Being 60.

BEING 60.

Saturday was my 60th birthday. It actually amazes me that I am that age. I definitely do not feel it! I’m much fitter now that when I was 50 and more stamina than when I was 40.

It also set me thinking about my parents, both deceased in recent years. My father frequently mentioned that January 1947 was one of the coldest ever, with snow and frost. I was born in a nursing home in Limerick City, so my father had to cycle a round trip of 40 miles every night. It wasn’t considered unusual in those days. It does not seem to have done him any harm – he lived to be 90! In that spring he sat a tree to commemorate my birth. I did not know this until about ten years ago, when my mother told me that as a kid I had a great affinity with the tree. It is now huge.

We had a good bit of a ‘bash’ at the nearby Winchester Hotel, which is a lovely old pub with original décor. They also put on a great spread of food for £50. I was delighted to see so many old friends and acquaintances. Hostess for the night was my daughter Michelle - the light-of-my-life, who will have some good news for me in July. Estimates that from 75 to 150 people turned up. It was a pleasant night of booze, good conversation, networking and almost no speeches. Naturally there was a Green Party table and several people joined up.

We had two cakes. One bought by Michelle and the other hand baked by my co-chair of Barnet Green Party, Gardi Vaswani. Michelle’s cake came from London Cakes, which is apparently a group where you order centrally and the cake is baked locally.

I had several interesting and thoughtful presents, but the one that caused the most attention was from Steve and Jean Lambert MEP and was an original front page from the Today newspaper for June 16th 1989. The banner headline was 2 MILLION VOTE GREEN. Hopefully, it will not be long before we see a similar headline.
I ended the night editing my statement for selection to the Green Party List for the London Assembly elections.