I was recently talking to some friends about the fact that I was writing a book about being in our later years, which I have just published. I may have used the word “old.” One woman immediately alerted me to be careful never to use the word…

When my older grandson, now in his teens, was a toddler, he loved to watch me stand on my head, which I had been doing for years in yoga. He tried to copy me, with little success, but I discouraged him in any case as I was told that standing on your head…

People everywhere are fascinated by sex. I am not the first to say so. We wonder what other people do and when and what it means to them. And some wonder how long it continues. When I was in my 20s, I naively thought that sex was only for the young…

You just don’t hear the word very often and it sounds, well, too strong, too technical or perhaps too much ‘off colour’. Is the word ‘vulva’ seen as vulgar because it starts with the same three letters? What if, instead, we associated it with a Swedish car?

A group of older women are talking. One, age 64, suggests she is beginning to feel old. Her friend, age 68, says, “No, not me – I’m not old, I’m even working part-time.” Their friend, age 75, says, “No, me neither. I feel full of energy.” What is going on?

Do you get on with – or even like – your in-laws? All of them? Really? If so, you are a lucky person indeed! We all have in-laws. They come into our lives completely unbidden. Sometimes they are there for a long time. It’s not that they are always awful people…

We all have watershed moments in the course of our lives. Days when, from then on, things become notably different. The day you left home, the day you got married (or moved in together), the day you had your first child – all days signifying…

A lot of people, I find, have a close friend who does not make sense. Someone who just doesn’t ‘fit’ with other aspects of their life, and no one from outside can quite understand why they are friends at all. Such friendships can be especially meaningful…

As your children take that giant step of becoming parents themselves, what do you feel about how they are doing? Some grandmothers are highly impressed with the way their grandchildren are being brought up. Others are disappointed…

By the time you are in your mid-70s and there has been no major health crisis, you know you have been lucky. If you have a spouse (or partner) and ‘you’ means both of you, you know you have been doubly lucky. Now aged 79 and my husband aged 80…