I was absolutely buzzing! We were off on a week’s holiday. As I was just about to pack at around 10pm, Tim’s phone rang.

I knew the tone immediately. “Oh! Hello Eileen, where?” I heard him say. “They must be ours!”

He was moving towards the door at speed. Those of us within ear shot didn’t need to be told that the conversation was about cows. They had crossed into the wood and out into an estate about a mile down the road.

I grabbed a few head torches and my niece Aoife followed. We drove up and down the road looking for telltale signs. None found, we breathed sighs of relief. Black cows, cars and darkness would not make a good combination. We turned into Woodlands Estate. The first spray of cow dung was visible.

Cartoon by Clyde Delaney.

Tim drove the jeep into the back of the estate and down the narrow laneway that leads to our boundary with the wood. As it narrowed to a trail through the trees, he abandoned the jeep, leaving the headlights on to light his way. He came back telling us some cows were there all right and we should follow behind them while he would call them and take them to another paddock. We could then take the jeep home.

The herd still in the field was roaring loudly wanting to join in the fun. I tried to urge one cow to move. She was curling her tongue around young sycamore leaves and enjoying them immensely. Her herd instinct abandoned, she wasn’t moving until she’d had her fill.

Eventually we got going. We could hear Tim working with Speedy the sheepdog to gather the travellers. Aoife wondered how we would know when to leave. I assured her that we could go once the cows went quiet. We waited in the wood. The moths flitted into our head torch beams and the light glistened on the stream under our feet. Stippled bark was accentuated against the black night and young leaves rustled in the night breeze.

Then there was silence and Aoife and I could go home. It was nearly midnight when we got back and still no packing done! It’s a really bad time of year for a holiday on a dairy farm but our children gifted us a week in Pittsburgh for our big birthdays. The timing was chosen to take in a Garth Brooks concert.

A big birthday

I’m in denial of course. What is it about ageing that makes us want to hide our age?

All one has to do is to look at how beautiful young people are and we can see the reason quite quickly.

Youth has it all; the agility to take the stairs two at a time, the ability to stay out until four in the morning and face into work the next day, to eat late at night and to conjure dreams and build careers that stretch into the future.

When time becomes limited, perspectives change and fulfilling dreams becomes more urgent. Does experience of life make up for our fading youth? Probably not!

What does matter is the amount of things that are ahead. I still want to make a difference within my family, career and society. I guess that’s all up to me and the six and the zero are only numbers. Still I don’t like to see those numbers written down. I prefer the sentiments of the song from Beautiful South:

“Sixty 25th of Decembers

Fifty-nine 4th of Julys

You can’t have too many good times children

You can’t have too many lines

Take a good look at these crows’ feet sitting on the prettiest eyes”

It’s nice to have a bit of mystery around one’s age even if I’m the only one with the mystery. I cannot defy time. Only last year, a gentleman said to Tim: “Come ’ere! We were only saying that you and Katherine must be nearly 60.”

There’s always someone who has sat beside you in school or university. It will always out.

I was born in May 1959. Tim was born in January and we’re off to Pittsburgh for a week to see Garth Brooks in concert. Lots of living to be done!