The day before my distant aunt's 70th birthday, an enormously fat young nurse puffed her way up the tenement stairs to do health checks which were supposed to have kicked in at 65.
When she got her breath back, the nurse asked my aunt if she was getting out every day for a little walk. Auntie refrained from mentioning the tap dancing, hill walking (she'd just done a Munro), aerobics (OK, Over 40s, but trust me those ladies could shift it to music), walking several miles to exercise classes or Scottish Country dancing.
"I swim," said my aunt, through clenched teeth.
"And do you just splash about or do you go to the deep end at all?" asked the nurse, who was having difficulty getting out of her chair.
"Half a mile every day," stated Auntie.
"And do you think you have a good diet? By that I mean...."
Auntie held up her hand. "I know what you mean and yes I do. Fish, vegetables, fruit, dairy...."
They never got as far as the mental tests because the nurse's next question was something like: "Would it be OK for me to see how you manage in the kitchen?"
...I think that nurse went down the tenement steps a lot quicker than she came up them. She was never seen again.
The sad thing is that, 20 years later, Auntie did briefly get dementia while some of her chums who had smoked and overeaten their way into their 90s were as sharp as tacks til their last breaths.
Life's what you make it and the main thing is not to impose difficulties on seniors who have earned the right to decide for themselves what works and what doesn't.
