Welcome to Essays on ageing

If you look up a list of expected losses in older age you will find the following: loss of health, loss of parents, loss of career, loss...

At an age when my mother had descended from old to elderly, I would sometimes have to search for something she’d lost in her room. One...

Given that I know people who’ve had cancer or a heart attack by this age, it seems a bit feeble to complain of not-quite-flu, especially...

I was imaging writing that my Christmas Card list would be shorter this year. Actually, it’s the same length as usual. Why then this...

I have a friend who is quite a long way into dementia. One of the things he asks over and over again is why he’s got brown spots on the...

A new book out on dementia* says that a lot of forgetfulness is actually inattentiveness. I’m doing three things at once, or two things...

Thank you to my friend John White for contributing this piece. Lovely to have the passage from Shakespeare which talks about the stages...

How do you explain a love so strong that you want to live for them, make sacrifices for them, stay healthy for them throughout their...

(This is a blog post from a wise friend of mine. If we needed reminding, older age is sometimes about giving up on things - in a good...

(This is a Guest post from a friend in her mid-80s, still working as a psychotherapist. I love it for her very different take on...

1. a gift by will especially of money or other personal property : bequest. She left us a legacy of a million dollars. 2 : something...

Piling on clothes to counteract cold, damp wintry Britain I start with a black thermal vest and leggings. I add a polo neck or shirt...

Long term physical pain can be exhausting, frightening, depressing. I know that old men and women are supposed to moan a lot about aches...

“Dad, STOP! You nearly hit that car!” screamed adult children in the back seat as my father ignored the hooting of every other car in...

By the time you’re in your 60s, 70s and 80s you’ve done a fair number of Christmases and you probably know what you like and dislike. ...

There’s a TV ad for a DIY store at the moment, showing a young woman cringing at the visibly undecorated room behind her while she talks...

Anyone who has been around small children recently knows that there is a popular series of books entitled “That’s Not My….”(kitten, car,...

I’ve been reading a novel located in the late 1940s and early 1950s*, the era when my own parents were starting out on their adult lives...

A little while ago, I heard of the death of an ex- of mine. We hadn't been in touch for a couple of decades and we had both, as they...

This is a piece written by a member of my Writers' Group. Although it has been written as fiction, the truth of his observations shine...