The Age Jigsaw

As the years stack up and bits start aching, seizing or refusing to do what they’re told, I don’t tend to chalk it up to “old age.” I treat each as its own nuisance, with its own excuse. A dodgy knee here, a stiff back there, a memory that slips the leash. All isolated, all in their own little boxes.

The memory’s the same. I’ll see Noel Edmonds in my mind’s eye and for some reason the name Dale Vince floats to the surface, hanging around for a minute before it scuttles off again. A jumble of connections that once would have been sharp as a tack, now serving up odd pairings like a badly shuffled deck of cards.

But perhaps that’s the real trick of ageing – you don’t see it as a whole. You deal with the flare-ups one by one, never quite acknowledging the bigger picture they spell out. Then one day you look back and realise the jigsaw has been sitting on the table all along, quietly arranging itself into a portrait you’d rather not recognise.

I wonder how others see this. Do you treat each failing as a one-off irritation, or do you see the whole painting? Either way, the canvas keeps filling – and the gallery only has one exit.