Wizened but not wise yet

Arrowtown book buyer Miranda Spary continues her regular column about her recommendations for a good read, and life as she sees it ...

Middle age is a bit of a pain.

You are 100% officially not young any more, although there are still many 16-year-old thoughts happening even in the oldest of us.

Hanging out with really old people, like my Dad, is good.

He still says things to me like "How's my little girl?" which is kind of strange when I'm 51 years old and 67 kilos.

Bits of me have started aching, and while I don't need glasses yet, I'd almost like them so I could take them off and not see the wrinkles that are attacking me.

And even though everyone says old people get so wise and sensible, that bit hasn't happened yet. I'm getting wizened, not wise, and am worried I might hit senile without doing sensible first.

Everything seems to be falling apart at the moment.

Our Burmese cat, Speedy, is 15 and really needs a new name these days. Speedy the kitten played a huge part when my darling and I moved in together with our five children. She was always everyone's friend and could be relied on to soothe hurt feelings and sad thoughts, often by bringing the sad or hurt person a nice freshly killed mouse or rabbit.

Now she's a bit motheaten and losing weight at a frightening pace. Tim the vet is doing his darnedest to keep her alive and happy, but the end is looking near, and I'm devastated. How could that kitten have turned into an old lady so fast?

And my lovely shiny blue Landcruiser is the same.

It hit 300,000km a while ago and I still love it dearly. My darling gets told off by lots of people who think he should buy me a new one, but it is so full of history that I can't bear to get rid of it.

All our children learnt to drive in it, and I know that all five have made their mark on it many times (as have the supposedly sensible adults in the family).

It's old enough to have a cassette player in it still, but that stopped working years ago, as did the radio aerial and the remote control on the key.

The steering wheel is shedding its fabric cover and the seat heater burns your bottom instead of warming it. I still think of it as shiny blue, but it's definitely lost that gloss.

We've only got a month left of having a teenager in the family as the last one is soon to turn 20.

Now that they're all able to stand on their own two feet, I am trying hard to remember that, once upon a time, I dreamt of the day when I didn't need to make school lunches or drive them everywhere any more.

Time has gone very, very fast.

I keep bumping into the little children I used to teach when I had the Montessori in Arrowtown. I saw Jenny Tapper today with a very handsome man. It was the same person as the tiny little Ben I had taught about 15 years ago.

There's lots of good about being an empty nester, though, and the Wakatipu is so full of things to do that it's not possible to be bored.

The yoga business just gets bigger and better all the time and this week sees the world's top yogi and yogini arrive from Japan and America to give demos and lessons.

There was a hugely negative article about yoga in The New York Times recently because some people had hurt themselves doing yoga. I'm hard pushed to imagine a sport where people don't hurt themselves (even gentleish ones such as jogging, cycling and tennis seem to claim plenty of victims), but if you find a good teacher and listen to them and to your body, you might love what it does for you.

I've had two great books this week.

The first, Caitlin Moran's very, very naughty How To Be A Woman, was recommended by Harriet Brinsley.

I laughed until I cried at her wicked writing. She is particularly cutting about the fashion for Brazilians - I'd love to know what she would say about the present penchant for enormous breast enlargements and eyelash extensions. It must be very unsafe walking around blinded by your eyelashes and not being able to see your feet.

The other was The Distant Hours, by Kate Morton. Thanks so much to Jean Foster who warned me this would be hard to put down. It's terrific.

And happy birthday to my delicious niece Edie, who turned 3 this week and let me have three bits of her cake.

She thinks I'm 3 and beautiful like her.

Thanks, Edie!