Advancing Years and Noisy Neighbours

I really don't have the energy to try and write anything too complicated today.  For one thing, I've been having increasing problems in actually sleeping at night.  Which isn't necessarily a problem, as these days I can sleep during the day, (although these seriously disrupted sleep patterns bring their own problems).  Except that today, I couldn't, due to the racket being made by the idiots supposedly renovating a house down the terrace.  From well before nine o'clock this morning, it sounded as if they were throwing stuff into the garden and smashing it up - all as loudly as possible.  (I didn't go out to see what was actually going on as I feared that I'd end up shouting and arguing with the anti-social bastards, which wouldn't have been good for my blood pressure).  This went on all morning, preventing me from catching up with my sleep - I did eventually catch a couple of hours this afternoon, but I was left feeling completely shattered.  The other reason for my posting lethargy is the fact that today was my birthday.  Not that I bother celebrating it as such - I'm too old for that - but it is a day when I'm as idle as possible.  Unfortunately, due to the events already described, I was unable even to enjoy my customary celebratory idleness.  I was too tired even to settle down to watch a series of low rent exploitation films, (my favourite way of idling away my birthday).

Despite the advancing years, I still don't feel particularly aged.  Mind you, others seem to think differently: yesterday I had through my letterbox another invitation to sell my house and move to a new, totally anonymous, retirement flat.  Worse still, it was accompanied by another piece of junk mail about planning my funeral.  For fuck's sake - I haven't even started drawing a pension yet!  I've still got some way to go yet before I qualify as an OAP.  (Although I do have a couple of work pensions from previous jobs which will start paying out next year).  A couple of weeks ago I had one of those jarring experiences where someone younger seemed to think that I was old and confused and in need of their assistance, (I wasn't, I was merely trying to shake all of the junk mail out of a copy of The Guardian in Tesco, before I bought it).  I refrained from telling them to 'fuck off you patronising cunt' and simply stared them out, instead.  I really don't know where they were coming from - I don't look particularly old.  Sure, my hair is thinned with more grey encroaching these days, but they couldn't have judged me from that as I was wearing a hat at the time.  Unfortunately, though, the young have this idea that anyone more than a couple of years older than them is Methuselah.  Teenage girls are the worst - I once overheard one describing me as an 'old person' simply because I wasn't walking as quickly as them.  (One thing age does teach one, I've found, is to slow down a bit and actually enjoy the world around you).  Obviously, all of this has left me deeply taumatised to the extent that I'll have to retreat to the parlour, put on my dressing gown and slippers and settle down with a hot cup of cocoa to watch an episode of Midsomer Murders...