For the last year or two, there has been a steady stream of
fiftieth birthdays amongst my friends.
Bravely we have celebrated and reassured one another of our maturity and
experience.
Even so, when I hear of somebody turning eighteen I breathe
a sigh of quiet envy. They are standing
on the dewy brink of life with a thousand possibilities shimmering before them.
Only now, just for the next month or so, I can find it in my
heart to sympathise with those of Perran and Carenza’s friends marking their
eighteenth birthdays. The exam period is
upon us. A2s start the week after next,
but re-takes of AS exams are with us now. Even the more last-minute students
are beginning to buckle down now – not a conducive atmosphere for birthday dancin’
and drinkin’. Presumably, for the
unfortunates who are just turning eighteen, their sixteenth birthdays clashed
with GSEs and their seventeenth with ASs.
My compassion though has narrow limits – guys, hold on to
the fact that once the exams are finally over you and all your friends will
have boundless and unsurpassed celebrations stretching into the blazing blue
summer. You will only be eighteen once,
and it is this summer, your summer.
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