I knocked 10 YEARS off my age

When Jane Gordon suffered a car accident at 66, it made her address the ageing process

It is exactly two years since I last walked through the doors of the gym that had been such an important part of my life pre-COVID-19, and I am suffering from mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I am excited to finally be back in the boxing classes that I enjoy so much, and that are so good for both my mental and physical health. But on the other, I still have a lingering sense of, well, COVID-19 unease, which has left me - and so many people of a similar age - hesitant to fully embrace the fact that we can now go about our lives as we used to, without the fear that has kept us in a state of virtual hibernation since March 2020.

Today, though, the clouds have parted to let in a little sunlight. There are daffodils rising in my garden and I have decided to get back to the challenges I set myself in 2019, which were designed to strengthen my body and sharpen my brain in an attempt to hold back time.

'I took up a language, learnt to draw, to meditate...'

What motivated my quest to take control of the ageing process back then wasn't some silly fad prompted by weight gain or the number of times I lost my keys. No, rather it was a dramatic near-death a experience in a car crash that made me sit up in hospital (when I was actually able to without the help of a nurse) and realise what it might be like to be old and infirm.

Because until that fateful accident, I had been totally oblivious of the ageing process. Old' I thought, was never going to happen to me. As a result of my age-denial, I had totally failed to take care of myself I didn't exercise, I drank more than the recommended 14 units per week, and I ate a diet that would be fine for a 15-year-old, but was unwise for anyone over 50.