Now you see me, now you don't

I am taking each day as it comes at the moment, but I suppose that is all any of us can do.

I used to think that I would mellow with age but, short of a catastrophic brain injury, I don't think that is ever going to happen. I also don't think I will ever be seen as avuncular by my younger friends and relations, but the upside to this is the thought that maybe I still have a bit of a game left to play inside me.

Last week I had a sudden back to black reversion and bought myself a pair of black trousers, a black stormproof jacket and a black watch strap. I put on my black Crockett and Jones boots and went to the pub. Nobody said a thing until an older customer asked if I had been to a funeral. Had I been younger they may have asked if I had been to court.

I go to the pub each weekday in my dirty work clothes, and sometimes I cannot be arsed to change so go in the same rags at weekends. Nobody ever seems to notice, let alone care about falling personal standards.

Quite a few years ago, I said to a friend that I was thinking of getting a suntan that Summer, as I had not exposed my body to the air for quite a few years before that.

He responded by saying, "What possible difference would that make?"

He had obviously surmised my motives as a pathetic attempt to make myself more attractive to the opposite sex, completely discounting the possibility that I may just have wanted to make myself feel slightly better for nothing other than personal reasons.

The one physical thing about me that people comment on is my hair. If I have a haircut, everyone will inform me of the fact as if I had not noticed. It's true that I sometimes forget that I have shorter hair (it being on the top of my head and well out of my peripheral vision), so maybe they are just trying to jog my failing memory.

It's all part of the ageing process I suppose.