A Red-Letter(ish) Day
Today I am a (Very Old) Man!
In the post today came my long awaited, much anticipated certificate of old-codgerdom: my bus-pass.
Drivers have been looking at me with surprise for nearly two years now: I staggered on their charabangs and insisted that I had to pay for my trip back home. Clearly the signs of eld and dotage have been on my brow (or somewhere, anyway) for some time now and they didn’t want to have to bother with the extra fiddle of issuing me a ticket.
You may judge for yourselves from the photo on the attached illustration whether they were right or not.
Ah well, one fewer chance for human interaction in my life. Swings and roundabouts!
And this is not all! For on Monday (according to a note from my old employers at the DWP) I shall receive the first payment of my old age pension. And then more largess every four weeks until either I or the British state fall off the perch, kick the bucket or join the choir eternal.
Until recently I had assumed it was going to be me that went first.
I feel as ambiguous as I normally do at these developments. I honestly thought at some stages that I would have a miserable and penurous old age. (A VOICE FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY: There’s still time yet!) but here I am with a nice flat, enough to live on and a little to spare. I hope I’m not ungrateful for all that.
But my health remains a little concerning, particularly the continuing problems with my right foot which leads on to problems with my weight and lack of exercise. For about two days this week I had the pleasant delusion that perhaps the paiin was finally going away and that after three years I’d finally come to the end of the condition. But today I’m less comfortable and more worried.
Asleep in Room3b 
“Ah well, one fewer chance for human interaction in my life.”
See, it’s not all bad!