Birdsong

[smokingboot]

Woke me about an hour ago,  so sweet!

That's a grand way to start the day,  no equal to it in all the world.

Today is the Queen's 90th birthday. There is gush.  'How do you think she keeps going?' was one question I saw on some clickbaity social media thing. Well, I guess being one of the most pampered human beings on earth must help. Give everyone a life in which their wishes are attended to on every level, and everything around them is tailored as much as possible to their tastes, a life in which even disagreement with them is considered anathema and the best doctors and diets are theirs to command, and I think we will discover whole generations of potential nonagenarians who do very nicely thank you.

The Telegraph has the most peculiar timeline of the queen's life http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/16/queens-90th-birthday-when-is-it-and-how-will-it-be-celebrated/ One pushes a little cartoon Queen's head down the timeline and it gets greyer and craggier the older she gets. Someone has thoughtfully added crows feet and furrows along the decades. She'll love that. The logical end would of course, be a crowned skull at the bottom of the page with a question mark. Seriously strange.

Still,the birds are singing, and it's a nice day to be 90. May we all reach such an age and have such a morning for it.

Comments

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

She keeps going because she inherited longevity genes from her mother's side of the family.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

... And excellent diet, the best doctors and a lifestyle immaculately tailored to one's needs all the days of one's life can't exactly hinder the matter...

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

None of that would matter much if you didn't have good genes. 90 is 90.

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Within context, the question had a more general sense of 'How does she keep on looking so great/gadding about/doing stuff etc,' rather than, 'Specifically, how did she reach the age of 90?' I should have added the link for clarity, but I was feeling lazy.

[semyaza.livejournal.com]

I know that's what you meant and my answer remains the same. You couldn't be as active as she appears to be at that age without good genes, lots of stamina, and a great immune system (also genetic) regardless of medical care. If the question had been 'how did she reach the age of 90' then I'd have agreed about medical care. Nursing homes are full of people in their 90s who would have died at much younger ages without modern health care but they can't do what she does.