As you get older, Christmas and New Year come around faster and faster. You feel like you’re on a merry-go-round that, with every turn, is spinning at a higher and higher speed. Time passes so quickly, you’d nearly be inclined to leave the yuletide decorations up all year, as it’s hardly worthwhile taking them down.

I’m told the rapid passage of time is a sensation that comes with advancing years. For youngsters, 12 months is an eternity – but for those of us at the far side of 50, a year passes at a pace approaching the speed of light.

As Cantillon says: “Youngsters are like a man with a big belly: what’s in front of him is all that matters. While auld people are like a man with a big arse: what’s behind is all that’s important.”

As a politician, my life is measured in elections – and, in my corner of the political world, elections come once every five years. But even then, I seem to have barely finished one season spent on the doorsteps than I’m in the throes of the next one.

This time of the year, when December becomes fused to January, it makes us think about the passage of time and the fleeting nature of human existence.

I’m facing my 60s and looking at retiring. My friend Pa Quirke calls them the “roaring 60s”. “You’ll spend most of that decade roarin’,” he says, “as doctors, dentists and nurses poke at every orifice, telling you that you shouldn’t feel a thing. They use the word ‘shouldn’t’ advisedly. If they told you that you ‘won’t’ feel a thing, they’d be playin’ loose with the truth.”

With voices like Quirke’s bellowing in my ears, I face my golden years with a certain amount of trepidation. Believe it or believe it not, the Mother and myself got around to talking about these things a few nights ago. There was nothing on the telly, so I made myself a hot toddy, and as soon as I sat down to enjoy it she said she’d fancy a Port.

As we sat there by the fire, we drifted into a review of the year, discussing the locals who died, married, divorced or took a second run at it.

“Do you ever wonder,” says I, “what people out there are sayin’ about us?”

“I don’t have to wonder at all,” said the Mother. “Just because I’m old, people think I’m deaf, and so they talk away about me within earshot.”

“And what are they saying?” I asked.

“Well, I was in a queue at Manus’s shop on Christmas Eve and overheard Madge McInerney and Mary Teddin discussing us in detail, as they waited to be served at the neighbourin’ till.”

“And?”

“According to their diagnosis, I’m ‘flying it’, never looked better, like a two-year-old. However, they said I’ll probably go down quick when whatever happens me will happen. They predicted that you’ll come home some day and find me ‘in a hape’ on the floor.”

“What had they to say about me?”

“Oh, they reckon you’ve eased off on the drink and the wild livin’, but that if you don’t lose a few pound ’tis I’ll be finding you in a hape on the floor.”

“All in all, not a very reassurin’ prognosis,” says I.

“Oh,” says she, “they didn’t finish there. They proceeded to discuss our romantic entanglements. They went through your narrow escape from the clutches of Matilda Greene and predicted she’d have another go at you before 2017 is out.

“God forbid,” says I, “and what about your love life – had they anything to say about that?

“Oh, indeed they did. They were wondering if my ‘fling with the Polish painter’ is still going on.”

“Scandalised by it, I’m sure.”

“Not in the least,” says she, “jealous, if anything. They both agreed I’d be foolish to marry him. They said that at our age a man is like extra veg at the dinner: ’tis nice to have him on the side, but not on the plate.”

“My God,” says I, “this is a revelation. I never thought things like that would be on the minds of those women. I imagined they lived a life borderin’ on the monastic: headscarves, prayer books and the novena to St Anthony.”

“Maurice, you seem to think there’s nothing much to older women except recipes, rosaries and a ball of knittin’.”

I made myself another hot toddy and poured the Mother another glass of Port. ’Twas rare to get her talking like this, and I wanted to make the most of the moment. The Port would help.

“So, they thought I had a narrow escape from the clutches of Matilda Greene?”

“No, they thought she was the one who had the narrow escape.”

Happy New Year!