Wendyl Nissen: Music to age by, volume one

Music has a knack of transporting you back in time to the days of bikinis, pot and first loves. Photo / Thinkstock

The thing about listening to radio stations with words like "classic" or "gold" in their names is that you can be driving along minding your own business and suddenly be back on the beach in your bikini, aged 18 and smoking pot with your first love while listening to George Thorogood.

Music and memory are great friends who link moments in time together, preserving them to be recalled in the future. This usually happens to me when I'm driving, which is why my driving face is often my far-away face.

And at present it is a welcome relief from the negative musings about turning 50 next year.

Recently, however, I found myself singing along to Fleetwood Mac's Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow and realised that when I am 70 and listening to the radio I won't hear some music and think fondly back to the day I was 52 sitting on a beach in my bikini and drinking wine with my husband.

That's because as you get older you just listen to the music you listened to when you were younger because it makes you feel good. There is no music to age to.

"Classical music is timeless," suggested my husband when I put forward my theory that there was a gap in the market for music to age by.

"So everyone over 50 should listen to Bach and Wagner?"

"Well, it wouldn't do them any harm," said the man who turned 50 a while ago.

"Next you'll be telling me to listen to Fat Freddy's Drop," I snorted as I drove off to the optometrist.

Turning 50 may not have a soundtrack, but it certainly has a voice track and it goes something like this: "You are old. You are very old. You are really, very old."

It is a fact that my optometrist is arranging for me to get "occupational" lenses so that I can wander around my house wearing glasses permanently rather than constantly searching for the many pairs of reading glasses I have stashed in easy-to-reach places.

I also own a "Tween Time" stick, which conveniently covers grey regrowth before I get back to my hairdresser for the six-weekly dye job.

I have aches and pains which need nothing more than a decision to pull out a weed or change a light bulb to make themselves known.

I have wrinkles which, no matter how hard I try to tell myself are just laugh lines and signs of a life well-lived, are still deep skin crevices.

I have started forgetting my children's names. Well, not exactly forgetting them but running through a list of all their names before I hit the right one.

And I'll spare you the details of my reproductive system but it's having one hell of a leaving party before it closes its doors for business.

"Growing old is a shipwreck," I announced to my husband, quoting Charles de Gaulle.

"Grow old with me. The best is yet to be," he replied, quoting Robert Browning.

We had both read a Times article about a 64-year-old French psychologist called Marie de Hennezel who advocates accepting what you cannot change. Her advice is to keep learning.

Write poetry, take an interest in the young and spend time with them rather than criticising them and pushing them away.

Oh, and have lots of sex. "It is less about image and more about what you feel," she says.

"I think she makes some good points, though I think most people should knock off the poetry at 16," said my husband, rather predictably.

I am now taking an interest in new music and have appointed Mumford & Sons as the soundtrack for turning 50. I've started doing the Times crossword every day to sharpen my mind so that I remember my kids' names.

I've also made a return to the lunch circuit to keep me interested in people, and recently took out a friend for her 50th birthday.

"How does it feel?" I asked sensitively.

She downed a Bluff oyster and sipped some champagne before answering.

"Okay today," she said. "But check back with me again tomorrow."