Ancient

There can be nothing quite so unattractive as a lady of advancing years pushing pedals round on a bike with no wheels, while the perspiration runs unchecked down her overheated face.
I'm aware of this, and that might be why I like to slink into the gym when the beautiful people, taut in their lycra are still lying a-bed and only the early few, including his Lordship minus glasses can see me, or not.

A few slaloms on the ski ing machine without snow, a few metres on the canoe without water and a kilometre or so up a hill without a road and I'm looking so gross that even my mother wouldn't recognise me.
Having said that she wouldn't recognise me even if I were primped and powdered as I am now the same age as she was when she died.

It's a scary thought that if I were not in constant touch with my offspring, I might not recognise them when they're very old.

But I digress, mainly because I'm wasting time in the local bookshop while the monsoon like rain outside abates enough for me to run home without getting soaked.
The sun and shadows which welcomed the morning but interfered with a proposed blip, have disappeared leaving pavement rivers and rain lashed windows.

Oh a reprieve at last and I'm home and dry.