Middle age

I know I shall be in trouble for this, but...

...I was having a conversation the other day, and the topic of 'middle age' came up. I can't think why. After all,I'm 37, and have been that age for some long time now. So no prospect or intention of ever reaching middle age.

Any way, SHE said:You know you are a middle aged man when...
You buy a motorbike
You wear a stripy scarf looped around your neck
You wear vertically striped shirts
When young women in bars talk to you, you think you still have it
You think trying to hold in your tummy fools anyone

Now, I think she's wrong, because men NEVER know when they're middle-aged. Unless they were born middle aged, in which case they have been wearing beige cardigans for a very long time indeed and are proud of it.

As the boy reminded me this evening, Bill Oddie once said, "You know you are middle-aged when your daughter's best friend looks at you. And all she's thinking is, 'You're my best friend's Dad'.

Some indications of the progression of middle-age must be, when you try and do something you could do 20 years ago and it comes as a surprise that you can't do it now. I wonder what that could be. When you come home from work, and you're asleep on the sofa by 8.30...every night. When you can't understand the texts you get from anyone more than five years your junior...let alone from The Boy When the video recorder is beyond you. When you still enjoy repeats of the New Avengers, Minder and The Persuaders.

The reason this conversation took place will become all too apparent soon enough.

But the killer end to the conversation was when I was asked, "So, how do you know if you're a middle-aged woman?" Probably best not to answer methinks.