OAP. What a hideous 3-legged IKEA stool of an acronym. Admittedly there are more sinister examples: CIA, KGB, PDA and so on ad infinitum. But really, OAP - WTF? How is it possible for a simple group of three letters to be so redolent of the whiff of sour milk, the despair of abandoned dreams, the cruel vista of the care home day room? These thoughts occupy me as I make my way to Roath Park Lake on this momentous morning when I have first received a pension payment from HMG’s DWP – OMG! Once I would have queued in the post office (remember the GPO? Ask Mrs. Thatcher when you see her in hell) and received crisp notes and clinking coins (LSD – no not that one), but now I merely see a new entry on the credit side of my banking app. Thus romance dies.

Does aging have any advantages? There is perhaps one - often seen as a curse, but here re-tooled as a positive. Age brings a certain invisibility which can be markedly useful on occasions when it would be helpful to pass under the radar. For example (EG) just this morning I slipped unknown into the mini-mart and, screened by a posse of vaping teens with loud opinions of no apparent import (LOL), I purloined a tuna sandwich from the large noisy fridge at the rear of the shop. Buying a newspaper as I passed before the proprietor (I’m not an animal BTW) I made off with my ill-gotten snack.

However my motive for this shoddy minor criminal act wasn’t entirely selfish, FYI; I had a lakeside rendezvous to look forward to. This was a casual encounter, no specific ETA, free of the affliction of FOMO. Occupying my favourite memorial bench (Iestyn Prytherch, RIP – I didn’t know him TBH). I idly leaf through the preposterous Western Mail, reminiscing about the lost age of the personal ad (SWF seeks GSOH), inevitably replaced by the stark brutality of the dating app, filled to the binary brim with NSFW communications of the grisliest variety. If it’s not TMI, I’m pleased to say that none of these romantic avenues feature in my daily life, being, as the vernacular has it, ‘spoken for’. Definitively, IIRC.

SMH at my own (age-related?) mental ramblings, I push on towards the morning’s desired outcome. Avoiding the temptations of Mr. Softee, I head past the end of the promenade. Stopping for a moment to share the POV of an elderly pike fisherman, he confesses that he is in fact supposed to be WFH but as his WLAN is down, who could blame him for a little piscatorial peccadillo?

Approaching the mid-way point of the lake, I feel a slight frisson as the object of my quest comes into view, and taking the sandwich from my pocket, tear off morsels of bread and throw them gently to a handsome pair of mallards. Finally turning away, I mutter under my breath ‘TTYL’ and head for home.