Old

There’s old and old.

I was accused of being middle-aged recently and took umbrage. Damn it I’m old?

I was forced to review this as I sat in our local café.

My delight at having a quiet lunch out with “69 for 1” to read by Alan Coren was only slightly spoiled by a group of 4 misery guts who sat at the next table. There was a steady litany of complaint. Three elderly women and one man poured out lamentations with despairing responses. These flowed in a stream, unswerving and desultory, with no analysis or reflection or attempt to identify remedy. From what I could tell they sounded reasonably prosperous, they seemed healthy, and they had each other for company.

How unlike my own dear mother-in-law who is 91. She has had a hard life making her way, stoically, in the world. Living reasonably at peace, profoundly deaf but uncomplaining, able to enjoy her garden and whatever life bowls at her.

I will never forget the occasion when she fell and broke her arm. I was the one to take her to casualty. It must have been painful. No complaints! I nearly passed out holding her hand as the quack set her arm without a general anaesthetic and with little more than a poppy whiffed under her nose.

The A & E Registrar said he had never seen such a high pain threshold before; he looked a bit green round the gills as well.

On the way back home she looked out of the car window and pronounced that:-

Och, it had not been such a bad day!