedom to drink when you like, eat what you like, and go to bed when you're damn well ready.

I'm quite excited about this.

And I'm eating ice-cream at five to eleven at night, whilst being excited about this.

So, nyyyr.

Had a few near misses with swing poles on speeding sledges, lorries on the M6, earthquakes in Cyangugu, kayaks off the Dorset coast, and a really, really dodgy Belgian waffle.

Survived it all to arrive at this point.

Thanks to mum for pointing out I'm now halfway to seventy. 

Although, readers of Lucid will know what I mean by the Aborigine perspective on time: that the things you remember are the closest in time, and those you have forgotten - and don't matter - a long way past, even if it was breakfast a week ago. The body may age, but time is non-linear. 

And I still have a young person's discount with the Society of Authors for another year.