1 - 4 Pretty chilled
4 - 11 Primary school, youth hosteling, camping holidays, smell of dubbin on football boots, jerseys for goals, brilliant.
12 - 17 Secondary School x 3 - thats fun as a 13 year old!, fights, music, football, girls, booze, parties, not sure I would want to do it again.
18 - 24 Married and kids, 1,2 and 3. First job + professional exams. No 2 boy critically ill for first 2 months. Oh yes, parents divorced and father fucked off never to be seen again
24 - 40 career building, mental hours, wife lost her sister, upscaled house x 4, money worries (never enough)
40 - 56 career plateau, one merger, one takeover caused by financial crash. Went from an organisation of 17k to one of 100k. More mental hours + travel, hard hard slog. More money. All kids off and married. Lost my eldest nephew who was close. Mum diagnosed with dementia.
56 - now. left the Bank, have not done a stroke of work in 5 years. Fishing, Football (season ticket holder for the first time), Concerts, Theatre and Holidays. 4 grandaughters are just wonderful. She still puts up with me which is a miracle.
You take pleasure out of every day you are alive as well as having stress and challenge. You make of it what you can. I cant really choose my favourite period.
Having said all that, doing fuck all except what you want to do does have its attractions albeit I do miss the challenge (a bit). Grandchildren are a complete and unadulterated delight (albeit they are all still under 12). City are absolutely magnificent and I still love Led Zeppelin, Kate Bush, the Stones and all good music of the 60's/70's.
