Fresh fish and garibaldis

I'd like to take a moment to reassure you about a matter concerning our female senior citizens. You could be forgiven for thinking that proper, classic Old Ladies, like the ones you see on telly, don't exist any more. You might think life among the over-70s these days is all pilates and walking the Great Wall Of China and the Open University.

I have had two encounters in the last week that have reminded me this is not the case.

Encounter no 1: It is last Sunday. I am in a small-ish branch of the Co-op, queuing up to pay at a checkout behind a woman who is a good 40 years my senior. I must describe this lady's appearance, since it aces a checklist of elderly-female physical cliches.

Comfortable, heavily worn shoes, bowing outwards, boatlike, in the middle of the foot? Yes.

Plastic see-through rain bonnet, tied beneath the chin? Bien sur.

Bare, mottled legs, despite the month which, by the way, was February? Ja, naturlich.

Those bare legs heavily bandaged around the calf area, in a way that broke your heart a bit? I have run out of languages now, but yes. Basically, yes.

Shapeless mac-style overcoat, that swelled around the top of the back? Yes again.

As we stood next to each other, from the corner of my eye I could see her performing that series of twitches and tics that precedes a stranger striking up a conversation with you. The subtle opening and closing of the mouth that makes up a false start. The looking at my face, looking down at my groceries and looking up at my face again.

Among the healthy and nutritious items in my basket, which collectively showed me to be a woman taking care of her health and aiming to encompass all the major food groups, but relaxed enough to enjoy the odd treat, were some Digestive biscuits (a pure, naked Digestive is so satisfying, don't you think – that lovely wet mulch they make in your mouth...).

'Ooh, where did you find those?' she said, pointing down at my biscuits.

Despite a lifetime of instruction to respect my elders, the sarcasm impulse was extremely strong here. Yet I fought it, as I felt her true goal was chat initiation rather than biscuit retrieval. The biscuits were not hard to track down. It wasn't that I had pressed down hard on a grapefruit in the fresh produce section, whereby the entire shelving unit had swung round, admitting me to a secret chamber where they keep all the fun food.

I mumbled a reply and waved an arm in the direction of the appropriate aisle.

'Oh,' she said. 'Only I fancied some Garibaldis.'

Really?

I mean, honestly? Does anyone EVER genuinely fancy a Garibaldi biscuit? Two slices of barely sweetened cardboard, riddled with currents that cling to your teeth with the tenacity of a cockroach.

I was confused by the logic of the next sentence. It sounded very much like she said she wanted something to do that afternoon while she was listening to 'the play'. I ascertained that this was a play on Radio 4, a new series apparently starting that afternoon. But could she really have been planning to pass the entire half-hour chain-eating Garibaldis? I mean, I've met some elderly people who could really put it away when presented with a free buffet, but still, this seemed unlikely. Perhaps she meant she would eat just a couple, then allow high-quality radio drama to soundtrack the arduous task of removing dried fruit from her molars.

After she'd paid for her shopping, I watched her putting her purse away in a pocket that seemed less than secure, then struggle to divide her bags between her hands, and seize control of a complicated stick-slash-crutch that looked more like hassle than help.

Garibaldis, radio plays, rain bonnets, bandages. I left the Co-op feeling as though I had just been to some sort of Senior Citizen Stereotyping Theme Park. Although, in the interests of bursting bubbles, among her shopping was a jar of marinated olives, which seemed slightly racy to me.

Encounter No 2: It is Thursday evening. I have just finished work and I am in the food hall of John Lewis, Oxford Street. Basically, Waitrose. I am looking at the shelves of pre-packed fresh fish. A women comes to stand next to me. Again, elderly, but smarter this time. A long, camel-coloured trench coat and a tiny daffodil in her buttonhole which may have been saluting cancer care, or the nation of Wales. I am ashamed to say I do not know which. There were no false starts to her stranger chat. It was straight in. A kind of stream-of-consciousness babbling of phrases from the old-lady handbook about money and prices and wartime and bringing fish home from the market – among them, this:

'You had bread and a scrape and a bottle of water, and you were in bed before your father got home or you'd get a thump.'

