Des vieillards

Old men

I've noticed a certain proliferation of active old men these past few weeks. First, there was the retired teacher Beth and I met on the train. Like most people, he instantly knew we were English (afternoon tea crumbs on our faces, perhaps?) and started chatting to us about his retirement. He didn't want to waste his long-awaited freedom and so had decided to buy an accordion and travel around playing it. Et pourquoi pas?!

Then, there was the 84-year-old cruising up 6b+s at the climbing wall. I've found a regular climbing partner in a retired woman who spends all her free time climbing. Not such a bad life. She's got a gang of friends whose average age must be well into the seventies and whose average climbing grade remainds stolidly a notch above mine.

This was followed by a chap's 80th birthday on a recent ski trip. I wasn't sure whose birthday it was, so I kept looking around for a frail, little old man shuffling up to enjoy a small glass of champagne before sitting down for the afternoon to reminisce over his halcyon days of wooden skis and dayglo one-pieces. My reverie of faux-nostalgie was suddenly interrupted by a spritely chap decked out in the latest gear, a bottle of champagne in one hand and his skis in the other. The gathering burst into song and I realised that this cheery chap, who honestly looked no older than 60, must be the octogenarian. This was inspirational to say the least and I toasted his youthfulness by consuming my body weight in cake.

Lessons learnt
- Pretty much anything you do, an eighty-year-old Frenchman can do better.
- Life does not end at 70.
- It's not such a bad thing that French TV is rubbish.
- No matter how hard they climb and how old they are, French pensioners should never wear lycra.