Being 40 and a Successful Evening

I turned 40 last Thursday. There, I've said it. I really didn't want to make a big deal of it and thankfully the day passed with the minimum of fuss. I had been secretly dreading it - I don't know why as most of the people I work with are in their 40's and 50's, some even older. Most are in good health physically and some act as if thy were twenty or thirty years younger.
Being 40 doesn't make me feel much different to how I felt when I was 39. I still have the same aches and pains and I don't gain any sort of additional entitlement having advanced an extra year. I suppose it does give me license to grunt more and to tut at the prices of every day items and food staples. On a brief visit to my parents earlier, I heard my father bemoan the fact that the local newspaper now costs 'thirteen shillings'. This is apparently 65 pence in new money. Oh how I am beginning to sound like him, for I said a similar thing in Asda only the other day to nods of agreement from other shoppers within my new age group.
What makes me feel old is being able to remember when things were cheap and when you went home with a full shopping bag and change from a ten pound note.

Last Friday evening was our Surfing the Waves event - an evening of mental health awareness. In truth the whole thing had been organised by a colleague. We (Blue Skies) were there to promote our activities and exhibit some of our artwork. Attendance was good and the talks well received. I learnt an awful lot about Cannabis, much of it reinforcing my conviction to steer well clear of it. There are conflicting views on whether it aids or worsens mental health conditions and a lot is still unknown. Cannabis is something I have tried once before. All it did for me was to reduce me to fit of giggles which lasted for hours and left me feeling very hungry. We were treated to a talk from one of our local NHS Governors who informed us of the good work being done in Lincolnshire to streamline mental health services. Our host also gave a brief talk for which she can be justly proud. It takes a lot of courage to stand in front of a group of strangers and talk in intimate detail about your struggle with poor mental health.
It was nice to meet some new people too, particularly the SHINE ambassador who, I found out to my utter disbelief, hadn't been informed of Andrew Harrison's passing last year. I was mortified at having been the one to break the news to her and once she had calmed down and composed herself once more, managed to give a good talk about SHINE to the gathered audience.
It was a good evening for Blue Skies also, and we attracted a lot of interest from not just the visiting public but the local press also. Our art display was their main focus of attention and grabbing the largest of our paintings, the photographer insisted we have our photograph taken. I didn't have the heart or the nerve to tell him we hadn't painted it and if anything is said we will claim it is a copy! After all, it isn't signed. As soon as the photo is published, I'll insert it into this post.
Our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/blueskies.lincs has had a few more 'likes' since Friday and a couple of nice comments have appeared.
So for our first evening of mental health awareness, we can certainly claim it a success. Now we've 'done' one, perhaps we should do another later in the year?