Getaway Gotaway: It's funny how we celebrate birthdays throughout our lives with a large amount of glee, as if the passing decades are an achievement. But when we reach 60, it's not quite the milestone we envisaged, because all of a sudden in the eyes of the world we have become old.
60 always sounded old, and people who had reached that age always looked old; as if that sixth decade brought with it an overnight wrinkly appearance, and a different outlook upon the world.
Well, no, it didn't. It was just another birthday, which was spent with Mrs B on the Canary Island of Fuerteventura for seven whole days in which we had no more to think about than which restaurant we would be eating our next belly-buster meal, and doing nothing whatsoever other than soaking up the sun.
So it was idyllic, it passed too quickly, but had the desired effect in that we could switch off the world and just enjoy one another's company. And we still do, after 40 years together, 38 of them married - which will be another milestone, rather than a loadstone, for the not too distant future.