No quiz meant that I had to spend two and a half hours drinking beer and conversing with my Sunday night quizzing chums. There's Mike who was seventy last October, Danny who will be seventy in July and Mick who will be sixty five in the spring. He's the spring chicken in the team. I will be sixty nine in the autumn - if I make it that far.
We spent a little time reflecting on the business of ageing. All three of my chums have daily pills to take for various ailments and conditions. Fortunately, I don't take any medication at all. No pills for me. I guess I am lucky that way.
Recognising that "The End" is just up ahead, I told them that I want to make sure that any books I read from now on should be worth reading. I don't want to read any crap. They could understand the point that I was making. Time is precious and it is running out. Maybe COVID has emphasised this.
We also spoke about hearing in noisy locations. Increasingly I find it difficult to hear people in noisy places - even when they are sitting right next to me. The muffled background bass seems to take over. There are only so many times you can say, "I'm sorry, could you say that again?" In a way, it was reassuring to discover that the lads knew exactly what I was talking about.
I don't think about growing old and then dying very often. I just get on with my life, taking each day as it comes. Graveyards tell us that these journeys we are on will all reach the same destination but what a grim life it would be if ageing and death became our foremost mental preoccupations. As Dylan Thomas said, let us "rage, rage against the dying of the light".
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/3FcAeA2
