Loraine Gostling
I PONDER a lot. I waste time on musings and wondering about stuff, and try to look at things from different points of view, and this is why I would never have made a good politician.
As I am now at the age where I will soon be drawing my pension if ‘they’ don’t keep changing the goalposts, I think about the fact that my last birthday was the subject of a famous Beatles song and wonder how I have suddenly clocked up so much mileage.
This thought first hit me when I was referred to as an old crone by a charming chap on my Facebook group.
So I looked at myself and thought firstly, ‘that was bloody rude’, but a ponder was definitely needed now.
I can’t speak for others on this whole ageing malarky, but personally, I feel no different to when I was singing along to T-Rex’s Ride a White Swan, smoking one of the cigarettes I had stolen from my dad, sitting with my spotty adolescent mates in the barn.
Yes a huge room full of straw and hay at the stables in Chingford (H&S inspections were almost non-existent).
I subsequently pondered, ‘what then has changed in almost 50 years?’
Well OK, I admit that the anatomical stuff isn’t quite what it was on my first £20 teletext, last-minute girly getaway to Salou in the early 70s.
The whole pertness has gone skew-whiff, three beautiful kids lovingly restructured the whole physique just a bit, and the size of the under-eye luggage is now questioned frequently by Ryanair.
So the exterior coating has changed, but nothing else has.
I think the same way I always have, I still do most things I have always enjoyed and despite the fact that I have never been a great fan of sport, preferring the less strenuous games, such as Cards Against Humanity and Trivial Pursuit, I have not needed a doctor since a bout of bad flu in 1994!
Board games may not be good for keeping the leg muscles firm, but as far as the facial muscles go, a night around the table with your best mates, some nibbles and a few drinks, works wonders for stimulating those endorphins.
Since arriving in Javea in 2007, my body, my life and personality have all changed, but mostly for the better.
Seven years running a bar with my family took its toll physically, but despite the long unsociable hours and little financial reward, there were so many times spent giggling for hours on end, which I will never forget.
When I arrived in Spain I had never used a microphone, sang, danced or acted, but the Costa Blanca has changed all that
I have achieved more in ten years here than in 50 years back in Brexitland – I mean the UK.
So the moral of the column this week is, I suppose, never give in to thinking you are getting too old to do something new, try new stuff and make new friends.
What is the worst that can happen? At the end of the day, there are many profound sayings about getting old(er).
Lots of them try to make us feel better about ourselves, like ‘age is just a number’ etc.
Well yes, I suppose it is, but if you are worried about that number getting bigger each year, then those little endorphins waiting at the starting block will just sit there twiddling their tiny endothumbs waiting for some fun.
Don’t go sit in God’s waiting room people. Release that little devil we all have inside, dye your hair bright pink, break that routine, go skydiving (eek), or if you really feel like throwing caution to the wind, sing at karaoke!
