Turning 60 (which at the time of posting this, I do tomorrow), has unsurprisingly given me some cause for reflection. I pretty much sailed through my 40th and 50th birthdays, but I’ve skidded up against 60 in a way I wasn’t expecting to.

It’s both gratifying and flattering that so many people, when I tell the age I’m about to be, say “well, you definitely don’t look it”. (Of course they could be trying to infer that I look nearer 70, but I’m choosing to assume they mean I look younger, not older, than my chronological age. Delusion and denial are increasingly powerful mental tools as you age. I highly recommend both.)

But it does make me wonder what sixty is supposed to look like.

Nigella Lawson, who turned 60 a couple of weeks before me (and looks fabulous), wrote a marvellous piece on her significant birthday for the Sunday Times Style magazine (it sits behind an on-line pay wall so sadly I can’t link to it) in which she said “I think one’s ideas about what ages look like take shape in ones’s childhood, so when I say or write 60, I see in my head a little old lady with a grey bun. It’s disconcerting. Of course that’s not what 60 looks like, or feels like, these days”

I almost entirely agree with her. I am certainly not little (metaphorically or physically), and I choose, thanks to the wonders of highlights, not to be visibly grey. Grey hair can look fantastic, and I don’t have any resistance to it on principle. It’s just that mine doesn’t. Yet. I’m very much hoping - as much for the sake of my bank balance as anything - that it will some time in the not-too-distant future, when the grey properly outstrips the currently still dominant scrubby brunette.

Sixty does feel like getting old

But there is something about turning 60 that feels like stepping over the threshold into being old. Nigella observes that 60 is “undeniably well beyond middle aged” and that’s a truth that I’m still trying to get comfortable with. Tipping into the ‘senior’ category for ticket buying, holiday booking etc is going to take some getting used to.

Exercise has always been important, that’s not going to change

As someone who’s always exercised, I’m keenly aware of the deterioration in my muscle strength and the noticeable diminishment of my energy levels. In spite of the amount I still exercise, which is virtually every day, I’m simply not as strong as I used to be, even two or three years ago. (I’m also aware that I need to up the cardio content of my weekly exercise schedule, and that’s a challenge I’ve set myself for this year).

And whilst I can still muster reassuring quantities of energy, my energetic staying power is definitely reduced, and my stamina batteries need more careful management and replenishment than they have in the past.

The physical signs of ageing

Both are physical signs of ageing that I rail against. And yet I do know, only too well, that I am fortunate indeed to have both to the degree I do, so I try to stay focused on the positives of being as fit and able as I am lucky enough to be. I’m slowly getting better at being better at that.

Experiencing death…

Like Nigella I have got to this age having experienced the untimely death of my husband. By a strange twist of fate, I co-presented a television series with her husband, the wonderful journalist John Diamond, who sadly died of cancer at just 48.

My husband died suddenly just a few months after his 60th birthday (yes, the significance of that isn’t lost on me). That and the death of a similar aged friend not all that long after, has made me only too aware that turning 60 is very much preferable to the alternative. And attentive to the fact that denying that is not only foolish but disingenuous.

…and living life to the full

I’ve always believed that life - in all its vicissitudes - should be embraced, enjoyed and celebrated (and yes, sometimes, endured), but those losses have sharpened my conviction to grasp every day with as much enthusiasm and energy as I can muster.

It helps that I now expend precious little of that precious energy on caring or, more specifically, worrying about other people’s opinions of me. I certainly don’t pay any less regard to nurturing and nourishing the relationships with the people I care about, and I can still be kept awake at night if I think I’ve done or said anything that might be untoward where they’re concerned.

What a relief

But oh, the relief of no longer agonising over what acquaintances, or, even more absurdly, stranger’s opinions might be of the way I dress (how I damm well choose thank you), the way I express myself, (ditto) the opinions I have (which I’m as entitled to as you are to yours and which I’m happy to hear, discuss and agree to disagree about or not)….I could go on.

Being interviewed on Talk Radio about older women and fashion. Wearing what I want, saying what I think

I have no desire to become a cartoon-like grumpy old woman, or to elbow my way through life upsetting or offending people willy nilly, but the hard-won self-confidence I have acquired over the seven decades I’ve stumbled through is something I treasure and am not prepared to relinquish.

I heard Jude Kelly speak at a brilliant event that celebrated art and ageing which I wrote about here. Her words have stayed with me since. "You are burnished in time by the experiences you have in your life. By the grief and the heartache as well as the joy."

Reflections on the last decade

Reflecting on the grief and joy, the changes and upheavals I’ve experienced since I turned 50, makes me realise they have been pretty huge.

I have left a long and much loved career as a magazine editor and returned, after 20 years, to the life of a freelance journalist.

I have separated from my husband, the man who continued to be my best friend and greatest supporter, and, of course, the father of my two beloved daughters, and then experienced the agony of his death.

I have moved out of the family home I lived in for 30 years, to a new, much smaller, house and started living by myself for the first time in my life.

I have found that I can not only manage, but that I positively enjoy my own company and relish the freedom it gives me to do what I want, how and when I want.

I have fallen in love with a man who I knew in my childhood and who reappeared unexpectedly but completely serendipitously in my life.

I have seen my darling girls meet and marry the men of their dreams, which makes me happier than I can say.

I have started this blog and website and am slowly building a wonderful Heydays community and learning so many new skills along the way.

And then, just as I reached the final months of my fifties, I became a (predictably doting) grandmother.

My little granddaughter. The perfect finale to my fifties

Blimey, that’s a lot in 10 years. I wonder what the next ten will hold?

Whatever it is, getting this far and facing turning 60 has shown me that I can survive and even thrive, however tough the challenges.

That I am surrounded by people who love and support me and who I can always depend on.

That if I take my foot off the pedal, life doesn’t grind to a halt, rather it settles into a speed that can be even more rewarding.

That there are always new friendships to be made, new adventures to be had, new experiences to enjoy and new things to learn.

Being 60? Bring it on. I’m ready and excited.

If you’re already ahead of me on the sixties journey, what are you enjoying most about it. And if you’re still to join me, what are you looking forward to?