It's possible, of course, she was rehearsing an Alan Bennett monologue.

'And children never used to be obese,' she said. I had to agree with her. I don't know why I'm surprised about that. I'm nearly 40, that kind of thing's only going to happen more and more from now on.

But as she chattered away, only requiring the most occasional nod or non-committal 'mmm' from me to carry on, I'm sad to say I began to look for an escape, my eyes darting around, then alighting on a display somewhere across the shop, which I simply had to visit for a reason I would think up on my way over there.

Neither of these encounters gave me a thrill of inter-generational bridge-building or elderly-eccentrics I-Spy. They made me think, 'If you reckon things are hard now, they're only going to get harder.'

'I have confidence that spring will come again...'

This weekend I embarked on the Miss Jones Legends Tour Summer 10. Stay your eager credit cards, though. This does not involve me renting the London Palladium and performing the highlights from my 36-year career of singing along to the stereo equipment of the time. [Set list: The Kids From Fame songbook, pre-1983 Disney favourites, Abba's The Name Of The Game, encoring with I've Never Been To Me; merchandise: tapestry kit where you can sew my face in wool, bracelet featuring the legend WWMJD? (What Would Miss Jones Do? Answer: nothing for as long as possible, then something will probably happen anyway to bring about a resolution.)]

No, I am in the audience, saluting various of my heroes, clapping vehemently, wiping away mascara-streaked tears of music-prompted emotion and thinking uncharitable thoughts about whoever is sitting next me when that person is not a close friend/family member.

So, Saturday:

Julie Andrews.

More specifically:

An Evening With Julie Andrews.

As you may know if you have read any papers over the last couple of days, this differentiation is kind of a big deal to some people.

My concert companion Ms H and I are big fans of L'Andrews. We have done the Sound Of Music tour in Salzburg. You haven't truly breached the barriers of global understanding until you have spent two hours singing along to The Lonely Goatherd with a multi-national group of strangers in a minibus. Look, here is Ms H recreating the classic Doh-Re-Mi sequence on the ACTUAL REAL STEPS. (You may, at this point, notice that I have learned some Photoshop skills other than 'Crop' and 'Save As'.)

So we were sufficiently au fait with the Julie Andrews back story to know that she would not be swooping up and down the octaves like a swallow with the head of Mariah Carey. Or the head of Julie Andrews in 1965. Also, Dame Julie is 74. Her voice was broken some time ago and, as a result of this, reportedly, so was her heart. Just as well she would be performing this rare UK concert in an intimate, atmospheric place, with the support of a small and friendly crowd:

Oh shit.

You would think that if you cared enough about Julie Andrews to stump up the ludicrous ticket price, you would know that a three-hour feat of vocal endurance and regular towelling-downs was not on the cards. And even given that, it seems that some people find it hard to be as tirelessly compassionate as me and Ms H. The likes of Angelina Jolie and Eddie Izzard are often bothering us with phone calls and emails asking how it is we can give, give and then give a little bit more. Emotionally, of course. Not financially. We've spent all our money on Julie Andrews tickets.

So we were full of love and care for the Julie Andrews Experience (they totally should have called it that), however compromised. I'm a sap at the best of times, which is why I spent two hours on Sunday afternoon watching A Cinderella Story starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray.

It was a strange evening, obviously. Unlikely song choices, bizarre vanity-project-meets-school-assembly storytelling. But also JA sitting on a stool, in shadow, listening to other people on her stage, singing her songs, because she can't, breaking your heart so it almost matched hers. And occasionally venturing a whole song for herself, slaying you with her sincerity and soul on My Funny Valentine.

