Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

The rapid encroachment of old age is never fun, apart from being able to say "I was doing that before you were born!" to younger siblings/cousins. My personal demon is the failing eyesight, which is a sod because while for most people it's the close-up vision that goes, for me it's distance. I have glasses, and wear them to watch TV and films etc, but there never seems any point in wearing them to work as everything is within 10ft of my eyes. The fact that they make me look like a nerdier and older version of myself doesn't help. I know I'm a nerd, you know I'm a nerd, but there seems little point in advertising the fact to complete strangers, especially if within 10 feet of me I am unable to see them as they're too close for my glasses. I know which bus to get on because it becomes legible when it's near enough to flag down. I am familiar enough with the stock in the shop to say "Oh yes the David Mitchell, it's that mauve and blue one there". HOWEVER at the weekend, walking sedately round a park with Mr Fishwife and my mother, I spent several minutes trying to work out what the striking exotic orange blooms at the edge of the lake were, before being informed that they were the feet of a dead duck lying on its back in the shallows.