Our Dog: Not Big and Not Clever

I've wrote about Max, our West Highland White Terrier, before; but this weekend I've been musing on the downward passage of life we must all eventually take and couldn't help but think that his age is starting to show. Not least when his instinct overcomes his ability. Take, for example his propensity for chasing aeroplanes; we live on the inbound flight path to Manchester Airport; a lot of planes fly over our house and Max takes exception to every single one of them. The sad thing is that I understand why this habit has persisted despite our every intervention. It's quite simple doggy psychology really: he sees the intruding plane; barks at it and chases it; it goes away - success that reinforces itself every time. Today though, he was awoken from his slumber by an invading plane and his head didn't come around quite as quickly as his legs so, as he chased it up the steps he tripped, banging his chin and dazing himself - not that that stopped him. It was a chink in his otherwise solid canine armour.

I know how he feels - not long ago I saw an officer of the law chasing a young rapscallion and pulled over in the car to help. Instinctively I sprinted after the thieving urchin only to be pulled up breathless and clutching my strained groin 100 yards on - the urchin glanced back, slowed and strolled on insouciantly - a chink in my already creaking armour.

I think that Max and I should stick to our strengths - as I'm writing I'm about to prod him with my toe to see if I can wake him to go to bed. I bet I struggle to wake him and I bet neither of us stop trying to do things that we really ought not.

I Wanna Be Like You Hoo Hoo

Do you remember that song from Jungle Book sung by Louis Armstrong when the king of the monkeys tries to persuade Mowgli to tell him about fire? That is the sort of music we were enjoying over a picnic lunch on Friday at Harrogate Spring Show. Normally I'd have been reporting another example of Crofty's sad decline into his dotage; and you could be forgiven for thinking it, had you seen the scene: not a non-grey hair in sight, baskets and trolleys filled with all manner of horticultural miracles and a host of polite mature gardeners gathered around the bandstand to listen to the Yorkshire Post Trad Jazz Band.

And they themselves - the band - looked as though they might be part of some sort of leisure class put on to fill the time until death for the residents of Happy Valley Residential Home.

But it wasn't like that.

These grey haired over sixties couldn't half play: rythmn pulsed through them, setting many creaky hips jigging, flasks tapping and sandwich wrappers rustling as the crowd swayed and tried to resist the temptation to dance: well it wouldn't be polite.

The contrast between age and energy was even starker when the fabulous double bass player ceased his finger gymnastics for a break and sat down by us. He was suddenly transformed from a stunning musician into just another old man whose daughter fussed around him with his luncheon meat sandwiches, making sure he took his tablets and ensuring he was warm enough: coat buttoned up tight.

I wanna be like him....and I wish other people could have seen him before and after too, just so they think twice next time they make assumptions about the next old man or woman they see.

Things that Transcend Age

You will be relieved to hear that I didn’t spill down the family dinner suit, so it was resplendent on Sunday when it performed Handel’s Messiah at a packed Albion Church; and I do mean packed: they had to shoehorn extra seats in between the Fairtrade biscuit stall (I’m sure there were other Fairtrade goods too but I only had eyes for the delicious stem ginger cookies) and the bar - actually it was the tea and coffee stall but it just seems right to talk about the bar when you go to a gig.

And there lies the connundrum, for I’m sure there were a few of you that raised an eyebrow when I described a performance of Handel’s Messiah as a gig, rather than a concert; but the only difference I can discern is one of age.

We were certainly among the youngest there: the hair on the assembled heads was predominantly grey; the Albion Church was built around 1890 and The Messiah itself is over 250 years old. So when does something stop becoming a gig?

It is certainly not about the effects the music has on you - the performance on Sunday left me breathless at times, certainly more so than some of the pallid large venue performances I have seen over the years. I think it is more a perception in the collective mind that considers certain types of music not sufficiently energetic, youthful nor vigourous enough to deserve the description of ’gig’.

Be honest how many of raised the other eyebrow when you heard me say that my pulse was set racing?

Essential Products for an Older and Ageing Population

Occasionally we get a catalogue shoved in a magazine that comes in the post; you know the sort, it has gadgets of all types and descriptions and is usually worth a read just so you get to laugh at stuff like heated slippers or a new way of dicing vegetables. It seems that they are predominantly aimed at the ageing population, ours came in the magazine we get from the Camping and Caravanning Club.

This edition contains advertisements that lead me to suspect they are aimed rather more at caravanners of a certain age than at tough campers like us. For example there are beauties like 'Shoes so Comfortable they could be Slippers',
'Get any Matress Hygienically Clean in 30 Seconds' or what about the 'Height Adjustable Organiser Footstool' or who could resist the 'Safe and Hygienic Ear Wax Remover'. Each of these products are advertised with models who are cheerfully grey haired and look like their lives are the richer for being seen with the product.

Imagine my surprise (and delight) when I flicked over a page and, beneath a picture of a suitably mature gentleman dressed in slacks and a sweater, was 'Enhance Sexual Performance, Vigour and Vitality' and then only a couple of pages further on 'Stronger Larger Erections' with a picture of a suction powered penis enlarger - the type that Austin Powers tried to deny belonged to him - with adjacent advertisements of a hand cream to treat age spots and a shoe organiser.

If this is what getting older holds, bring it on I say! Not that I would need to resort to any of the products mentioned of course, rather that it is reassuring to think that the older person might need them as part of a vigorous and full sex life you understand. Ahem.

