Too old to rock and roll?

Age is a cruel thing, take my case for instance: Here am I quietly chugging down the slippery hill to fifty ..........couple of years to go though so let’s not get carried away.......... yet my mind, well that’s still blasting up that first incline to eighteen, testosterone fuelled and leather clad (cue for band to start playing Born To Be Wild). Let’s put it another way: the pilot thinks he’s flying an F15 jet fighter, but in fact he’s in a decrepit 1950s De Havilland Comet airliner with no certificate of air worthiness!

It’s easy for our aging Hollywood role models to stay in shape: The moment anything droops they get it jacked up and nailed back into place, their wobbly bits get hoovered out, and their frown lines get blitzed to the point of facial paralysis with toxic injections. Probably if they saved up all the bits they have left over from their cosmetic surgery procedures, after a couple of years they would have enough to make a small Leonardo De Caprio.

You see things have started to hurt more lately: A hard day’s riding will cause me to rush for the hot bath and the Radox, and a fall, god forbid, will leave me feeling like my skeleton has been pulled apart and put back together by a spotty apprentice at Quickfit. I look at the teenagers who ride locally with a mixture of envy and hate: They fall off; they bounce a bit, no worries. Whoops they’ve broken their ankle, and gosh yes they’re bleeding a bit, but don’t you fuss: they’ll just text their mates about it, chug down an alcopop or two and be right as ninepence in a couple of days!

OK so I confess I’m turning into a “Grumpy Old Man” as well as a physical wreck, but that’s an encouraging sign in my book as it may mean I go properly ga ga in my twilight years: You know the sort of thing, walking around with your pants on your head, holding meaningful conversations with begonias, screaming “raspberries” in a high pitched voice at small children.

To quote the Kurgan from the film Highlander “I have one thing to say: It’s better to burn out than fade away!”