I'm over 10 years older than you, but would still balk at being called "middle aged".

Age is only a number. I'm currently in the middle of a teaching degree. Back at Uni after 25 years and loving it. I've just got back from 4 weeks in Vietnam, helping with a school expedition. From there, I came straight up to to Scotland to work in an outdoor centre until term starts again.

I'm fitter, happier, more productive (sounds familiar...) than at any other time of my life. I went on the Vietnam trip with 3 days notice, just dropped everything & made it happen.
I can run 10K in 45 minutes; cycle off-road all day; ski black runs. I climb frozen Norwegian waterfalls and big rock faces in all weathers. This year I walked 200 miles though North West Scotland in 2 weeks and did every mountain peak in Wales in 17 hours.

Sorry, bragging bit there. Of course, I realise none of this would get me into the "right" bars and clubs. Imagine my disappointment.

At work, there are five of us who would have been in the same year at school. In the context of the ageing process, we all look different: doubtless it will even out with time, should we make it to real old age together.

In terms of the psychology of ageing, I really can't speak for the others but as a much younger man I would never have dreamed that being early 50s would ever feel like this. And I mean that in a very, very good way.

I was moaning about that 'new' Bernie Clifton bloke replacing Don Maclean on Crackerjack when I was about twelve years old.

it was pouring in the afternoon so I decided to wait out the weather in the cinema, I purchased a ticket and when I found out the price I said "Five dollars!" in what was an "Is that all?" tone and the (not young) lady behind the counter misread me completely and said "Do you have your senior citizens card with you?" and I said "What?" and she said "We can give you a discount."

At the time I was a not happy 47yo.

and I'm now 54.

I have been told something tonight that has aged me. Relax. In a good way.

My younger daughter came over to Manchester with her boyfriend and his parents. They were having a night out at the greyhound racing. Never managed to catch the buggers but... where was I? Oh yes, They invited me along. Perhaps they mistook my accountancy qualification for that of turf accountant. Or maybe it was to thank me for minding my grandpuppies for a week when they go off to Greece in a few days.

In a quiet moment at the bar her boyfriend revealed he is planning to propose to her and did I approve. Of course. But. That's my little girl. O.M.G. Flip.

In words taken from the great ELP songbook, "someone get me a ladder!"

Sssh. It's not official yet.

Twenty years older than the original poster and I don't feel it.
Apart from not playing sport any more I still indulge in most of the activities that I enjoyed 10,20 and 30 years ago. Still love my music and still eager to find new bands on which to spend my money, Embrace new technology with both arms. Others who I know and who are the same age have been middle aged since a very early age. It's how you feel and how you act that determines your age not the random year in which you were born

joyous combination of Ebeneezer Scrooge, Albert Steptoe and Alf Garnett is when I'm in the company of my friend Paola's daughter Shani. Quite often she will say something or behave in a certain way and inadvertently stir in me a long-forgotten memory of a childhood that most of the time seems so distant that it might as well have been experienced by someone else.

This gentleman, who looks remarkably - but in a good way - like a Bond villain, is the architect Norman Foster. He's survived cancer. He's survived a heart attack. And he still does a cross-country-skiing marathon every year.

He's 76.

Do you remember Lord Hailsham when was Thatcher's Lord Chancellor thirty years ago - all stooped, wispy-haired, gouty-legged and rheumy-eyed? He was younger than that.

Whilst I don't think 36 or 48 is old (I'm 40), I wonder when it is that the memory starts to go?

I can give a "for instance". That lead singer of that band that was popular in the mid 90's... do you remember his name? I just had it with Placebo - I could not remember that guy's name. I knew I knew it 10 years ago though.

That, more than creaky knees or advancing rotundity, is what scares me about getting old!

I agree with the other posters who say that getting this old doesn't feel as bad as we feared... but heck, I've not looked at the Singles charts for 5 years, and I never thought that would happen.

that a man should look 30 years younger than his scrotum. But for the life in me I can't remember where I read it.

Some things you can do to defy age:
- Stay fit.
- Choose the right clothes. It doesn't mean dress like a teenager, but some things look good on anyone between 30 and 80. A little touch of flamboyance can work wonders.
- Always be ready to watch/read/listen to something different.
- Avoid right wing newspapers. Nothing ages someone more than reading the Daily Mail.
- Avoid talking to people about things you remember from your childhood. If you admit to having watched Bill and Ben, Top Cat or Huckleberry Hound you've had it.
- If anybody mentions pounds, shillings and pence, express complete ignorance of the subject.
- If anybody mentions The Old Grey Whistle Test, ask "What's that?"
- Just lie.

49 years old, have three kids under the age of 10 and don't feel a day over 72.

I'm am mere days away from 40, 3 kids so a pretty restrained lifestyle. As a result, I really value that night out I get every week or two and as a result am starting to thoroughly resent a lot of my friends socialising habits (same old dreary old boys boozers, strictly no music and the fewer young people, particularly ladies, the better). A lot of them regard me with a strange awe because I regularly go to gigs, as if I am breaking some kind of ageist omerta. If there was ever a low watermark for hedonism, there it is. Bottom line is that as you age, you should insert some frivolity into your life. Do something daft now and then - there is enough dour repetition in any of our lives. Otherwise, you are just circling the drain....

It's watching my parents age. I'll be 40 later this year and have barely given it a thought, but my dad is 75 and my mum 69, and it is harrowing to think that they will not be around forever for me and the kids. The last couple of Christmases we were about to book remote holidays when the though occurred that we would be lucky to get another 10 chances to share Christmas with both of them, so we'd better make the most of it. If he lives to 90 he'll see my eldest son turn 21.

Then again my neighbor Frank is 95, lives on his own in a cottage and has transformed the surrounding sub-tropical jungle (lantana mostly) into a cottage garden.