So why did Dame Julie rent the O2 arena and make an attempt at late-onset career suicide? I don't know. I don't know everything, although this news may rock some of you to your very foundations. If you believe some of the FURIOUS and DISAPPOINTED and ROBBED concert-goers, it was to rake in great big treasure chests of lovely golden cash for her retirement fund. If you believe me (let's remember: a sap), she's trying to grab a little bit back of what was taken away from her, in the only way she can. That way is a little eccentric, yes, but most 74-year-olds are a little eccentric, and spending an evening with many of them would probably entail listening to them read out sections of The Daily Mail. Of course, some of the FURIOUS and DISAPPOINTED and ROBBED concert-goers would probably think that was kind of a good time.

The first rule of Puzzle Club: bring a rug, it gets chilly

Sometimes, I work in Wapping. At lunchtime in Wapping, your 'Things To Do' options hover somewhere between 'few' and 'limited'. This is why I often find myself in the St Katherine's Dock branch of Starbucks, reading an improving book or gazing out of the window, wondering what all the Bits – you can only really call them Bits – are that are floating in the water outside. During a recent lunch hour, I saw two older women at a nearby table, each doing puzzles from a newspaper. Here they are, in some superhero capes I drew on them, to represent their tireless and unswerving commitment to puzzling.

So there they were, riverside Rosemary and Thyme, one with the Express, I'm not sure about the other, maybe the Mail. Not talking, just puzzling in companionable silence. No "7 Across is a stinker today, Barbara"; no "Medieval instrument, 4 letters, something E something something. Any brainwaves?" Just quiet contemplation.

How nice to be with someone and not have to make conversation the whole time, as Harry says – or some variation of it – to Sally.

I am making a presumption, of course. It is possible that this was not the silence of contentment and friendship, but of steely competition. Of training.

Getting old is frightening. How long will you have your friends and loved ones around you? And how long will you have your faculties around you? And if you start to lose your mind, what can you do about it?

Not much, perhaps, but if you believe that keeping an active, engaged, exercised brain could make the difference between remembering the names of your children and not, you would probably go about pursuing the goal of cerebral fitness with the ardor of a person a third of your age.

Imagine if one of your pension-powered contemporaries started up some kind of subterranean puzzle club where, on a regular basis, you could compete in an aggressive, unflinching battle of wits, in a bid to keep your grey matter less, well, grey.

The stakes are high – your independence, your enduring powers of cognitive thought. This is why competition is conducted at the very highest level, and the secrecy of the location must be guarded by darkest oath. The last thing you want is someone who's proud of a half-completed G2 sudoku stumbling in to try their luck and wasting everyone's time. No one in that place has time to waste, and things would soon turn ugly.

Even if you should find them – if you follow the scent of freshly sharpened pencils, lavender and muscle rub like a bloodhound – you must say the password and answer a cryptic clue from the Times crossword in order to gain entry to their hideout.

Inside, a rickety table. Two comfortable chairs in a tiny carpeted arena, dingily lit by a flocked standard lamp. Maybe a footrest. A plastic magnifying sheet on a chain cast to the floor in triumph or bitterest frustration.

Maybe, post-bout, you might see an exhausted puzzler slumped in one of the chairs in a padded dressing gown, feverish with mental exertion, while their mentor pours weak orange squash over their head to cool them down - or warm-ish tea on a chillier day. You lose a lot of heat through your head. There's a constant low-level buzz – of battery-operated medical aids, and people murmuring the names of the canals of the British Isles under their breath.

Then, perhaps, there's a hush. The crowd part in reverence as the Wordsearch WarMachine shuffles into the arena. He is utterly fearless, even in the face of backwards diagonals, which everyone knows are the hardest.

If, like me, you enjoy a puzzle, you might be encouraged to 'age up', to infiltrate the competition, purely for the joy of puzzling. But you would soon get caught out when the sweat of intellectual endeavour causes the 'wrinkles' you've drawn on to your naturally lineless face with an eyeliner pencil to start running down your face. Or you lean back in relief at having completed a Codeword, only to leave a tell-tale silhouette of talcum powder on the headrest of the chair. It would be wrong to suggest you would be strong-armed out of there – there aren't many strong arms at Puzzle Club – but you might be jabbed in the thorax with a walking stick, or chased down by a mobility scooter. These people mean business.

