Growing old gratefully

MY SIGNATURE perfume is more TCP than Chanel Cristalle these days, and sex and drugs and rock '*' roll have long since given way to opera and gardening. To be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Pundits can talk all they like about 60 being the new 50, and 40 the new 30, but you don't need magazine psychology to work out exactly where you are in the numbers game. If the thought of the latest cool nightclub with up to 2,000 young people in it has you reaching for a Ventolin inhaler, don't fight it, embrace it. You don't have to do anything you don't want to any more.

As Ogden Nash said in the days before answering machines, middle age is when the phone rings on a Saturday night and you hope it isn't for you. It's when you'd rather stay in with a vat of wine watching back episodes of The West Wing than schlep from Richmond into central London on a rainy Saturday night for supper with George Clooney.

Renounce alcohol and chocolate for the sake of looking less bulgy in a holiday swimsuit? You'd rather cut your own throat. And if you have no problem double digging the allotment but the thought of shopping for shoes leaves you feeling exhausted, then you are firmly in the fifth of Jacques's seven ages of life. Shakespeare knew a thing or two, my friend. This is the best age. Enjoy it.

Sadly, last week I moved up a stage. In the past I've fallen out of more trees, down more ski slopes and off more mountainsides than most people have had tax returns but I always bounce, reach for the ibuprofen gel and get on with it. This time was different. I funked the ladder test.

Having manoeuvred the damn thing into position, I needed to climb high enough to whack the warped spare bedroom casement gently back into its frame with a hammer. I was just one rung away from the crucial height when I remembered that only about 1.5cm of each upright was acually in contact with the sloping overhang the ladder was leaning against. Last year this thought didn't bother me I just climbed the extra step and whacked the window shut. This year, for some reason, I thought about my teeth, cheekbones and nose smashing into the sandstone 30ft below and I funked it.

I think maybe it's Big G's way of saying it's time to get someone in to ease the window. Or perhaps it's just my own way of acknowledging that I'm finally a grown-up.