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...