Age

 On the way home from coffeeing with a friend at The Woodlands  I stopped  at a garage to get a latte as a surprise for a friend whose office I pass on the way home. 

The two youngsters serving were chatty and another customer in his 20s appeared, ordered and commented on the terrible loss of Meatloaf. 

"How old was he?" the customer asked.

"70" one of the servers responded.

I was just about to correct him and say "74" when the customer said "What did he die of?"

The assistant looked at him and said "He was 70 for heavens sake when you get to that age you're old and you die.  You don't have to die of 'something'. "

At this point I felt compelled to have my tuppence-worth so I said something like "Hang on.  70 isn't old. I'm nearly 80 and I'm not old and I'm certainly not thinking of "just dying" anytime soon."

I was reasonably appeased by the look of astonishment about my age but then I suppose if you are walking without a stick and wearing a tie with yellow ducks on it you're not exactly a typical Lewis bodach. 

The conversation continued on the agreed merits of Meatloaf until the latte was ready and I drove off into the morning gloom and delivered the coffee and wondered if my friend looked at me and though "Ah well, he's survived another day."

R.I.P Meatloaf. Thank you for all the pleasure you have given to so many of us.

The Elderly Nurse

When I was in Glasgow's Royal Infirmary last December my first ward after A and E was the Medical Reception Ward. Whilst there I received lots of questioning, tests and so on. When one has sepsis one is often confused but I was alert enough to know what was happening when  a nurse walked across the ward towards me announcing "I'm the elderly nurse.".  My response was quite simply that she didn't look anywhere near as old as I am and I don't think of myself as elderly.

"No. I'm the Elderly Nurse." Ah. That was her title. Of course I knew that but it did seem a very strange moniker.

The standard questions followed: did I know my name?; did I know my address?; did I know where I was?; and did I know why I was here? Able to answer the questions without a problem I was pronounced not to have dementia and off she went to find another patient who might not have been so fortunate.

So when the nurse taking all my details when I got onto the ward last week said "And now for The Questions." I knew exactly what was coming and answered them without her having to ask. Without batting an eyelid she then asked me to recite the months of the year...backwards. As it happens I can do that almost as fast as I can recite them in the correct order: something I was totally unaware of until that moment.

Age Cometh Not Alone

I am used to travelling. As my regular readers will be aware one of the Edwards traits is timekeeping: lateness is totally anathema. If I am using any form of public transport I check and re-check my times and I always leave time for eventualities such as hold-ups on the road if I’m going for a ferry.

When I’m going for the morning ferry from Stornoway I just use the setting on my alarm clock and iPhone. It’s the only time I ever use an alarm to wake up. This morning I was vaguely puzzled after I’d had my shower by the amount of time I seemed to have to get all the other things done before I set off. I eventually set off good and early for the closing time for the ferry (which is 45 minutes before departure). I arrived, as I thought, 20 minutes early. In fact I was 10 minutes late. I’d got the ferry time wrong.

Fortunately the ferry wasn’t full and there were no weight-listed vehicles so I got on….just.

I am still recovering from the trauma. Missing the ferry would have been an irritation though not a disaster: there is another this afternoon. However the personal mental shame would have been just a bit too much.

The strange thing is that if I miss a flight connection or am late through no fault of my own then it doesn’t worry me in the slightest. What I can’t control is not a problem for me.

So far as I can recall this is the first time in 40 years of ferry travel that I’ve done this. It’s also the first time I’ve been 71. I’m beginning to draw conclusions I do not like.

(Written yesterday on the ferry).