I crossed the great divide last week and now view the world from the other side of my 65th birthday. It was a nice, low-key day with friends and family, and I’m happy with that. I feel exactly the same as I did this time last week, yet also have a vague sense of difference that I can’t really put my finger on, as though I’ve entered another room. It’s not that long ago I would have got my State Pension as well, but that won’t now come until next October. I did get offered free Flu and Covid boosters, though, which I’ve had.
In all other respects life goes on as it always does. I enjoyed Kaos on Netflix, featuring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, and I think I’m enjoying Agatha All Along on Disney, though the latter is very American in its sensibilities and I haven’t quite made up my mind. As for reading, I enjoyed Irmgard Keun’s The Artificial Silk Girl (1932), though the modern translation hit one or two off notes, and I’m enjoying Stevie Smith’s Novel on Yellow Paper (1936). Philip Kerr’s final novel, Metropolis (2019, posthumous) was decent but read in parts like a near-final draft rather than the finished article, though that’s hardly his fault.
Meantime, I’m going through notes for the next novels and expanding my research – soon to involve several days in the newspaper archives once one or two things in the garden are sorted. My targets are the Scotsman, the Edinburgh Evening News and the Edinburgh Evening Despatch, primarily for 1933, 1936 and 1939.
Yes, many happy returns Ian. I get my free flu and Covid jabs tomorrow as a youthful 64 year-old, but maybe that’s an English thing. I climbed Coniston Old Man and Wetherlam at the weekend, so there’s life in the old dog yet,
Thanks Peter.
I’ve had a dodgy knee off and on all year – I’d like to think I could get up a hill but would worry about getting back down again 🙂
Well, happy birthday Ian. Welcome to the dark side. (But fear not, cataract surgery can dispel that darkness.)
I’m put in mind of my 65th. It was near the beginning of Covid and was similarly low key – at least at first. Our Ian had come for dinner. When I stepped out of the front door to give him a lift home, my foot very nearly landed on a large, rather surprised skunk who took umbrage to my interrupting his evening walk and he expressed his displeasure as only skunks can. About as unpleasant an experience as it sounds.
Fortunately, we keep a large bottle of “Nature’s Miracle Skunk Shampoo” in the house for the times that the dogs tangle with a local polecat. I discovered that it works on people and in automatic washing machines as well as it does on dogs.
So, perhaps the take away is, now that you’re 65, watch your step.
Words of wisdom, Alex.