Accepting reality? I think not. Possibly.

I know I’m getting old!

Other ageing people point, often literally, to a selection of their aching joints, or illustrate with an airy wave of the hand a forgetful memory, or pause with what they hope is significant timing to try and find an errant word.  Not me.  Even though I act out those tell-tale signs I still spurn (as ‘twere a rabid dog) any admission of the fact that I am getting older.

But today, today was a turning point.

At lunch, the meal after the late night/early morning of the New Year’s Eve/New Year’s Day family celebrations, I finally had to face the realization that the accumulation of years in my life had reached a disturbing point.

The meal was provide by the tired but indomitable mother of Toni and comprised a melange of potato, Spanish ham and egg with accompanying bits and pieces and whole prawns.  Delicious!  And to wash it all down was the inevitable (and loathed by me) Coke Zero Zero, and a bottle of water.  The real drink comprised a rather fine bottle of Cava.

As usual, for reasons that are all to explicable, I was given the bottle of Cava to uncork.  Which I did.  Offering it around to the diners, only one of us had a full glass: me.  The other three have a notional smear of the liquid so that they could say that they had been full of New Year Spirit.

Every offer of a fill-up (or augmentation of their piddling amounts) was met with a polite but firm refusal.  So I had recourse to the only other accepting rim, mine.

And here is where the realization of just how old I might be showed itself.  I eventually stopped filling my glass up.  I allowed a partially full bottle of Cava to leave the table and go into the kitchen where it will be poured away.  Into the sink!

I have always prided myself on being ‘so much younger than my grandparents were at my age’ – but how can I, in all conscience, maintain this assertion when I actually and in reality, allowed a half empty bottle of Cava to be ‘wasted’?

I remember, vividly, though years ago, a party in the Circle Bar in the New Theatre, Cardiff for someone’s birthday party where the drink provided solely consisted of cocktails.  There were three as I remember, but only one that I recall: a Champagne cocktail that, I can still see in my mind's eye, comprised a brandy soaked cube of sugar at the bottom of a glass that was then filled with Champagne.  

I tried one of these and thought, immediately, that the liquor soaked sugar cube was a profanation of decent Champagne.  So I took action.  I ‘acquired’ a bottle of Champagne and retired to a corner and slowly but purposefully drank it.  I then went looking for another bottle, which I found, but was not allowed to drink it in the sequestered peace of the first, as owners of un-drowned sugar lumps came in search of submersion.

It was an easy switch from Champagne to Cava, especially to the older, tastier Cava brut versions with which I am now familiar, and mostly especially given the radical difference in price.  

With a few adjustments made to my purchases over the years, spurning the offerings of Frexinet because of the poisonous political attitude of the owner and questioning a few of the other brands because of their suspect right wing leanings, I have learned to love Catalan Cava.  And apart from the cheaper and sweeter varieties I have never been known to leave a bottle half drunk.

But now I realize that the time has come to take stock and to consider what this not-empty bottle left in the kitchen might mean.  

I could, I suppose, assume that leaving alcoholic liquid that I don't really need to consume is a sign (at last) that I am getting to the age of discretion.  Or it could mean that the pain in the lower back is not muscular, but rather my tired kidneys calling out for respite!

Whatever the analysis might bring up, it remains as an indisputable fact that I did leave a bottle of Cava with some drinkable Cava inside!

Or could it be the start of a trend?  My suit was tight so I do need to lose weight; cutting down on my lunchtime red wine might be one way of doing it.  

Or it could be a flash in the pan and this disgrace will not be repeated.  We shall see.

Meanwhile I am dog tired and I feel that putting my watch to charge counts as housekeeping.

Time to think about a snooze and perhaps I will feel and think differently after some of the recent sleep deprivation losses have been partially made up.