Talkin’ ‘bout my Generation

This time last year, the subject of my blog was Halloween. What is particularly scary (even scarier than the pictured Halloween house round the corner) is that it feels more like a fortnight ago than a year ago. At age 68, I realise the truth of the cliché that as you get older, time seems to accelerate to terrifying speeds.

Last week, I got my COVID and flu jabs. The week before last, I had a colonoscopy, and this illustrates another aspect of getting old. You, your family and friends all seem to be either developing ‘orrible diseases or having investigations for suspected ODs. The other thing I have noticed is that so many of these interesting ailments characteristic of later life seem to involve lavvy problems and/or require thorough scrutiny of one’s intimate portions.

So far, I have been one of the lucky ones, in that the colonoscopy didn’t find anything ‘orrible. I wouldn’t recommend it as a fun afternoon out, but the experience wasn’t particularly arduous. The bowel prep for a day or so before was unpleasant. However, all discomfort, embarrassment and inconvenience are forgiven when they tell you they didn’t find cancer. A couple of other remarks. At the Endoscopy Department at Addenbrookes Hospital, all the staff I encountered were kind, sensitive and professional. They did a great job. Secondly, the referral process was very efficient. Within 15 days of filling in the online form for my GP I was in the hospital getting tubes shoved up my jazz drum. Don’t you find it irresistible when I talk dirty?

Digression

Here are two Agatha Christie trivia questions. Don’t Google them, the answers are below.

1.     1. People don’t go to the lavatory very much in Agatha Christie’s novels. But in which of the Hercule Poirot novel does his friend Mrs Oliver go to the toilet?

2.      2. To whom is this particular novel dedicated?

The first of these is guessable from a clue I have already given. The second I would never have guessed.

Back to my generation

Right now, I am still relieved about the results from the colonoscopy. I have nothing to complain about, as noted above being one of the lucky ones. So I am not bemoaning my fate when I say that there are some things niggling at me. If you are of the same generation as me, I bet there are very similar things getting on your nerves.

Sleeping patterns are in a bit of a state. My body doesn’t want to go to sleep at 11 o’ clock at night, it wants to sleep at one thirty in the afternoon after I have had my lunch. This drives Linda mad, as she is the opposite. She wants to keep civilised hours, and of course she is still working, unlike me. I do my best to be quiet when I retire two hours after her, but usually she wakes up, and moves to the spare room. She says I am rather heavy-footed when I finally stumble to bed. Today she thought she would get her own back on me. She stormed into the bedroom at six o’ clock, switching on the light and stamping loudly on the floor, opening  drawers and cupboard doors with vigour and closing them with a bang. She might as well not have bothered. I slumbered peacefully throughout the proceedings.

I am clumsier than I used to be (if that can be believed). This is one of the reasons I make more noise than I would like to when I turn in. I frequently injure myself bumping into objects of furniture, and yell like a stuck pig because the impact has reached 2 on a pain scale of 1 to 10. This too doesn’t endear me to Linda. Actually, the clumsiness extends to eating. I don’t mean that bits of half-chewed food fall out of my mouth or that I poke forkfuls of vindaloo into my eye instead of said mouth. Nothing as gross as that. But while chewing, I not infrequently bite gaping rents out of my cheek mucosa. And that really is painful.

Finally, it saddens me slightly that there are some places not which I have yet to visit, but which I would like to revisit, and in all likelihood, I never will. I don’t have a systematic bucket-list, but as I say… I am trying to do more things that I like- exercise of various kinds, writing and reading thrillers, doing crosswords and number puzzles, going to the pub (not that I ever really skimped on that)- and to cut down on things I don’t like doing. But as in all other areas of life, you can’t have it all your own way.

However, as noted in a previous blog, nice things happen too, despite one’s seniority and sometimes if not because of it, at least related to it. On Saturday I am attending a 50^th anniversary reunion of a bunch of pals who met as first-year students at the University of Edinburgh in 1974. Among the twenty-odd attendees, there will be people I still see regularly, people I haven’t seen for ten years or so, and people I haven’t seen for four decades. We have ordered the ambulance for 12.30. It also gives me an opportunity to go up north and see both the Scottish and Yorkshire families.

The week after that, Linda and I are having a short break in Bruges. All suggestions for things to see or do there will be most welcome.

Answers to the questions above

1.      1. Halloween Party.

2.      2. PG Wodehouse.

Have fun at Halloween, everybody.