Still here

When I was young, I was quite certain I'd die before I was thirty. I was sure I'd be gone long before I got wrinkles, crows' feet, arthritis, dodgy eyesight and all the other attributes of old age. I'd be a victim of some freak accident or illness that would finish me off.

There was no good reason for this irrational belief. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol. I didn't have a life-threatening disease. I wasn't doing a dangerous job. I wasn't a reckless driver. I was perfectly healthy. Yet I was convinced I didn't have long for this world.

I think I secretly liked the idea of dying in my prime. A tragic and romantic end to a promising life. A prodigious talent snuffed out far too early. Well, in my case, not quite a prodigious talent, more like a few vague and useless abilities.

And now here I am at the age of 72, still very much alive, still perfectly healthy and set to live another decade or two. Jenny is sure I'll live to 100 at least. How did that happen? What guardian angel is keeping an eye on me?

I've lived to see Boris Johnson, the internet, the obesity epidemic, peace in Northern Ireland, Taylor Swift, climate collapse, ripped jeans and bankrupt banks. I've seen every grisly and brutal thing human beings are capable of. I've been round the block a few times, as they say.

I must say I don't feel as if I'm 72. I feel that a seventy something should be an enormous repository of wisdom, an expert on every subject, in which case I'm sadly lacking as I still seem to have the skimpy and unreliable knowledge of a thirty year old. Anyone coming to see me for some brilliant advice on their latest life crisis would be sadly disappointed. I can just about change a light bulb.

I'm still waiting for the prodigious talent to kick in.

Still alive

When I was a teenager, I was firmly convinced I wouldn't live beyond thirty. I guess I felt vulnerable, fragile, at the mercy of unpredictable events that could easily finish me off.

I would be in a car crash, or have a premature heart attack, or be viciously mugged. I would never be old enough to have wrinkles or arthritis or a pension. I'd be a pile of ash long before that.

So now I'm 65 I still find it extraordinary that I've survived to such a ripe old age without the expected calamity carrying me off in the meanwhile. How come I'm still here? How come I'm alive to see the 2012 Olympics, wind farms, Louise Mensch*, Barack Obama and the internet? Which guardian angel is hovering over me, keeping me from harm?

I'm very philosophical about my age though. I have no desperate urge to live to a hundred. I don't see that as a dazzling achievement. And as for living beyond thirty, well, I'm profoundly grateful I met Jenny at the age of 34, naturally. But if I'd snuffed it in my twenties and skipped a few decades, so what? I'd never have met Jenny, but then, what you've never had, you never miss, as they say.

I suppose my assumption of a brief lifespan was partly connected with my constant sense of being different from everyone else. If most people lived to a hoary old age, then ergo, being the habitual exception, I would peg out in my prime.

There was no concrete reason why I should die early. I wasn't addicted to drugs or alcohol. I didn't have a life-threatening illness. I wasn't doing a dangerous job. I was perfectly healthy. Yet I was convinced I couldn't possibly reach middle age, that that was an experience I would never know.

And now here I am, with the wrinkles and the pension. And still with a sense of having cheated my natural destiny. How did that happen?

*Louise Mensch - Tory MP who subjected James and Rupert Murdoch to ruthless questioning over the phone hacking scandal 

A life cut short

What a nightmare it is when some innocent, everyday action turns into an endless disaster you can never be rid of. As happened to Denise Hendry when she tried to lose a bit of fat after giving birth.

In 2002 she booked a liposuction session, as thousands of women do every day, but in her case it all went horribly wrong. The surgeon damaged her bowel and colon, leading to multiple organ failure, her heart stopping for four minutes, and blood poisoning.

She had to have corrective surgery to repair the damage but that too was unsuccessful. A few months ago, she had further corrective surgery but contracted a meningitis-type infection, went into a coma and died 11 weeks later. She was just 42.

This dreadful saga of incompetence and misfortune certainly undermines belief in some benign creator watching over us and keeping us from harm. A novel this calamitous would be dismissed as incredible.

Not surprisingly Denise's experiences led her to campaign about the dangers of plastic surgery and the need to check out your surgeon's credentials thoroughly before they let rip on a vulnerable human body.

I've said before that I see no need for cosmetic surgery unless someone is seriously disfigured. Most of the imagined defects being remedied are invisible to everyone else and the real problem is the desire for a non-existent perfect body.

Unfortunately in Denise's case this desire meant not just a nice little earner for a greedy surgeon but a devastated and drastically shortened life.

People always play down the serious medical risks involved in a supposedly routine operation. But the fact is that any operation can go appallingly wrong, and when it does it's too late for second thoughts. Just say no!

Photo: Denise Hendry

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Katie the cat has mysteriously reappeared after two weeks' absence. We did ask her where she had been all this time but she refused to say. I suspect a failed romance she'd rather not discuss.