As we grow up and older, we pass milestones along our journey. My first day at school is embedded in my memory. I didn’t like that one much. I recall my thirteenth birthday as the point when I became a teenager . The sun was shining that day, too. And Wendy, my first girlfriend. Then my sixteenth birthday when I became entitled to a driving licence, although I didn’t get to use it for another year. My eighteenth when I officially became an adult and entitled to vote. Along the way were other points of significance when I passed my driving test, got a job, married and so on.
Today, perhaps the final big milestone has been reached. Today, I am officially an old age pensioner. I’m not sure how I feel about that. It’s been looming on the horizon all that time and now I’m here. All those things I looked forward to are now in the distant past. I have more behind me than ahead. So how will I face this future?
Well, I did buy a new bike a couple of weeks back and later in the year I’m planning on getting the new Royal Enfield Himalayan for some off road adventures. The bathchair can wait.
Happy Birthday. Do what you want to do while you can, because it’s not age which stops you doing things, it’s arthritis. (I speak from experience).
Embrace it. It’s not like you have a choice. As Brian implies, it’s not age per se but the inexorable decay of good health.
Many happy returns LR
Have a good one!
Congratulations and hope you enjoy the freedom that comes with that ‘free’ money coming your way now.
To balance arthritis etc you will find many opportunities for mischief e. g. selective deafness, cognitive decline and memory loss are good fun as is watching (all the right) heads explode because you’re now officially excused for holding and and expressing old fashioned opinions like “it were much better in my day” (it was and the youngsters know that) or “eeee are thee blind, that’s a cock in a frock not a woman”.
As others are saying, l hope you enjoy every second of your retirement.
Congratulations and welcome to the club, young man. It’s a grand place but watch out for creaky suspensions and the odd erratic steering. The trick is to stay well oiled.
You can now officially wear purple, run a stick along railings and eat three pounds of sausages at a go.
Enjoy
Concentrate on enjoying yourself and living as long as possible so that you get as much of a return out of your pension(s) as possible. If YOU don’t, wastemonster will piss it away on yet another vanity project.
If you have a full head of grey or white hair – it’s ‘sun kissed’.
If you are missing hair it’s to ensure your helmet fits well.
You don’t move lowly, you walk with Zen mindfulness.
And, my favourite, “I wasn’t asleep, I was just resting my eyes”.
Have a good one, and don’t wait for another birthday to have another good one.
Happy Birthday, L R. Keep it up.
Are you still going to carry on training new motorcyclists? I can understand you wanting to carry on doing it if you enjoy it. I’m roughly the same age as you, 66 in September, but I retired four years ago. I didn’t hate my job, fixing things is quite satisfying and rewarding, but the workplace had become a bit toxic so in the end I couldn’t wait to leave. I’m really enjoying being retired as I have plenty to keep me occupied.
Yes, for a bit, but I’ll reduce my hours.
I can only echo Grandad’s sound advice stay well oiled! Try it tonight but don’t use the bike. Have e good one.
Thankyou all. I don’t normally share my birthday on here, but this is a relevant one. As for Grandad’s point, the joints are okay, but the blood pressure is a bit of a battle, but I seem to be winning that one at the moment.
I’ll “officially” become a pensioner in September 26, so am not too far behind you.
As you say, the last real milestone before the tombstone. My parents both made it into their 90s, but whether I will remains to be seen.
What to do in the time I have left? Well, continuing what I’ve always done.
I’ve always been fairly low maintenance and have lived pretty much within my own head, something I can continue doing as decrepitude takes the physical me. It’s not a path I chose as such, it’s the path my makeup sent me down and I’ve never been too aware of my age (but it’s not possible to avoid – to not notice – said approaching decrepitude though!)
MY current workplace is delightfully male, pale and stale and is not one I am in too much of a hurry to leave (I intend reducing hours as the best pension really is a job).
The simplest pleasures are the best.
Bikes? Not something I know anything about at all really, but clearly simple and easy.
Enjoy.
And to hell with anybody who disapproves!
Mark, your birthday number one is When? by the Kalin Twins, the same as mine. Longrider you have Whose Sorry Now by Connie Francis.
June 1960
Oops, must work on my reading comprehension. Either Cathy’s Clown by the Everly Brothers or Three Steps To Heaven by Eddie Cochran.
Cathy’s clown by the Everly brothers I believe.
I shudder to think what degenerate, perverted, mindless caterwauling I will leave it to!
Happy Birthday,Mark.
Congratulations LR. I am by a short head a wartime baby so I’m 15 years ahead of you. There is a whiff of pessimism in some of these comments but unless you’re unlucky it’s really not so bad. I can remember when Cathy’s Clown and Three Steps to Heaven were in the charts; great pop artist, Eddie Cochran, so many great tracks in such a short life.
Belated congratulations! Hope you had a restful day!!
Many happy returns!
I’m currently being retired on a boat on the Norfolk Broads, a genuinely new experience for me. I have to say that the CBT is a bit brief but the thing only does 6mph.
Happy Birthday LR. I’m some way ahead of you and I pass on to you the words of my late uncle shortly before he died aged 95 – “The only advice I can give you is don’t get old”.
How right he was.
Sorry, should have said I hope you had a….