For all the signs of my impending mortality, I'm a long way yet from a pine box

I am, officially, fifty (and five days). That, apparently, is the bad news, although I can't help feeling that I'm still a long way away from a pipe and slippers (the fact that I don't smoke is probably a factor, and as for slippers... why?).

Luckily, my health is generally good, although it would be nice to shift the persistent, hacking cough that has bedevilled me for the past two or three months, and emotionally I feel as though I'm in my mid-thirties. It is only life that keeps reminding me that this might not actually be the case. Surveys ask for my age, my employer sends me documents about my pension and people insist on asking how it went. I'm sure that they really care, but...

Nonetheless, it has been a pleasant few days to mark my occasionally erratic half-century (made off seventy-two deliveries, four fours and a six for the statisticians out there). And yes, I've offered the odd chance but reckon that I've been pretty good value for it.

I took Thursday off, and spent the day riding buses and trains around Suffolk - we have buses, you know... we're very up to date in the East of England. Stowmarket to Bury St Edmnunds via Tostock and Thurston on route 384, on a bus held up by geese on the road at Beyton, followed by route 86 from Bury to Brandon (don't bother, it isn't worth stopping) and then a train to Norwich where lunch was taken, before a quick return to Lowestoft and back and then to Stowmarket for dinner with Ros.

Saturday was a family day, as my families gathered in Norton for lunch. It was nice that my parents and Jamie and Liam (my stepson and nethew respectively) all came from London to join Sally (my stepdaughter), her husband Brij, Ann (my sister-in-law) and Ros and I for good food and lively conversation.

Sunday was the surprise element, and one that Ros kept very well. A cross-county drive brought us to Holy Trinity Church at Long Melford, where a concert of Tudor and Elizabethan music was taking place, one of my recently discovered loves. The Cambridge Renaissance Voices were excellent in a venue that really complements the complex vocal harmonies of the likes of Byrd, Gibbons and Dowland.

All in all, a splendid few days. And now, I have stuff to do - after all, the next half-century has to start somewhere...

And it's goodbye to National Express East Anglia...

Today's news that, in the contest for the new Greater Anglia rail franchise, National Express have failed even to make the final three contenders comes as no great surprise. Their record of axing catering facilities, customer service staff and cleaners whilst presiding over increasing shoddy rolling stock and poor punctuality was always likely to make their chances of retaining the franchise minimal.

And, ironically, they themselves had obviously begun to realise that, with extra cleaners engaged, a new breakfast service launched, and increased frequency of services turning up just as the franchise contest heated up. All too little, too late, it would seem.

A spokesperson for National Express said, "We believe we put forward a very positive and high quality submission building on the significant improvements delivered on National Express East Anglia. We are therefore seeking further clarification from the Department for Transport to explain this decision."

In the words of the East Anglian Daily Times though, "few customers will be shedding tears at the news that National Express East Anglia is to lose the franchise". And for most of us who rely on the railway to get to work, or to start the journey for a holiday, there will be keen interest on who gets to succeed them.

But that's a story for another day, I think...