[New shoot]

I also know if I don't use them (muscles and brain) I will lose them - so as Churchill famously put it, I will “Keep b*ggering on”   

Now there is a motto for life     I also like 'We don't stop playing because we get old ; we get old because we stop playing' by George Bernard Shaw. 

 

I worry that I may be prematurely wearing myself out. I'm not sure that my inability to take it easy is a good thing

At job no.2 I work with people in their 30s and 40s that are nowhere near as active as you Alan and they are falling apart at the seams.  I can run rings round them.  I'll let you know in 20 years or so if that has been a good strategy for me to take, but I hate to think what they will be like in their 50s, let alone their 70s   

[Growster...]

Mrs Growster and I - both in our eighth decade now, always enjoy a glass or two of wine every lunchtime, and we always chat until 3:00pm or so, sitting in our conservatory with our JRT.

Because we're lucky enough to have been together since 1971, we have loads of memories, a couple of kids, some gcs somewhere and lots more.

Getting older is just God's way of telling you that the garden means more now than you thought it might have done in your youth, as various 'bits' back then needed more attending to than plants and trees...

Lovely time of life really, the seventies - realise the difference, understand the love of small things, enjoy the glass of life (half-full of course), and away we go!

Sermon over! Another tincture, Growster?

I think so!

[AlaninCarlisle]

Like others on here, I too am addicted to crosswords. I  like the Quick Cryptic one in The Times because I can usually finish it in about an hour maximum after tea.
One downside of ageing that we haven't mentioned is getting a bad memory for names and in particular, names of plants and trees etc. I kid myself that doing a daily crossword helps my memory but I think that's a fallacy

[Plot 1 Problems]

At job no.2 I work with people in their 30s and 40s that are nowhere near as active as you Alan and they are falling apart at the seams.  I can run rings round them.  I'll let you know in 20 years or so if that has been a good strategy for me to take, but I hate to think what they will be like in their 50s, let alone their 70s 

I'm a wee nipper at 39, but you're right about 30/ 40 somethings being unfit and inactive. Most of my friends are the Netfix generation, they think nothing of sitting on the sofa the whole weekend watching the tv and then wonder why they're 2 stone over-weight and keep getting colds. Between the allotment, the sprog and working out with weights 3 times a week I'm holding up ok and I have no intention stopping any of it till I drop (although squatting with a few hundred pounds on my back may have to become a thing of the past in the next few years )

[Goosegirl]

Like others on here, I too am addicted to crosswords. I  like the Quick Cryptic one in The Times because I can usually finish it in about an hour maximum after tea.
One downside of ageing that we haven't mentioned is getting a bad memory for names and in particular, names of plants and trees etc. I kid myself that doing a daily crossword helps my memory but I think that's a fallacy

We don't get a newspaper so every week-day I print out the Graudian cryptic crosswords then the prize on Sat and the Everyman on Sun. By Jove, it doesn't half exercise your brain cells; however looking at it from a long distance, don't we all forget things no matter what age we are? Now I'm in my dotage I have the wisdom of years to know how to cover up various senior moments (Growster knows exactly what I mean) and it's a well-cultivated skill believe me!

[Growster...]

'Senior moments' are very important!

They make one realise that any gaps need filling with meaningful thought, which is then translated - via experience and worldliness, into action which then makes others have to consider themselves secondary to the result that older citizens still have experience behind them, and can rationally take on any 'snowflake' who questions our judgement.

It's great being of a certain age, there's far too much to do from now on..;0)

[mrs bouquet]

Durrr.  what ?       Mrs Bouquet