Although their birthday bash is meant to be a night of celebration, it often seems like a night of commiseration: "We're not young any more."

I still have a couple months to go to this landmark but a recent run in with some pesky kids on my estate made me realise I am getting old!

Someone had been picking up the horizontal wooden posts that make up the fence at the front of our house and flinging them to the ground, which inevitably I would put back up.

Recently I spotted the culprits, a couple of children aged about 12 red-handed but before I could get outside to tackle them, they had fled on their roller blades.

I put the post back, went to the kitchen but when I returned minutes later, they had tossed two on the ground. Soon three were removed and by the next morning, four.

I was livid and my mind started racing of what I should do. Should I lay in wait and chase them? What would I do if I caught them? Take them to their parents? Call the police?

Suddenly I had reality check and thought back to when I was their age. I was never a tearaway but I would hang around with friends who would do similar petty deeds.

Poacher had turned gamekeeper and now I was their figure of fun.
So I decided to use the tactic of apathy. I left the posts on the ground and it stopped. After a week I put them back and drilled screws through the posts and, touch wood, they're still there.

I realise now, however small the grief was, that it must have been a pain for the targets of our aggravation 15 years ago or more and probably a little frightening.

So my life's cycle may be turning but hopefully the positive aspect of getting older, it is that it makes you a little wiser.