My mother lived to 97, and her mother before her achieved the same score. Both were pretty dotty by the end, though Grandma lasted somewhat longer with her marbles intact. She was born when Queen Victoria was on the throne, my mother was born in 1909. When they were young health care was a luxury and was certainly not something either of them could afford. My grandmother worked as a nurse until she was well ovver 70- the last 5 years caring for ‘two poor old men who have nobody’ who were both younger than she. She played badminton into her seventies and went on travelling well past then.

My mother didn’t do too much at all with her life, though she did have three marriages and a fairly serious fourth relationship. There was no question at all about her best points – she was a man-trap, even when very old and wrinkly. We’d take her in her wheelchair to a pub, dressed in the clothes she has thrown dinner down, and she’s still have some strange man buy her a drink!

I believe I may be more like my grandmother than my mother. I love travel, particularly enjoying travelling alone, and cannot be bothered with waiting for someone else to buy me a drink. To be honest, I cannot be bothered with drinking most alcoholic drinks, although I do like a bottle of cider occasionally. If I were to spend money on drinking and smoking I would not be able to afford to travel. And travelling is what I love doing.

That’s not to say that I haven’t other passions. I love making and decorating dolls’ houses. I love going to the theatre and I really enjoy directing amateur shows, making stage costumes, and, when they let me, performing. I love a good sing – it’s the best thing ever to sing in a great big chorus or even bigger choir. I like reading and have recently discovered, no rediscovered my joy of writing. I still write poetry, some of it quite presentable, and I have just started a novel.

I expect to live to be very old, so I need a lot of things to keep me interested. The whole world is about big enough for that. There are so many places I have not yet visited, and I want to see them all. This year it’s the total eclipse of the sun in the South China Sea. Next year I want to go to South America, or maybe South Africa. Oh, and I forgot – must do at least one long train journey in Europe this year. I’ll have to fit it in between shows, one in February, another in July, and a further one planned for February 2009, but I’m sure I’ll find time.

It’s harder to get travel insurance as you grow older (I don’t really understand that – if you’re still wanting to travel at eighty then it probably suggests you aren’t a poor ailing thing) but I have managed to find a bank account which has a few perks, one of which is travel insurance until I am 79 without upping the premiums. So there are a few years yet that I can afford to go where I like. And by the time I reach 79 I think the insurance companies will have been forced to adapt their policies to accommodate the fact that people are living to greater and greater ages. It’s fairly commonplace now for people to live into their nineties and more and more are making the century. Now, me, I’m going for 120, OK? Wanna fight me for it?