The Recklessness of Youth.

I am writing this now at the tail end of February, as Spring waits in the wings eager to step onto the stage but unable to until Winter finally gives her the cue. 

I am unwaveringly certain that the season, my favourite, is female as I am also uncertain whether the winter really harbours any desire to leave, despite the daffodils that are open by my door and the birds that sing each morning and indeed now in the late afternoon. 

I have just woken from a post lunch sleep and I feel like my own death is as close as winter’s breath as much as I also feel hope that my time is only just beginning.

Am I a fool or simply an optimist? 

Seventy years was considered the standard when I was a youngster in the nineteen fifties, the Bible – yes people still read it then – spoke of an allotted three score and ten. 

It took me a long time to understand what that meant and if you asked me to explain how or why a score is twenty I will surely struggle. 

But it is, and I am there, and I feel that even if I remain healthy and relatively strong, my days are no longer mine to waste. 

Each one is precious – as they always have been. 

Only the recklessness of youth allows one to consider otherwise.