SO now I know what it is really like getting old. This week I can have a bus pass to travel anywhere. I say anywhere, but obviously, there are rules. The bus pass for us 60-year-olds means we can be a passenger on local services, but we cannot attempt a

SO now I know what it is really like getting old. This week I can have a bus pass to travel anywhere.

I say anywhere, but obviously, there are rules. The bus pass for us 60-year-olds means we can be a passenger on local services, but we cannot attempt a long-distance coach journey.

That seems reasonable.

But there is a worrying aspect to all of this.

First, being of an age to actually qualify for a bus pass means that any thoughts of still being still a youth or even, perhaps, middle-aged, have now disappeared.

This is, I think, the point of no return (unless there is a bus making the journey back).

No longer can I pretend that that the ageing process has stopped. Who knows? This whole discovery of being of a, shall we say, more mature age could lead to things like investing in a walk-in bath and a stair lift.

I hope not.

Every time I decide to take a bus journey it will be an admission that age, at last, has caught up with me.

But there again.

Being someone who is not balding and hardly has a grey hair, I may now run the risk of being questioned over whether I should actually have a bus pass.

Will that mean having to carry a birth certificate and passport everywhere just to prove to a bus driver that I actually qualifying for the scheme?

I know for sure, however, that I will not be making any attempt to break any record to see whether I can cover the whole country just by using a bus pass.

I mean, who in their right mind wants to spend days sitting on a bus?

And, perhaps, even worse, spending endless hours at bus stations. There always seems to be nothing inviting you could say about a bus station. Perhaps I will be proved wrong.

But there really isn't enough time for such an escapade - and I doubt whether there are enough buses anyway.