Countdown.

You can apply for your senior railcard two weeks before your sixtieth birthday, so I put a reminder in my diary to do it at the earliest opportunity (although you can’t actually use it until the big day). It’s an app based digital one so I’ll be a high tech pensioner, unlike my luddite mate Mr Bear who is an old fashioned plastic card carrying railcard sort of a chap. It’s important to me to be in there at the forefront of tech; I may not be responding to ageing with a new motorbike but I can at least sit astride the pillion of the tools that help you ride the digital highway.

According to The Telegraph going vegan is in fact the modern response to a mid life crisis

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/02/men-going-vegan-sign-hit-midlife-crisis-study-finds/#

I’m pretty certain my tattoo is also wrapped up in the modern package. Both are much safer that getting on a 750cc Yamaha, although my new e-bike can get up quite a head of steam when I pedal downhill on full thrust. Not that you get many hills on canal towpaths, which is where I tend to cycle.

I’ve been driving people mad in the office, going on about discounts for seniors, free prescriptions and the lower overheads that come with age. I’m sure I’ll be less smug when I find myself forking out for incontinence supplies and anti-ageing creams but it’s good to have something positive to look forward to at this age. My big concern is being accused of being too young and being asked for ID, although if you don’t look your age you don’t have to act it I suppose.

My boss asked me how I was health wise and I said fine apart from being unable to concentrate. The LTC (that’s NHS jargon for Long Term Condition) has been very good this week and my mood has been similarly lifted, but I can’t focus. I’m sure life will throw me a challenge to help me knuckle down in due course, it inevitably does.

Dr K dropped into the office today, back from five years living and working in foreign climes. She’s an absolute gem, we had a hug and it was as ‘though she had never been away. Some people are just timeless in personality; she always has a smile and I swear she looks five years younger rather than older.

Otherwise it was a very plodding sort of day, going through various documents and sorting out some tangled history. The NHS could have invented the word labyrinthine, or at the very least should lay claim to the copyright. But it keeps me busy.

I am working from home tomorrow so need to deliver on a few deadlines. After next week I have a month of rather lovely things to look forward to and not many days at my desk. By the time it’s all over we’ll be looking at Halloween, clocks going back and digging out the winter woolies from storage under the bed. In fact winter is probably the biggest test of a mid-life crisis - particularly after such a good summer.