The Young Ones

If you haven't seen this TV programme you really should. It was on tonight and last night, and the last part is tomorrow. It follows what happens when a group of elderly celebrities go back to a time when they were in their prime, 1975. They live together in a house decked out in 1975, eat food they would have eaten 1975 and do activities they did in 1975. The scientific theory (yes actually a Harvard study was done) is that if they go back to a time when they could do everything then, even though they are 35 years older, they will think themselves young again and surprise themselves with the things they thought they weren't able to do.

In the programme you see them able to do things they thought they couldn't, and you see them come alive again when they are tasked with doing something they love. So we see Lionel Blair at the London Pallendium, Dickie Bird at Lord's and Liz Smith painting. The effect it has on them is amazing. In tonight's programme, a group of carers were brought in and it was fascinating to see how they reacted to them. (You can see the final programme BBC1 Thursday 16th September at 9.00pm. And all three on the iPlayer here.)

A lot of what they show and suggest for ways of keeping a 'youthful spirit' are things my grandpa would have done. He cut the grass until he was in his 90s which kept him active, he looked after our cat Dusty who gave him companionship, and more or less til the end he was in charge of what he ate because he went shopping at Tesco, which kept him in charge of decisions.

It's an interesting programme for me though in more ways than this though. I thought I might have been having some sort of mid-life crisis. Why? Well this is why.





















Karen Marathon said I was like a roller skating ninja. I like that description.

See, it's not a crisis to go back to the late 1980s and have roller boots again. Oh no, I'm just going back to a time when I could roller skate to see if I still can. I can and it's super fun!

The truth is Lynsey and Caroline got a pair each and I was not hard to convince into getting some too. Turns out there's loads of places you can get them online nowadays. Who knew?! Lynsey and I went out again on Sunday morning along the sea front. Honestly, you would have thought we were in Santa Monica. The sun was shining, we were right by the sea and we had our sunglasses on. Hollywood! All that was missing was the Bodyform dog. Might get one of those too. Well that study did say it's good to have companionship.

Plus the girl in those ads had a really good speed built up with the dog pulling her.