It’s strange, isn’t it, how children perceive age.

I can remember when I was young, I thought my sister Brenda was absolutely ancient when in fact she was only in her late 20s.

But the other day I was listening to a nannan talk to her grandson about how old his new teacher was.

“Oh, she’s very old, nannan,” he stated.

“Oh,” his nannan said, “How old do you think she is?”

“Well,” replied the boy, and I could see just how hard he was thinking.

“She’s probably older than Lucy…”

I took it that Lucy was his sister, because Lucy is now at college. But she’s not as young as my cousin because he’s about 13.

I could see that nannan was trying really hard not to laugh and she said: “So would you say that she’s about as old as your mummy?”

“Well no, because my teacher doesn’t have any little children, her children are a bit grown up but she’s nowhere near as old as you, nannan, because you’re very, very, very old now.”

I watched poor nannan’s face as she looked upon this innocent little chap, but I couldn’t make out if the look she had across her face was a look of love and amusement or the look of a woman who was about to commit a crime.

“I mean you have lots and lots of lines on your face.”

And with that he leaned really close to his nannan and, with a very serious look on his face, he began to scrutinise this poor woman’s face.

“Look!” he said as he then pointed a finger at her face and began to trace out every single line with the tip of a quite dirty finger.

“You have a lot of lines around your eyes.”

He announced, for all to hear, and with that he tried to stretch out the skin opening up nannan’s eyes wide.

“You have more lines around your mouth.”

He proceeded to open up his own mouth and stretch it wide open, which I did – at that point – ask myself if nannan shoved a used tissue into it and holds it shut would I actually feel the need to stop her.

That was very debatable. It reminded me of when I worked in school. One boy told the class when asked what people are like when they reach 40 and said: “They’ll be grey and wrinkly and need a walking stick. They won’t be able to do anything in the house, or make a cup of tea, they’ll soon die.”

Good grief, I thought if this is how the young see us that are over the age of 40. Talk about one foot in the grave.

I glanced over at the lady sat with the grandson as she slowly sipped her hot drink and thought that maybe she was wishing it was a glass of something stronger.

And as she stood up I noticed that she was quite fit-looking as strong, toned legs showed through her leggings and her bottle of water was almost empty.

This nannan was no old lady, she was one of today’s super nans. I bet she lifted weights and ran marathons whilst juggling two jobs.

As she collected their belongings, I was very tempted to ask if she was making her way back to the old people’s home before it reached her bed time, but I didn’t say a word.

After all the poor woman had been put through enough for one day. And, according to her grandson, time was not on her side…