Increasingly difficult to climb out of the bath

MY SON, aware of my advanced years and poised to make a bid to become head of the herd, now jokingly refers to Yours Truly as Spider-man.

He doesn’t believe I possess superpowers, but he knows I find it increasingly difficult to climb out of the bath.

Oddly enough, I didn’t endure a midlife crisis when hitting 40. A decade later, I took comfort in the mantra “50 is the new 40”.

But I can find no solace in the knowledge “60 is the new 50”. That’s because you’re a faux 50-year-old with a penchant for slippers, caravans and forays to find sticks to stir paint with.

Perhaps it’s the depression spawned by lockdown and social distancing, but I suddenly feel old. I’m suddenly beginning to succumb to elderly illnesses. I’m suddenly beset by aches and pains.

And memory loss.

And memory loss.

Before this virus crisis, my GP informed me that I should undergo a prostate examination, adding it entails placing a digit in a rather intimate cavity.

“What do you say to that, Mr Lockley?”

“Shouldn’t you take me out for a meal first?” I answered.

I suddenly feel old and younger members of our family, smelling weakness, know it. I used to tease them at weddings by chuckling: “You’re next.” Now they do it to me at funerals.

When we could still all go out, I was dragged on a Birmingham night-onthe-tiles by younger reporters who see me as a harmless, avuncular figure.

“Sorry, mate,” said a bouncer guarding the door of a trendy nightspot, “you’ve had too many.” “Drinks?” I stammered.

“No, birthdays.”

For those younger readers considering old age, don’t do it. It’s not worth the free slippers you get. My local authority has informed me that I’m entitled to my first pair. I simply have to attend a “slipper clinic” at the Parish Assembly Rooms where old, faulty, fluffy footwear will be exchanged for council-approved pairs.

Frankly, I’d rather be seen queuing outside a brothel than waiting at some slipper kitchen.

“How bloody dare you!” I bellowed down the blower to some town hall bod. “How bloody dare you think I’m so decrepit that I need a slipper handout.”

“Mr Lockley,” responded the unruffled council official, “have you any idea how many elderly people die each year as a result of ill-fitting and not-fit-for purpose slippers?”

“What are they doing in them?” I snapped. “Running marathons?

“Listen,” I sneered, “I’ll have a pair if they’ve got ‘love’ on the right, ‘hate’ on the left.”

“See what I can do,” promised the jobsworth, “but you may have to make do with Sooty and Sweep.”

I dread the two decades that, with any luck, will follow. I dread the thought of spending my last years in an old people’s home. I once gave a humorous talk to residents at one and they were a very tough crowd.

They refused to answer my “knock knock” jokes until I showed ID.

I am an old man, of that there is no doubt. The grey hair, I can live with. Likewise the wrinkles and wiry stuff sprouting from my ears and nose.

But no-one told me my ear lobes would shrivel like prunes in the Mediterranean sun.

I’m not even complaining about the many trips to the toilet, and the inordinate amount of time spending a penny takes. It means I can really “soak in” the graffiti on public convenience walls. One in the cubicle of my pub loo proclaimed: “Make bread, not bombs.” The following day it had been added to. “Tried bread, didn’t explode.”

The worst curse of old age, however, is memory loss. I now spend my waking hours fretting over whether I remembered to lock the front door. If so, did I turn the taps off? If so, is the iron unplugged?

Before we were imprisoned in our own postcode, my wife and I went for a rare weekend away. As she slipped between the sheets and we cuddled close, I whispered those words only a married couple of some standing can comfortably say to each other: “Did you switch the immersion heater off?”

“I think so,” she whispered, “but I’m not sure about the iron.” She had to physically prevent me from driving the 120 miles home to check.

Some of the fears are justified. I DID leave my electric toothbrush on. The bathroom was absolutely spotless when we got back.

In my salad days, when I was green with youth, I possessed a devil-maycare attitude, free from fears over sellby dates and cholesterol counting.

I’d travel hundreds of miles, with scant possessions, on a whim. Now, we can’t tackle any extended journey without bringing a sumptuous hamper. We were famously pulled over by motorway police en route to the Lake District for flinging stripped chicken drumsticks out of the windows of our Mondeo.

“Come over all Henry VIII, have we Sir?” growled the officer. “We haven’t partaken of mead, have we Sir?” he smirked.

My wife packs quiche, beef rolls, cheese rolls, crisps and cakes. The car’s windows used to be steamed by passion. Now it’s the jacket potatoes.

Our hamper was once searched by stewards at Molineux – home of our beloved Wolverhampton Wanderers. It took them 45 minutes and they confiscated our doughnuts, fearing they could be flung like frisbees.

I don’t know how many people have been mortally injured by flying doughnuts, but believe the figure is zero.