Signs of age

“Although 84, knocking 85, I do not feel old until I decide to stand up,” writes a Craigie regular.

“I do most of what I have always done, only more slowly – and more painfully – arthritis, you know.

“Other folks know the score, however, and show their awareness by their concern.

“I have lost count of the number of times check-out ladies have asked if I want ‘a hand to pack’. I usually ask: ‘Which hand did you have in mind?’

“In the supermarket aisles, I am often on the receiving end of offers to help, especially when I am looking for something down near the floor.

“Recently, I dropped a packet of soap I was removing from a shelf and, before I could make the first move to pick it up, a good Samaritan snatched the packet up and deposited it in my trolley.

“For years now, I have been the beneficiary of such offers. On Rhodes on holiday, I offered a pregnant lady my seat which she gratefully accepted. No sooner had I staggered shakily to my feet than another lady offered me her seat!

“Not so reassuring was a German tourist with whom I struck up a conversation to practise my rusty German. I was sitting on a bench waiting for my beloved who had gone shopping. Then she appeared and the German asked: ‘Ihre Tochter?’ (‘Your daughter?’)

“Then, at a wedding reception in Wales to which the bride’s rugby-playing father had invited all his team, one rugby Romeo was dancing with my wife and said: ‘Get rid of your father and we can have a good time!’”