Lost Tribes: The Middle-Aged Women of M&S Marble Arch

If you've recently lost touch with one of your older female relatives, it's entirely likely that they've joined the nomadic, department-wandering women of Marks & Spencer, Marble Arch.

These ladies of a certain age were once innocent shoppers Up West, who were simply Having A Lovely Day In Town, until they wandered into the gilded palace of scones and were seduced by the cosy nightwear, comfortable shoes and extremely competitive basement coffee shop. Soon it was apparent that their every sensory need was being met somewere across the marbled floors of Marble Arch branch and they just never left. Meanwhile, in houses across the capital and the Home Counties, there are lone men opening and closing the fridge door absent-mindedly, dimly aware that something is missing.

I had this revelation as I was trying on shoes at lunchtime today. I was taking a walk around the second floor in some new heels and thinking 'Mm, these are quite comfortable' (of course they are, you idiot. It is only when you leave the shop that the spell is broken and the Grinding Cogs of Screaming Shoe Pain begin to turn) when I saw a mature lady sitting on the edge of a mannequin plinth, watching me intently. I smiled at her in a non-hostile way and eventually she smiled back. Ten minutes later, I walked back in a different pair of shoes and she was still there in exactly the same place and I realised, that is because she has been here for 18 years.

These women can be found roaming the floors day and night, pushing trolleys full of Useful Things and Lovely Treats that they've collected, like Bubbles from The Wire, with hair that is actually not dissimilar (albeit tonged and backcombed, not natural). Some members of the species live in isolation within the colony. Others prowl the aisles in groups of three or four, picking over racks of scarves and sniffing at foam bath like monkeys investigating an exotic piece of fruit, or calling out orders to meet at handbags in 20 minutes. They never sleep and they live off ham and fruitcake that they've scavenged from the food hall while the security guards are distracted.

They speak in many tongues, but they are generally friendly, if initially startling. While you are in front of a mirror, distractedly looking at your feet in grey patent sandals with a gold heel, and bemoaning the Curse Of Meaty Calves that has been visited upon you, you may hear an exotic call aimed at you from 15 metres away: 'TOO BEEEG, DARRRRLING. ONE HALF SIZE DOWN!' And you realise they are reaching out to you. It's exciting, of course, to find that you are communicating with them, but as they come closer and fully engage you in conversation, you start to edge away, realising that you're not like them, you're young and you belong in Selfridge's next door, with its exclusive perfumes and dangerous fashions and champagne bar. Don't you? And you turn and run away through smart trousers and umbrellas and slippers you will never wear, and they stare after you, thinking, 'You'll be back. And one day you'll be staying. You'd better like teacakes.'

What I learnt from a weekend spent in Suffolk's seaside towns

If you've reached the age where your hair is greying and unequivocally in retreat, where people react to the sight of you in revealing swimming attire much as they would to seeing a public marriage proposal being declined, yet you have a Someone to go the beach with in matching-but-different towelling robes, Someone to look out at the endless sea with in quiet contemplation of the unfathomable scale of Things and your ever-diminishing role in them, Someone with whom to wonder what happened to all that stuff you once planned to get round to, Someone to wait patiently for you to meticulously tuck your hair into a see-through shower cap, before you take your regular constitutional swim together…

…well, then I would say that you were doing pretty OK.

Out with the old

I'm reaching the end of a marathon work stint in the Wapping compound. I say marathon. It is nine weeks. But everyone knows that one freelance week is roughly equivalent to five years of permanently employed service. So I will be expecting at least an engraved Parker Pen on my departure on Friday, not to mention a lukewarm and resentfully attended sparkling wine/cocktail sausage desk buffet.

Will I miss newspaper publishing's very own open prison? I certainly won't miss my computer, where the time delay between my fingers hitting the keys in pursuit of email composition – which I like to do a lot, and fast – and the words appearing on the screen is so slow and bunched up I perpetually feel like it's 1980 and I'm typing on the Grandstand videprinter.

