60th

On Monday it is my 60th birthday. Like everyone, the older one gets, the more you wonder where the time disappeared, how did it go so quickly? It seems only yesterday that I was  embarking on an "adult" life and looking forward to all the things that it would bring. I am still relatively young by today's standards, (and only 18 in my head, aren't we all!) when I was young, in my teens, we thought that 30 was old and 40 to 50 was ancient, any age over that was positively aged in the extreme. Our perception of ages has changed dramatically and as the majority of us live longer, 60 no longer seems quite so old and is course the "new" 50......!
Becoming 60, naturally, gives pause to look back over your life and review all the choices and decisions you've made. I for one am not particularly good at this, as I do not tend to dwell in the past and have always tried to take each day as it comes. My memory of my childhood is poor and I would make a lousy autobiographer. There are many events I remember vividly, meeting my wife Wendy, getting married, having my two sons, Adam and Andrew, amongst the many highlights. 
I have been married to Wendy 32 years (though we have been together much longer) and like all married couples we have had good times and bad times, up and downs. As Wendy says it would have been boring to be on the roundabout and she would rather be on the roller-coaster with me, even if it is less predictable it is a more exciting ride!
She is my best friend, my only love and how she has put up with me for all this time is beyond my understanding (although it cuts both ways!). She obviously knows me better than anybody and still she stays! I am fortunate to have two sons who are well rounded adults and I could not be more proud or love either of them more.
So that's the sentiment out of the way, as my title description says, I come over sentimental occasionally, please forgive me!
They say as you age one gains experience and wisdom? I have certainly gained experience, as to wisdom, at the risk of sounding pretentious, I am wise enough to know that I have little of that commodity, I am still trying to acquire some. I have some life skills I've picked up along the way, I can cook, clean, iron and do many other household chores. I am quite good at decorating (lazy at getting started). I can drive a car and my favourite thing pedal a bike. There are many other skills in my armory but as those who know me will testify, I am far to humble and modest to blow my own trumpet and way too shy to share any of my them with the world!
I am also blessed, to have gained a very few really close friends and alongside my family, it is these close friends with whom I share my life who have become the most important part of my exsistance  If there is one thing I have learned, it is these relationships are the most precious and should be cherished. Sorry sentimentality creeping in again!
You gain other gifts as you age, that nobody tells you about when your younger, an assortment of aches and pains! The knee that gives way now and then, the ankle that keels over, the neck that aches if sat in one position for too long etc, we also develop a fine range of moans that disguise our difficulty of rising form an armchair or sofa. One also gets the opportunity to visit the bathroom more often and take longer once in there, especially at night when your sleep is interrupted regularly by the need to pee.I should not complain I am healthy and pretty fit and far better off than many others I know. We must accept that the wear and tear of our physical bodies is inevitable and there is a faint amusement, when you both rise with aaah escaping from your lips! 
It is odd that when I was in a better, younger, condition to take part in all the sporting activities that I would liked to have tried, I failed miserably to do so, I played football and did the usual things, young men do, with an interest in sport and the many more that young men attempt that were not so sporting! Now I am a older with the inclination to try them, there are many, which frankly I am not capable of! Yes I know you are never to old and if you read my previous writings,  you will read that I still have sporting intentions and ambitions!
Wendy says, I am getting grumpier and as my blog states, I can do nothing but agree with her. I fell it is the prerogative of all men to complain more as we get older, after all there is so much to complain about and so much that needs complaint......!!!
So in conclusion, thank you to everyone who has shared my journey thus far, there are many whom I would rather have not met or at best avoided but there are the few without whom my life would not have been as enriched as it has. There is plenty more to come and I will no doubt share some of it with the readers of this page. 

Happy birthday to me!!!!!