Age Doesn't Matter

Unless you are a cheese. 

On the other hand there are advantages to being a senior citizen or and old age pensioner: you can get free bus transport throughout Scotland (if you are a Scottish resident) and you pay less for a haircut!  So today, mindful of our son's wedding at the end of the week I went in for a haircut.  The (23 year old) hairdresser, whom I had not met before this morning, was very chatty and pleasant and when it came to pay said something like "I'm terribly sorry and I hope you won't be offended but I didn't manage enough clues during our chat.  Are you over 60?"  Given that I'm 70 I was pretty chuffed.  

It reminded me of a day many years ago (I was around 50 at the time) when a barber in Liverpool where I was visiting my parents assumed that I was an old age pensioner (at the time 65) and I was so taken aback that I just accepted the insult, paid the reduced charge, and left.

Overall it's been a Very Good Day.  It's a shame that the two 'contestants' in the Scottish independence debate this evening are doing the usual debating thing and making complete arses of themselves.  Whatever else they are doing they are not increasing my knowledge.  They are, however, confirming my despair at the politicians that govern us.  There was a great deal of heat and very little light.

Age Is a State of Mind

I have been having my leg pulled a because of an article in that rag the UK's Daily Mail.  Frankly if one reads that then one has no right to cast aspersions of any sort on anyone about age or any other thing.   However I do feel obliged to respond.

Apparently researchers have come to the conclusion that there are 50 signs that indicate that we are ageing.  I was rather gobsmacked to read the list.  I've divided it up into sections and omitted a few.  The grammar of the list is that of the journalist, not of me.

Allowance has to be made in my categorisation and comments for the fact that my Mum said I was born with my pension book in my hand.  In actual fact it took me until I was in my sixties before I became really young.

These are things which never, well hardly ever, apply to me; my comments are in parentheses: 

• Saying "In my day."
• Saying "It wasn't like that when I was young."
• Falling asleep in front of the TV.
• Needing an afternoon nap.
• Struggling to use technology. [I've always been a gadget geek.]
• You start complaining about more things. [I complain far less than I used to.  Life is far more precious now and I find relatively little in everyday life to complain about and I've stopped campaigning on the Big Issues - that's for the young.]
• Complaining about the rubbish on TV these days. [It's better now than it ever was - although I'm not sure that's a huge compliment.]
• Misplacing your glasses/bag/keys etc. [One of the hardly evers.]
• Preferring a night in with a board game than a night out on the town. [I never could stand board games and I never could stand nights out on the town either,]
• You talk to colleagues who are so young they don't know what an Opal Fruit is. [If you have colleagues you can't be that old.  I never was very fond of Opal Fruits.]
• You start taking slippers to a friends house. 
• Taking a keen interest in the Antiques Road Show.
• Falling asleep after one glass of wine. [I used to do that at one point in my life even  when in the middle of a meal, until the doctor casually mentioned that one of the heart pills I was taking could have that effect.  He changed it and the problem disappeared.]
• Never going out without your coat. [What's a coat?  Oh yes.  The thing I wear for funerals: a Crombie I bought before I came to Lewis 40 years ago.  It's still going strong - for funerals.]
• Taking a flask of tea or coffee on a day out.  [I avoid drinking tea or coffee when out because of the inevitable consequences.]
• Always driving in the slow lane or below 70 in the middle lane of a motorway. [Don't get me started on that one!]
• Consider going on a 'no children' cruise for a holiday. {Never have, never will.]
• Gasping for a cup of tea.  [Never have and don't anticipate that I ever will.]

I have had the following feelings or traits for as long as I can recall:

• Thinking that policemen, doctors and teachers look young.
• Putting everyday items in the wrong place
• Hating noisy pubs.
• Choosing clothes for comfort rather than for style. [Preferably comfort and style.]
• Forgetting people's names. [Ever since an incident in 1965.]
• Not knowing any songs in the Top Ten. [Actually as a teenager at school I was pretty clued up but I didn't know the Top Ten was still going.  Is the New Musical Express still published?]
• Joining the National Trust. [I joined in my early 20s!]
• Drinking sherry. [I stopped doing that many years ago.  With the exception of Tio Pepe - long story.]
• Finding you have no idea what young people are talking about. [I had that problem when I was a child/teenager/adult.]

These are fairly recent acquisitions:

• Really enjoying crosswords or puzzles.
• Feeling stiff.
• Obsessive gardening or bird feeding. [Well almost obsessive this summer.]

I'm not sure where this one falls:

• Feeling you have the right to tell people exactly what you think even if it isn't polite. [I often have the feeling but I rarely act upon it.]

What do you think of the researcher's list?

The Bus Service

When I came to Lewis all those years ago I never imagined that I'd be here for more than a couple of years. There are a thousand reasons why I am still here and why I probably always will make this my home when I'm in the UK. To be honest I can think of no place in the UK that I'd rather be. So why have I suddenly embarked upon this rather odd posting? It's all to do with services and, in particular, bus services.

All those years ago Mum remarked that we were very isolated on the Island and, even more so, in Back. She wondered what we would do when we got old. I pointed out that we lived 100 yards from a post office and general shop and, later, a petrol station, garage, hairdresser and chemist. If that was not enough the bus passed our door and the convention was that you stood at the gate and the bus stopped and deposited you back at your house after your travels. The system pertains today except that the bus services are much better.

For the last 15 years I have lived in a village with no shop except for a post office. However the bus comes to my door - well to within 12 yards of my gate - where it turns. I think the service starts at 0700 and carries on until about 2300 from Town. I'm not sure how frequent it is but it's probably hourly - perhaps more in the 'rush hours' when it takes children to school. If I chose to take one of the many services each day I could be deposited in the centre of town or the Co-op (slightly out of the centre if you find walking hard) or the Hospital.

It wouldn't cost me anything either because I'm over 60. Scottish residents over 60 travel free by bus anywhere in Scotland.

The irony of Mum's concern was that long before she left Broad Green there were few shops left nearby and the few that she may have needed were on the other side of the motorway junction and reached by a long and rather unsavoury underpass. It's hard to believe that, when I was a child, what is now a six lane motorway was a road on a single carriageway bridge over a railway. As for taking a bus, many years ago I decided to leave my car at Mum and Dad's and go into the City on one. It was a big mistake: they were scarcer than hen's teeth.