I have no problem with getting older. While a lot of people dye their hair to cover the grey, I can’t wait to go properly grey so I can stop dying my hair. I mainly dye it because I don’t like the mousey colour it’s become. As a friend recently said to me, growing old is a privilege that not everyone gets.

That doesn’t mean that I necessarily feel my age and I’m not sometimes reminded that I’m not as young as I used to be. Tonight was one such occasion.

After a day of culture, I met Adam for some shopping and a pub crawl. In pub number two, in the heart of Fitzrovia, I heard a customer, who’d just had a load of pizzas delivered, tell the barmaid that he was on a stag do. He commented how most of them were in their mid-30s so it was a chilled stag do rather than a raucous night out. How times change. I’ve heard women talk about having more sedate hen dos but men generally seem to want to go all out for a stag do.

Later we headed to a bar I remember going to many, many years ago. Same name but a very different atmosphere to what I recall. When I commented how I had gone there a while ago, I felt like saying “it was probably before you were born” as the bar staff all looked so incredibly young. I wasn’t made to feel old but when I realised we brought the average age up a bit, I felt old.

The last two pubs on our crawl were more our usual type of haunts – proper old school boozers, without loud music and plenty of seats. We were the last ones standing in the last pub.

As we headed through Piccadilly Circus on the bus towards home, it was clear the night was only just getting started for some. It’s very rare that I get home after midnight these days, but it was only just gone midnight as we unlocked the front door.

Sometimes I miss those nights of dancing and boozing until the wee small hours, but then I remember the hangovers and tiredness for days afterwards. I wanted to make the most of the fact it’s a bank holiday, and therefore we both have two days off work together for a change, but a relaxing pub crawl and heading home at 11pm works for me. I’ve become more of a morning person and I’m looking forward to a mini adventure tomorrow rather than a day feeling sorry for myself.