Being Old

I am old.

I know that I am old because when I was at the local Point to Point 2 weekends ago, I drank coffee instead of gin.

It gets worse. On New Year’s Eve Alex Polizzi invited me, Other Half and Britney (not her real name) for drinks. Actually, that statement isn’t quite true, Alex invited me and Other Half for drinks while Britney and Britney’s Britney-sized friends ran riot. After me and Alex had drunk copious amounts of Prosecco and Other Half had strung out his half of beer as long as he could, I thanked Alex for her hospitality and put on my coat.

“Have you somewhere else to be?” someone asked.

“Well as a matter of fact I have.” I replied in a surprised voice “And that place is my sofa, with my pyjamas and the final Harry Potter film at 9 o’ clock.”

And I wasn’t lying.

We extracted Britney from the throng of over excited children, raced home, made popcorn and pulled on our bedtime attire ready for Hazza Potter to complete his Horcrux Hunt.

And after Hazza and his mates had saved the world, Britney stayed up to see the New Year arrive and watch the fantastic fireworks from the banks of the Thames. And I have to say, I have had much, much worse New Year’s Eve’s.

The realisation that I had become old came upon me almost a year ago, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

I had a special birthday that ended in a zero.

Unaware that this special birthday was going to have quite such an impression on me, I went to work as normal. The special birthday fell on a Thursday and during the Winter; Thursday is the day when I hinder a local family with their horses.

The Assassinator, The Resident Vet and Kamikaze Girl are not always in residence when I go to their home and on the day of my special birthday, I was alone with their horses and Radio 2 for company.

This job is where I take many of the “between the ears photos” for Facetube and usually it is the source of endless amusement. I have to say it provides me with more hilarity since I found out that this family own a dead squirrel that resides in their freezer, but I think this subject warrants a blog post all of its own; so I won’t elaborate.

So I began my extra special birthday by mucking out 4 stables. Now I don’t mind mucking out my own horse because he sleeps on chopped up wood shavings, but these 4 horses all sleep on straw and when a horse pees on straw the smell that ensures would cure sinusitis. If you have been mucking out a “straw stable” the first thing you do when you arrive home from work is remove all of your clothes (including your underwear) and put them in the washing machine. The second thing you do is take a shower, as the smell of urine-soaked straw clings to your hair in the same way that the aroma of child vomit stays in a bedroom carpet.

Nothing looks more beautiful than a horse standing knee deep in a golden straw, cosy and warm in his stable, but I can assure you that if you were to return to the stable 20 minutes later, it will resemble a muck heap. Literally.

After mucking out, I began tacking up Giant Horse with whom I was going to enjoy a jolly hack around the countryside. After locking up the tack room I discovered that the girth I had selected was too short. So I removed my saddle and put her rugs on again, unlocked the tack room and chose a different girth before locking the tack room again. This girth was too long and so I spent 3 more tremendously hilarious trips back and forth, while a patient Giant Horse stood watching me with amusement as I removed her saddle and put her rugs back on for the fifth time to keep her warm as I searched for another girth.

With Giant Horse finally wearing a saddle that was securely fastened I headed off and did actually enjoy a lovely ride around the quiet single track lanes and fields of the surrounding area.

When I returned, I put Giant Horse’s rugs on and went to pull a bale of straw down from the stack in the hayshed. Being a majestic 5 foot 2 inches tall, I had to reach high above my head and when I began to tip the bale towards me, 14 hen’s eggs came down on my head. The only bonus was that none of them broke on me and when I tentatively took a breath, there was no horrid smell.

This effectively brought an end to my day and indeed my temper; and as The Assassinator had just returned home from a mission, I informed him that I was in the midst of an extra special birthday and I was going home to drink Prosecco.

By the time I had put Giant Horse out in the field, The Assassinator had left a bottle of birthday bubbly next to my car.

I was a mile and a half along the road before I noticed my birthday card underneath my windscreen wiper. Luckily the barriers at the railway crossing were down and I had the chance to rescue my birthday card before it escaped.

At the time of this special birthday I was seriously considering starting a Blog, but wasn't sure how or where to start. And when I opened my card from The Assassinator, The Resident Vet and Kamikaze Girl - the message from Fate was absolutely clear.

I have this card blu tacked to the wall next to my desk and I intend it to stay there as long as I do. 

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political leader who used her influence as First Lady from 1933 to 1945 to promote the New Deal policies of her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After her husband died in 1945 she continued to be an internationally prominent author and speaker for the New Deal coalition. She supported the formation of the United Nations and was a made a delegate to the UN General Assembly in 1945. She was also listed as one of the most admired Americans of the 20^th Century on a list compiled by Gallup in 1999.

She also said this:

“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

Got that, Mr Trump?

No. I thought not.