The deterioration process is starting: I'm sure I can detect grey hairs in my chin stubble. I thought I noticed some last week and not having shaved since ( I'm not particularly trying to grow a beard again just I haven't been bothered) they appeared more significant today. Does this mean that I will have to up my one shave a week rule (unless I've got to go somewhere and I get disapproving looks from the wife) although my poor sensitive cheeks might not like it, or accept that I am only 18 months away from 40 and not the 27 I think I am in my head. This is the first physical sign of my own personal mortality that I have received as I've never been fit or physically active - not going to the gym means no negative comparisons: I bench press or lift or whatever the hell else exactly the same now as I did twenty years ago. Mentally I don't think my memory is as sharp as it used to be but I used to have it packed with trivia ready for quiz nights and most of what I learned at University has long been forgotten - mind you most of that Biochemistry course from twenty years ago will be obsolete by now. (Christ that's another of those little anniversaries that remind me of my age - 20 years this month since I started all clean and innocent at UEA). I do remember (I remember something) just over 10 years ago when studying the Engineering section for my AME that I could not remember calculus when it popped up in some equations. This was stuff that I found easy when I was 15 and eleven or twelve years later I was staring at some squiggles on a page before deciding to root around the attic for my old maths exercise books. I found the books but not a satisfactory explanation but got the general gist and memorized the necessary end equations.
   I think the upshot of all that is that I my have to revise my mental age of 27 upwards. Already I'm anticipating the moment when Bethany comes asking for help with her homework and being exposed as the big fraud I am because I don't have a clue. She's already outsmarting me as I upturn chairs to block her path to forbidden items or areas (anything with a wire and the oven mainly) as she simply treats it as an obstacle course and weaves her way through the gap under the table vacated by the chair.
   Oh well at least things haven't started dropping off yet.