Moving day

I've just been over to St Ives in Cambridge-shire to see my 95 year old mum move into a care home. It seems like an excellent place, with staff who are genuinely committed to keeping the residents happy and maintaining a sense of independence wherever possible. She certainly looked happy enough after a few hours there meeting the staff and other residents.

Me and the rest of the family - her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter - were reluctant to see her move into a care home, as so many seem to be little more than uncaring warehouses for the elderly, and as my mum has always been fiercely independent.

But we had to admit it was time for her to move somewhere she would be constantly monitored, as she was having frequent falls and sometimes lying on the floor for hours before being found. She also wasn't eating properly or drinking enough. She was feeling increasingly isolated and unsafe.

Unfortunately she seems to have declined rapidly over the last few months, as each further fall undermined her confidence and made her afraid of going out or simply moving around the flat. Just a year ago she was still fit enough for me to take her to some local coffee shops and sit by the river. And before that she was still going on cruises and seaside breaks.

Now we've started on the Herculean task of clearing mum's old flat of all the accumulated clutter and odds and ends that have been piling up for years, since she was reluctant to throw anything away - newspaper cuttings, old bills, Christmas cards, letters, holiday brochures, never-worn clothes, you name it. I think it was all a kind of security blanket.

So we hope she'll be content in her new surroundings. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed for a few weeks until she's really got the feel of the place. Hopefully she'll be thriving.

Pic: Not my mum, but she looks remarkably similar

Give us a clue

I don't like uncert-ainty. Or at least not the type of uncertainty that significantly affects my life. It makes me feel too vulnerable, too adrift.

Some people thrive on uncertainty. For them, the more of it the better. They love having absolutely no idea what the future will bring and what fate's going to throw at them. They find it exciting, stimulating, challenging.

I don't feel that at all. I would feel a lot more secure and confident if I knew what's in store for me. How much money I'll have, whether I'll get a serious illness, when I'm going to die, whether I'll lose my mind.

If I knew all that, at least I could plan my life a bit better, allow for disasters or triumphs, create a smoother path for myself. I wouldn't be suddenly overwhelmed by some unexpected catastrophe and be left floundering.

Small uncertainties, those that have no major effect on my life one way or the other, don't bother me. What the weather's going to do, whether I can get a vegetarian sandwich, whether my new jeans will run in the wash - those I can deal with. It's the big uncertainties, the potentially life-changing uncertainties, that freak me out.

It's curious that I'm so bothered by uncertainty this late in life, when my future is relatively short. When I was young and my future stretched ahead of me indefinitely like Route 66, the much greater uncertainty didn't phase me at all. I just sailed along blithely, unheeding of what the next day would bring.

How did this strange quirk come about, I wonder?

Niggling doubts

However much we try to hide them, I think the most basic human emotions are insecurity and vulner-ability. That's how we feel when we come out of the womb, that's how we feel when we're old and fragile, and that's how we feel in between, despite the veneer of confidence we have to assume for the sake of our jobs, our families, our 101 responsibilities.

How often does some apparently poised, decisive, suave public figure confess that actually they don't feel that poised inside, they often feel nervous and stupid, or they feel like an undeserving impostor?

Deep down, however successful and happy people seem to be, I think there are always niggling doubts and fears - that our supposedly solid lives aren't as solid as they look, that our good fortune might not last, that an unlucky turn of events could unravel it all.

Deep down we crave reassurance, comforting words, signs that everything will continue, signs that we're truly loved and cherished, signs that the intricate scaffolding of our lives isn't about to collapse.

Of course we have to act confident to get things done, to keep other people's respect, to get what we want in life. But this air of confidence is something we learn, a cultivated show of strength that hides the vulnerability we don't want to display.

And we don't want to display it in case it's abused; in case we're seen as weak and submissive and ready to bow to someone else's will. So it's only sensible to keep it out of sight. But the vulnerability's still there, even if you can't see it. It doesn't magically disappear as we grow up. It hovers inside us like a chilly breeze, curtailing the sunshine.

Beware the seamless show of confidence. It might just be a confidence trick.

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 

The lure of heels

One of the most enduring clichés about female beauty is that a woman always looks more attractive, more sexy and more sophisticated in high heels. I don't buy that at all, I think it's nonsense.

Women clumping around in heels that are both uncomfortable and hard to walk in are anything but attractive. And quite often the discomfort only makes them rude and grumpy.

There's nothing less appealing than a woman discreetly slipping off her painful footwear and relieving her aching feet.

As for those career women who're expected to wear heels to look "professional" (and how does that square with being sexy exactly?), why do three wobbly inches make them better at their jobs?

It just makes them feel superior to anyone not similarly shod, and entitled to browbeat and intimidate them.

Most high heels are of course designed by men who never wear them and are confident they themselves look ravishing without the need for such routine hobbling.

If men were obliged to teeter around in three-inch heels all day, they'd soon change their view of how "attractive" they were.

Heels are just a big liability if you're being pursued by an unwanted male, or trying to run for the bus, or doing anything physically demanding. They're only practical as long as you're moreorless stationary and doing nothing more taxing than light office work.

It's really not attractive seeing a woman staggering clumsily towards a bus stop as the bus accelerates away without her. Or sinking helplessly into a soggy lawn and having to be pulled out by a sniggering male.

But for some women it's the very impracticality of high heels, and the traditional feminine "vulnerability" they suggest, that tempts them into buying.

And they'll pay ridiculous sums to get into heels with the right designer label, even if they're crippled for days afterwards. Mr Blahnik* must be laughing all the way to the bank.

* Manolo Blahnik, shoe designer. He has made a fortune out of his fashionable high heels. How about the new jewelled satin pump at a mere £749?