When I'm sixty four

Remember that Beatles song? The one we sang along to in our distant youth. The above photo is me in 1973 just a few years after the song was written…

In case you don't know it, the song begins

When I get older, losing my hair

Many years from now.

Will you still be sending me a Valentine

Birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

Will you still need me?

Will you still feed me?

When I’m sixty-four?

Well, the time has finally arrived for me. Today I am sixty-four. I have to keep pinching myself to check I’m not dreaming. Thankfully I’m not losing my hair even if it is a bit thinner. That song has been running around my head all week for obvious reasons. So… I had a look at the lyrics, only half remembered. What did we assume being a 64-year-old was like?

How old it seemed. What a boring life those old folks must have!

Knitting by the fireside, going for a Sunday morning ride, gardening, grandchildren on your knee, scrimping and saving and a rented cottage holiday on the Isle of Wight.

So, how much of that has come true?

I’m glad to say I do still get Valentines, birthday greetings and bottles of wine if I’m lucky.

Knitting and firesides were part of life when I was a young mum. Its been years since I knitted anything, although I will admit to a bit of crochet when the mood takes me and that’s not often.

Gardening? Well I do just a bit. Wish I could do more because I loved it. That was also when I was younger.

Grandchildren on my knee? If I can catch one of them maybe. They seem to dash about a lot. Most of them live too far away to see very often anyway.

Sunday morning rides?

Gone are the days of the Sunday Driver who got his car out of the garage (yes, people used to keep their cars in the garage!) once a week and ‘go for a drive’. They were a great source of irritation to younger road users – us - years ago, tootling about in their neat little cars and stopping to look at the view. Now people of all ages are driving around all the time and Sunday is no longer the special day it used to be.

And as for the Isle of Wight, I haven’t been there since the Beatles were singing that song. I have no desire to rent a cottage there now.

Anyway, my point is – sixty-four isn’t old any more, although it IS still a bit of a shock when I look in the mirror. I’m convinced that soon nobody will be allowed to get old. Don’t you think though, that one day it might be nice to feel you deserve to put your feet up and let the rest of the world get on with it.

Just not yet. Because life at 64 is not boring. Not a bit of it!