2024

I read a scary line the other day that went something like this: "2040 is closer to us than the year 2000 is distant". Not a complex proposition I suppose, simple maths, but it did make me stop and think. Not only is it true but where exactly has that time gone? The years have passed incredibly quickly. I've worked at my company for nearly 25 years. I've lived in the same house for nearly 20 years. My children are 20, 18 and 16. 

In 2040 I will be 65 years old. Imagine that! I still vividly remember my Dad's 40th birthday party in Cambridge, sat with my sister at the top of the stairs as our normally quiet house filled with people downstairs. I am significantly older now than he was then. 2040 also came up the other day when I was looking to get some wine delivered. I noticed I had a case of Port that people recommend starts drinking in 2040. Starts! That made me go and look at the end dates for wine in my cellar - I have a fair few cases of red wine that goes out to 2050 and beyond. Some of it will be particularly long-lived - to 2070. Predictably that made me start thinking about my end date. I'll be 95! Or more realistically I won't be here at all. And even on the offchance that I am the nurses will probably have banned wine anyway. 

The start of a New Year always tends to provoke these kinds of thoughts in me. Time rushing by, famous Pink Floyd lyrics etc. A lifetime is literally the blink of an eye, you have to make the most of it. I urge everyone to think about that the next time they contemplate half an hour watching crap TV, or as they endlessly doom-scroll on their phones. And I urge myself to take my own advice. Get out there, stop pissing about. You, yes you! Get out of that chair and go and do something! Or stay in the chair. It's comfy, you're warm and you're quite happy, and a glass of something is to hand. Do what you want to do, enjoy yourself, you're only here for so long. 

PS. You bought that wine for one reason, and it wasn't with inheritances in mind! Drink up!

Christmas 2023