I will, however, miss the nearby Waitrose coffee shop, which has been my only true friend during this difficult time. Today, to heighten my looming sense of separation anxiety, the till operative gave me two free chocolates with my tea. Two! One is a customer courtesy; two is kind of a big deal. In reality, I'm fairly sure it was a result of the eyeroll we shared over the hugely rude SmugMum who had been served just ahead of me.

Lately, I have noticed on several occasions the same elderly man having a cup of tea and taking in the papers of a lunchtime. A few days ago, he was sitting next to me on a high-stools/high-table-along-the-window arrangement, making truly the most phenomenal amount of noise eating an oatcake, which he had brought in from home wrapped in kitchen roll. It was a symphony in sucking and mastication, performed with the mouth. You would not have thought that much moisture could be extracted from an oatcake, but good lord, he was a terrier about it.

Ordinarily, I could not have stood for this feat of noisy eating. There would have been, on my part, geriatricide; on his, no more eating of oatcakes. If there was not actual murder taking place, the Waitrose cafe would have seen at the very least some Olympian tutting, and me sliding off my high stool with clumsy froideur to move somewhere closer to the obliterative roar of the cappuccino machine. But, readers, surprise is a very powerful thing, and my emotional achilles heel is a very weak one, and it is in essence men of a pensionable age sitting on their own in coffee shops. I've said it before, but it is, for me, a 100% sure-fire Random Cry Trigger.

Why was he such a powerful specimen? It probably had a lot to do with his nose, which was Roman, and very much like my grandad's and my dad's and mine, physiognomy fans. But most probably it was his feet, resting uneasily on the bar of the table in front of us, trousers being hoisted up bony flagpole shins by the awkward, forward-sliding posture demanded by the stool. It instantly referred my brain to an image from my younger teenage years that I can't seem to forget – a man being given desperate CPR in the back of an ambulance. I remember two things in particular – the up-and-down arms of the paramedic, engaged in furious chest compressions, and a pair of feet in brown socks and men's sandals dangling lifelessly over the end of the bed. I also remember, as the ambulance pulled away, doors slammed and sirens blaring, my dad saying sadly, and almost under his breath, 'Good luck.'

(In today's parentheses of emotional self-indulgence, I wonder a lot if other people are haunted by seeing this happen to my dad, as I am haunted by this image of someone else's loved one slipping away.)

Come back! Bereavement Two Minutes is over. We're back in Waitrose. And I was taking in my cafe neighbour's gardening-tanned hands and wondering if he had a shed, I had an epiphany and it said a) I must remember to buy some milk before I go back to the office, and b) this borderline fetishism of old people and their lifestyle is possibly slightly weird.

What with this, and my nascent friendship with Lambeth Horticultural Society, and in particular the brilliant Valerie (who may actually be 25 for all I know), I have begun to wonder if it might be healthy to try associating with more people of my own age. I put this to Miss W during a multi-faceted email exchange. Diplomatically she did not reply to that particular thread.

More evidence. Another thing I will remember fondly about this job is the extremely hot lawyer who strides through the editorial office on his way from the outside world to his own glass-walled cell, expertly navigating the assault course of shoes and garments laid out on the carpet by the fashion department as they prep for shoots. To the ingenue, these constitute quite the health-and-safety hazard ('Have you had an accident in the workplace? Tripped over an embellished platform stiletto? Skidded on a shimmering parachute silk jumpsuit? Call Fashion Injury Lawyers 4 U' etc). What I find hottest about him is not his many impressive physical attributes but his speaking voice. Today, however, I realised he sounds a lot like Cliff Richard.

In addition, where did I spend my Friday night? Not taking crystal meth at an underground Dalston speakeasy, but blissfully browsing around the Crayford branch of Hobbycraft.

What comes next? A subscription to the Daniel O'Donnell fanclub and fanatical crocheting?

It is a worry.