Quick as a flash – in fact it takes a lot longer to do simple tasks nowadays

Strange thing about people, they think they will go on forever, doing the things they do and still doing the things they did when they were younger.

When I was younger I could drink till morning at an all night party; I could get behind the wheel of any car from a 1955 Moggie Minor to a Lamborghini (that’s a tale from the Middle East, I’ll tell you about it later) and drive it straight away; even, in my teens, date three girls at the same time and none of them knew about the others.

Of course once I met the love of my life I forgot about fast cars and loose women, well the women at least, I still like fast cars I just can’t hit the same speeds any more.

In my 40s I slowed down a bit, but just to make the time to enjoy life.

Occasionally I would find it took me a littlie bit longer than usual to finish a crossword or complete a book; nor could I stay awake to watch the dawn.

But it was the rats that really brought it home to me that at 73 I could not do what I did at 23, or 33, or even 53.

Disposing of the vermin who had gnawed through cable coverings in my garage workshop, risking a shortcut and an electrical fire, was the least part of the whole rigmarole which left me realising I can definitely not do things as easily I used to.

The repair job consisted of removing a section of cable on the freezer lead and replacing the plug before removing a similarly gnawed piece of cable on the extension lead and replacing the socket.

That should have taken me about five minutes, 10 at a push.

It took me the best part of an hour.

Stripping the insulation back to bare the actual copper wire in the cable ended up with not stripping it far enough or actually cutting off half the wire strands with the insulation.

Then I had to put each wire to its right socket inside the plug and screw it in before reattaching the plug cover and then going through it all again for the extension cord.

Fifty minutes, 50 minutes for a five-minute task.

Over the years I have rewired three houses, two over here and one in Australia. That, of course, was when you were allowed to carry out this task for yourself. Nowadays you need a certificated electrician to change a fuse. Maybe that is taking it a little bit to the extreme but beyond changing a fuse or changing a light bulb you are definitely restricted to DIY at home.

All that rewiring and never a spot of trouble and now it takes me almost an hour to carry out the simplest of tasks.

Ah well, I suppose I’ll just have to take a little bit longer putting up that new fence, after all it has taken about three months so far so I suppose it’ll be Christmas before I get it finished.