If your family is anything like mine they will be running around behind you when the momentous decision has been taken to venture out of doors.

They'll want to make sure you have a) locked the back door, b) made sure the oven is turned off, c) raised serious doubts as to your ability to decide whether the weather is warm enough to go out without a coat.

All this caring and sharing is due to the fact that you have reached the Third Age and have therefore, ipso facto, become if not senile then its very close cousin.

They are entitled to their point of view and it would be a very unwise person of any age who would argue that they had never done something marginally careless or left undone something that would have been better if it had received their undivided attention.

It is no good, if you have a really determined family, protesting that you have managed your life very successfully up to this point and that you are quite used to taking these kinds of momentous decision for yourself. It is all done with your best interests at heart, now that you have become a member of the Third Age.

But suddenly the doctors have ridden to your rescue and declared that older DOES mean wiser and that is official, according to recently published research in the specialist journal Neurology.

Studies carried out on a number of older people, aged 70 and above, showed that, far from being doddery and fragile, they proved sharper and considerably quicker witted than some who were several decades younger. It does not, however, tell us what the tests consisted of and whether they include every-day living skills such as those listed above.

I consider I might possibly figure quite well in certain tests but my family will tell you that I lose my car keys with depressing regularity and I have to refer to my diary before I can tell you what I am supposed to be doing today.

I had to write to the Sussex County Hospital recently and grovel when I discovered, rather late in the day, that I was supposed to be attending a clinic there. I had checked my diary to see what I had on for that day and found (I thought) I had some free time, only to find later in the day I had managed to check the wrong week.

That allowed my family to say, with some jubilation: "We always said she didn't know what day of the week it was."

But then again, ask me about going shopping in the old days and I'll happily maunder on for ages about the great blocks of butter and cheese that sat on the grocery counter to be cut to customers' requirements and I can tell you all about the milkman who delivered milk to your door from a huge milk churn balanced precariously on a small hand cart.

I can tell you stories of the old days of variety theatres when there was no television and I can remember the words and tunes of the old songs we learnt almost from our cradles.

The study also showed that a large proportion of the elderly did not have any signs of dementia, even up to the age of 100. I am making plans to thrown a huge party when I reach my 100th birthday, assuming I can remember which birthday I am celebrating and which of my equally vigorous friends I want to invite.

Then again, I will need to remember where I have left my car keys before my family will let me go to my own party.

To be honest, I quite like being fussed over by my family, and only I will really know if I've really lost my marbles or if I am being devious and cunning just to be thought old and frail.

Keep 'em guessing is my motto!