A good day, productive and engaged. Washing up at the Lunch Club in the village hall for two ours is a pleasure and a craic. You non Scots might need to look that one up! Fun, basically, engagement, mischief, shared stories, or snaps of them, whilst dealing with the ordinary. I now believe that this is how a real life is lived. I remember it at Tapselteerie, the chaos of it all and yet we danced through it all, me and my fabulous support team. Well, team is a bit of an exaggeration as there was only one strong woman beside me whilst the men did what they always did, expecting food and respect and room for all sorts of things such as a young ewe who needed lambing, or room for a ‘very important’ chainsaw to be serviced. That sort of thing. It didn’t matter that I, and my strong woman support, were juggling children, phone calls, guests wanting another drink, or that dinner, my cooked dinner, a dinner that won awards, required a focus which had zip to do with ewes in labour, nor that flipping chainsaw.

However, those days are gone forever, even as the memories laugh me now. How I did what I did is beyond my understanding, at 70. Maybe that’s the point. I was in my 20’s and 30’s then, strong and bloody minded and nothing was going to fell me. It did, eventually. We all have a limit. These days, without that life, my children all gone, my grandkids growing and blooming, I have only my reflections. This is olding. However, there is a miasma of nonsense around we, who are already at our 3 score years and ten, urging that we should stop everything that we loved and enjoyed before. We must be CAREFUL. Of what? Of everything? Fear is a good friend but only when it comes from an individual in danger. The culture of fear makes me want to blow the whole thing up. The wisest and funniest people I know are ‘old’ (and should be CAREFUL) But I remember them out there, dancing in the street, laughing, sharing stories, memories. Ok, they might not be able to dance physically, but they turned up anyway, until they stopped. Doctors appointments pepper their diaries. They stay behind their front doors. It just is not right.

Be careful when you walk, where you walk, says Fear. But I will not let the fear of ageing control me, even if Fear has many legs, is fast moving and as tenacious as a swarm of midges. You will not escape, not once the Fear has been allowed in. So, I get it, feel it, know its presence. An unwelcome guest for sure. I think we all do, at certain times of our lives, certain circumstances shoving us into the Fear room. Could be well-meaning children, could be loss, could be anything at all. But, people, you alongside me over 70 and wondering who the frickin hec you are right now, remember who you are, who you were, what you achieved over decades. Sit with that and feel proud because you did well, you fought battles, daily, you made food, brought in cash, covered the massive expanse of ground you had to cover just to bring one child to independence.

I bow to you. Now, YOU bow to you, too.