Middle age brings with it a whole new set of issues to cope with. Conundrums such as hair sprouting from seemingly everywhere, apart from your head, rear its unsightly head. Not to mention sleeping through the night without a toilet break becoming a thing of the past
Another apparent vagary of reaching 50 is that your house bizarrely starts smelling of TCP……. I say bizarrely as it seems to be the case regardless of whether or not there is any presence of the antiseptic liquid in the house!
Despite being frustrated by having an Irish moustache (hair growing on top of the nose not under it) at least I can do something about that with a razor. The less steadfast bladder and TCP smell are harder issues to resolve.
I’ve tried a few different approaches to try get a full nights sleep without requiring the bathroom. I cut back on my liquid intake, especially on an evening, but that had no impact apart from me getting so de-hydrated that I started hallucinating……. One day this year it was so bad I imagined I’d seen the Leicester City captain holding the Premiership trophy aloft!
I’m at a loss of how to get rid of the aroma of TCP, especially when there isn’t any in the house! I’ve tried masking the smell with that of, the infinitely more agreeable, percolating fresh coffee. However, that only gave short term respite during the making process; not to mention costing me a fortune putting a percolator in every room.
An additional problem with making all the coffee meant having to drink cup loads of the stuff every day, introducing so much caffeine into my system that I didn’t sleep at all. On the times I did sleep it wasn’t for any duration, as all the liquid created such pressure on my bladder like that of the Colorado River on the Hoover Dam, subsequently resulting in even more toilet breaks!
Additionally, middle age has introduced a noticeable slowing in my mobility. I’ve had to buy slug pellets to get rid of the numerous snails in my garden as I can’t catch them anymore! The plant eating critters have even started giving me a head start to see who gets the lupins first.
It’s not long before they overtake me with a grin on their faces, making comments to each other like “He’s slow enough to play in the Leeds defence!” and “Can you smell TCP?”
It can also be disconcerting when you visit a museum and you’re older than some of the exhibits. Not to mention finding that I’m old enough to have the first ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ (which is currently on it’s 94th incarnation) vinyl record in my collection!
Regardless of my age related ‘challenges’, I remain philosophical about the whole middle age thing. This is despite them uninvitedly entering my house (they didn’t even knock!) bringing with it a TCP smell and sleep deprivation.
However, I’d like to think I’m fairly pragmatic about reaching the milestone of middle age. After all, you can win battles in the aging process with the help of genes, cosmetics and/or surgery, but you’ll never win the war against it!…….. Unless you’re Benjamin Button.
Thankfully, its only physical challenges I’ve met so far in the aging process. Mentally, I still remain the same daft northern lad, vivid of imagination and random of mind, that I was in my youth.
Right, I’m off for a jog….. I’ll catch those flipping snails if its the last thing I do!
