A few words from Rob Mansfield

The lovely people from Diabetes UK came into our building the other day to raise awareness of the condition.

Their other aim was to promote the fact that you can go to any Lloyds Pharmacy and get a free diabetes test.

I stepped up to get my finger pricked and it was only once I’d sat down and was holding out my middle digit out that a sudden fear swept over me. What if the test showed my bloody sugar levels are sky high.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case but this fear nagged away at me for the rest of the day. I’m not just talking about diabetes, rather the potential to fall prey to any illness, condition or disease.

Hypochondria this isn’t, more a realisation that I am getting older and have kids, which adds an extra responsibility to my health and wellbeing.

Ten years ago, I really didn’t worry about death. I’m not suggesting I was fearless. The reality is that I just had that 20-something malaise that it’s unlikely to happen to me.

Now, I’m edging closer to 40 and know that my peak years of health and fitness are long gone.

The descent into niggles, aches and pains has started and with it comes the knowledge that every time I take a test for anything I’m more likely to return a detrimental result.

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Jennifer Aniston is a pretty well-known person, I’m sure you’ll agree. Along with the other five Friends, she appeared in probably the most successful American sitcom ever.

But her role as Rachel Green finished in 2004 - that’s 4 years ago. Since Friends finished (and even before that), she has desperately tried to establish herself as a movie star.

Sadly, despite her best efforts, she hasn’t really managed it.

Films such as Rumor Has It, Along Came Polly, Derailed haven’t set the world on fire.

But for some reason, she is still desperately interesting to the likes of Grazia magazine. She hasn’t even been going out with ex-husband Brad Pitt for 4 years either.

The one thing that seems to obsess Grazia magazine is her ‘quest’ to find another partner and potentially even have a baby.

For God’s sake, why? None of us know her, none of us are ever likely to know her, so what’s the big deal?

So she lost out in love? Is it really such a big deal that someone as famous as her can’t make it work? Words fail me…

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Friend - it’s a simple enough word, but what it conveys means such different things to different people and in different situations.

Take Facebook, for example. There, the word ‘friend’ simply means someone who you know, to all intents and purposes.

I’m not saying I don’t like anyone among my Facebook friends (god forbid, I’m that shallow), just that it’s an odd way of expressing people who you have connected to.

I would say I can count my ‘real’ friends on the fingers of two hands at most. That’s to say the people who I care about the most and, I think, who care similarly back.

I’ve known them all for a number of years now and while the frequency with which I’ve seen some of them has waxed and waned, they’ve been there.

The funny thing is, having kids changes so much. My social life has pretty much vanished. Not only for financial reasons, but because I don’t enjoy going out and about as much, either.

I’d much prefer to come home and give my little girl her bath, than head into Soho and a (now thankfully smoke-free) pub, even if I am meeting friends.

It’s bad enough that five miles in London feels like 50 miles elsewhere, such is the transport nightmare on occasion. But also everyone else’s lives always seem more complicated or busy than your own.

Some friends have to be booked months in advance and then you find the appointment can be cancelled at the drop of a hat.

And ironically, as you get older, new friends are even more difficult to cultivate. It takes time to develop a friendship - something that, as priorities and responsibilities pile up, is more tricky to find.

While the benefits of kids are numerous, they also bring new challenges that you don’t expect.

Yes, the nappies, sleepless nights and tightening belts are inevitable, but I didn’t expect the isolation that comes with a reduced social life and disappearance from other people’s lives.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m walking through a tunnel with the odd window or door leading off. These openings are on a timelock and open for a short period of time, which allows me a glimpse of a life I used to lead, before slamming shut leaving me back in the semi-darkness of the tunnel.

There is a light at the end, but I’m not really sure when I’ll get there. Hopefully, to cheesily paraphrase the Beatles, I’ll get by with a little help.

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