It’s taken 42 years, but I’ve finally got a hammock slung in my yard; a cool and comfortable one, under a tree, where I can kick back, have a beer and ruminate / sleep / watch porn and play games on my mobile phone…whatever blows my receding hairline back. The point is it’s my space (until the kids invade).

Since getting this little luxury sorted I’ve spent some time reflecting on life, as you do with a two beer glow and some time on your hands. I’ve been checking off my history of loves, hates and vices through my life – everything from women, food, booze and narcotics to music, fashion and my on and off again flirtations with olives and anchovies.

It seems I’ve lived my life in 5 year chunks, and when slipping from one chunk to the next some or all of the loves, hates and vices flick over to a new set.

The summary goes something like:

15 – 20: It was blondes, spirits, dope and ecstasy, house music and trance, and I wouldn’t touch an olive or anchovies if my life depended on it.

20 – 25: blondes and brunettes, and to be honest any university chick that would fall for the lines, started drinking beer (mass market and cheap), ecstacy and the odd bit of coke and acid, house more than trance and still a violent dislike of olives and anchovies.

25 – 40: a whirlwind of change and stagnation which I won’t bore you with but on the female front it must have been brunettes as I came out of this period in love with and married to one…and able to nail a bowl of olives mixed with anchovies in 30 seconds.

But now I’m in the thick of the 40 – 47 episode of my life and things have swung. I can handle most of the upheaval but the one that’s thrown me is ‘out of nowhere, totally uncontrollable ‘thing’ for redheads. And I’m not only talking about the dark skinned, green-eyed type, it flows to the ghostly pale, freckled sorts and the skinny vegan ones who look like they’ve grown on a willow tree by a fast flowing stream…you know the type…very strange.

There’s more to come…I’m sure.