P.S. I fully expect about a zillion hits on this post after I've given it perfectly honest key wording.

P.P.S. If you would like to browse the on line catalogue for any of these excellent products Click Here (Confidentiality assured... but would you know if my computer had added a tracking cookie....hmmm, evil chuckle)

My Friday Achievement

Sat in Evuna - a pleasant Spanish Restaurant on Deansgate last night - I was pleased with the fact I'd actually arrived only thirty five minutes late for my colleagues retirement meal. Determined to enjoy what has become a rare night out I pitched myself headlong into the tapas and seafood paella with gusto. Similarly I quaffed the proffered wine with similar enthusiasm equally determined to face down the 'old man' image that seems to hover around me lately. Then in the Grapes I got stuck into fizzy lager beer, hurriedly washed it down in time to catch the nine o'clock train to Oldham.

Street cleaners in the subway from Oldham Mumps station would have cursed at the results of my later gastric incontinence this morning. Yes, I achieved the same results from a night out as either of my two sons do....I've not lost it yet!

I don't quite feel like the drive up to Keswick now though...me and Mrs C are going away for a week. By until next week when I promise to feel better.

Quick Nurse! .. He Still Has A Pulse

Yesterday a constant bass throbbing disturbed the work of many people in our building - good job it was Friday afternoon; it went on for some hours and people scratched their collective heads wondering what the noise might be. At 3pm prompt, stepping into the car park of our Stretford corporate headquarters, might heart skipped an involuntary beat as I realised what the noise had been. They were doing sound checks at the nearby Lancashire County Cricket Club for this weekend's concerts featuring The Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse, among others. Why did my heart skip a beat, I imagine I can hear you asking; and the answer is that that is what live music does to me, always has, wherever or whatever it is, I love live music and hearing the throbbing bass lines, barely discernible as one of Amy Winehouse's songs, I just wanted to be one of the thousands of people who gather and experience the gig.

Musing on my maturity, once again, it reassured me that I still enjoy the odd frisson of excitement. Climbing from the Cumbrian coastal village of Sandwith up to the lighthouse on St Bees Head last week, I experienced such a thrill as the vista opened before us giving stunning views over the Western Hills of Scotland and over one of the largest seabird colonies in the UK (OK, OK, I know I'm drifting into waters where you may well consider an anorak to be the appropriate wear again, but stick with it).

Earlier today, passing the Railway Hotel in Greenfield - a fabulous live music venue - I notice a poster advertising Martin Taylor - yes, Martin Taylor, the phenomenal, world-renowned jazz guitarist. I experienced another such thrill - do you see a theme developing here - and was excited all day until, only moments ago, I discovered that he was on last week while we were busy being excited at St Bees.

That burning core of light, that makes us who we are deep inside, remains unchanged; I don't have to settle for a middle age of mediocrity; but I don't have to strap myself to a Harley Davidson or throw myself from a cliff just to prove that my heart is still capable of pumping adrenaline around the system. The things that push my buttons are still there, albeit I'd have enjoyed Martin Taylor at the Railway more than the Arctic Monkeys I think.

To illustrate the point I have included one of the photographs Mrs C took of the relaxing view from St Bees Head last week.

It's Definitely an Age Thing

Sorry to harp on again about this ageing stuff; but I'm beginning to worry that middle age is turning me into a sad old git - not to put too fine a point on it - because when I looked back on my notes from our week in the Lake District they were full of enthusiasm about wildlife - particularly bird life - and - here comes the crunch point - trains, yes trains. One of our most enjoyable days out was on the Ravenglass to Eskdale Railway.

"Am I turning into a trainspotting, beer mat collecting, anorak wearing weirdo", I asked myself; and once again, getting know comprehensible reply, I found myself reassured by my fellow bloggers. Bill Blunt's recent post on collecting things was hugely reassuring. His collection speciality is Wetherspoons pubs. He disputes that he is a collector per se; but I think that anyone who aims to sample and review as many pubs in the famous national chain as possible is, to all intents and purposes, a collector - I was reassured.

The Ravenglass to Eskdale Railway must be about the prettiest example of public transport I have ever seen. It is a narrow gauge railway saved from being scrapped, quite literally, by a group of steam enthusiasts in the 1960s. It is not simply a tourist attraction but a relic of an age when narrow gauge railways were built to fulfil an industrial necessity: in this case transporting quarried stone, once crushed, to the regular gauge trains at the mainline Ravenglass station built conveniently directly adjacent to the little one. Apparently the narrow gauge track was easier and cheaper to lay in the rugged Lakeland fell terrain (no pun intended - but it is quite nice isn't it: train/terrain).

The station itself is a beautifully restored example of the type of country railway station John Betjamin would have gushed poetically about; it simply oozes sleepy country charm. Smartly painted and resplendent with summer floral displays it takes one of the things I love about railway stations - that feeling of ordered calm, the quiet and emptiness between trains - to a new level.

The journey is a pleasurable chug, in mainly open sided carriages, from the open esturial waters of the Lakeland coast up through the increasingly craggy countryside of the Eskdale valley, to the final destination at Dalegarth where Scafell towers in the distance.

Hanging out of the carriage, pointing at birds I spotted and waving wildly at pedestrians, I was entranced by the whole experience; and part of me can understand the pleasure that trainspotters must get from the time they spend around this form of transport. But, not to stray too far from where I started this journey: bird watching, I found, as the number of previously unseen birds increased that I hankered after some sort of checklist where I could perhaps tick them off...now that is worrying.