It's that day of the year again...

Another birthday in that nondescript period between the Big Six-Oh and retirement age. In the UK now 66 for men, so I become eligible for my state pension on 4 October 2023. This is currently £168.60 a week (at the current exchange rate, 3,550 złotys a month). A weak pound = a poorer future for me. Anyway, that's another issue.

I find it hard to consider myself 'old' having a father who's 34 years and 6 months older than me. My self-awareness is far from considering myself old or even late middle-aged. Unless I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface, internally I remain the same consciousness that I've always been, albeit with the capacity for more sophisticated thought.

Health is a huge asset; mental health and spiritual contentment even more so. Maintaining these takes effort, making sacrifices that impinge on comfort and convenience - good diet, plenty of exercise, avoiding cognitive dissonance in my thinking. And monitoring my health.

For the past three years, I've been taking blood pressure readings regularly; this morning's average of three readings was 117/79. That's still in the 'desired' bracket, it's not even 'high normal'. And this is without any pills.

Desired

90–119

60–79

Exercise is also important. This morning I celebrated my 62nd birthday with 62 press-ups (I was unable to do 54 press-ups on my 54th birthday). There's more walking than ever before, with a daily average of over 12,000 paces a day every day this year (as of the end of September). However, I'm forced to reduce doing pull-ups; this time last year I could do 15 in one go. Since the spring, overdoing the pull-ups (chin up to the bar) began resulting in a nagging pain or dull ache in the left elbow, which stopped when I ceased this exercise for a few days. Restarting it would lead to the pain returning... This, I guess is how it will be going forward...

The change from September into October does bring about the blues - the days are darker, clear skies are rarer, and we're in the dark side of the year for another six months before that magic of spring bursts back into life. I long for April. But during the dark side of the year, all that introspection leads to more creativity, more original thinking, more new observations, that hopefully should make their way to this blog. 

Below: birthday present from my brother, a classic late 1950s Revel 1/62nd-scale plastic kit of a grain elevator (I love those odd scales that Revel would use back then to ensure the kits would fit into standard-sized boxes!)

A big thank-you to everyone who sent me birthday wishes, online and otherwise!

This time last year:

Decline and growth

This time two years ago:
Health at 60

This time four years ago:
In search of vectors for migrating consciousness

This time five years ago:
Slipping from late summer to early autumn

This time six years ago:
Turning 56

This time seven years ago: 
Turning 55 

This time eight years ago:
Turning 54

This time nine years ago:
Turning 53

This time 12 years ago:
Turning 50