When I got an invitation to a friend's 70th birthday lunch (it's on Tuesday coming) despite my slipped disc I thought: yabadoo! To hell with being no well! That'll be a great afternoon out.
Then I thought: Wait! What? How the hell did that happen? It's only a few years ago that we were at university together! Of course, I'm missing out the years when I was learning to be a teacher in Glasgow, learning to be a principal teacher in Islay, moving back to Glasgow and then back again to Argyll and finally settling in a job in Ayrshire. And there's the small matter of being retired for 9 years to factor in...
But it's true, it has crept up on me. Being old, I mean. Or rather, elderly, because these days nobody is old. When one of my neighbours died, our housing assistant said: You know, she wasn't even very old - just 85.
So I am now one of that vast army of old people who, according to certain politicians, are 'costing' the country a fortune. I paid into a pension scheme which made a profit every year of the past 25, except for 2008 when the economy of the UK went to hell in a handcart. And in my time I paid a lot of taxes which supported the infrastructure of the country and the education of large numbers of young people. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I'm the taxman's favourite person: single, decent income, so still paying tax in my 70th year, and only now needing any kind of health care, which I have already paid for through National Insurance from the age of 15 to the age of 60.
What I'm saying is: I look after myself. I don't expect anyone to take care of me. I've made provision for my old age. According to the Tory government in Westminster, that's what we all have to do.
In the past few weeks, though, I've had a couple of shocks. First of all the housing association that manages the wee retirement complex where I live announced it was bust. Well, they put it better than that. They planned to hand over to a bigger organisation. But then last week the association that provides out of hours cover here - the one we thought was a shoo-in to take our complex over - announced it too was in trouble.
It looks to me as if both organisations need the Scottish Government to take them over in order to guarantee the people who live in these housing complexes - especially those in dementia care - won't be turfed out, forced to look for somewhere else to live. And here's the problem: the Scottish Government gets so little funding through the Barnett Formula that it just won't be able to provide care for this group of people.
So what happens next?
I'm not an SNP supporter. I am so suspicious of their lack of solid principles that I joined the Greens in 2013 (although I've voted SNP several times to keep the Tories out in my home area). I don't want to claim that the Tories in Westminster are hellbent on reducing the income of the Scottish Government but a reduction of £600 million in the rail budget today kind of makes me wonder what's going on. It looks to me as if the Scottish Government is going to be 'squeezed' so that they can't do the things they've been planning to do: expand childcare, improve the infrastructure - with RET, the upgrading of the A9.
Care of the elderly is a big issue and a costly one, right across the UK but particularly in Scotland. Westminster is not dealing with it, but it looks as if the Tory Government will go on with its moronic policy of austerity, which is in no one's interests that I can see. And who knows what Brexit will bring? 20 years of recession is one suggestion in today's press.
For all my friends who want to stay in the UK, I have to ask: what the hell for?
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