50

Prompted by Deb Turtle I’m telling the (blog) world that its my birthday on Saturday and I’m going to be 50. There will a a visit to the pandas with family, cake, bubbles and presents – photos next week.

It actually feel less of a threshold than 40 did.  When I turned 40 I was aware of the idea of life changes at 40 and several of my friends had made big changes (marriage, divorce, change of career, moving country) within 18 months of their 40th birthday.  I changed career too.  At 45 the only change was that the NZ government starts to subsidise medication costs for the over 45s and less I did see the doctor a lot more that year.  And the only official sign of turning 50 so far is a notification that I will receive a bowel cancer testing kit soon. 

And the 50 specific cards in the shops are not exactly inspiring.  A friend in NZ confessed to having missed the post with a card and asked me to buy myself a card with a ‘I’m 50 badge’.  Well I dutifully had a look and two local shops were sold out (!!) and the one I saw in another shop was dull. 

After some consultation across the world I did this – always useful to have foam stickers on hand.