As I edge nearer to what I call my mezzo-centenary - basically that birthday - I can't help feeling something like the bends going through my system. All those questions that I'm adamant everyone else, who's butted up to the same age I'm going to be soon, has wracked themselves with, I'm waking up with. All of those "What have I done?, Have I done enough? "Where should I be" anxieties.

The answer when the tremor eventually passes remains the same: I've lived, I continue to. I've done my best. There's been a catalogue of mistakes double sided with an equal amount of successes and much more plain ol' living.

As far as I know nothing changes the instant you surface on the other side of that birthday, it's the same as the day before, slow, continuous evolution. Yet, there's something fetishistic about the whole thing that's impossible to brush aside. Is it all about taking stock? Having a moment to pause? Is that it?