Thursday evening

I’m not sure what the average life expectancy is nowadays for women in England, where I live. It was 82.4 in 2008-2010, and had risen by two years since the previous calculation.

I guess it depends on how you take the average, and how much you want to complicate the picture by socio-economic and linked geographic considerations. I was intrigued to discover, when I did an area study as part of my training for ordination back in the early 90s, that a person would be more like to die in Hastings, at whatever age they were, than anywhere else in the south east except Hove. I still don’t understand that statistic. I mean, how is that possible? Surely – irrespective of age – we are all 100% likely to die. Whatever. Mystery. Anyway, moving on.

So I was thinking the likelihood is that average life expectancy for women in England must be about 84 by now. 84 is 7 x 12. There are seven days in a week. This means that a woman in England (like me) could choose to see her life as a week, and figure out which day she’s on.

I know Sunday is meant to be the first day of the week and Quakers even called it First Day, but that doesn’t feel natural to me – I guess because in the church we have come to think of Sunday as the Sabbath and obviously the Sabbath comes at the end; I mean, you don’t start the week with a rest, do you?

So to me Monday (a bold flat strong primary yellow colour) is the first day of the week. Tuesday, which is blue, is Day 2. Wednesday (green) is Day 3. Thursday is red and Day 4. I don’t have a feeling about the colours of Friday and Saturday, but for me Sunday is yellow but different from Monday. Sunday is a juicy translucent colour of yellow like lemon juice or a sunbeam. And it is Day 7.

Happily, as there are 24 hours in each (real, normal) day and we are thinking of 12 x 7 being 84, that makes it easy to divide up each figurative day because of 24 being twice 12.

I am 56 but nearly 57. 12 x 4 = 48 and 12 x 5 = 60. That means I am well on through Day 4 (Thursday). I’m assuming a day starts at midnight, so Thursday began at midnight when I was 48. At 56, end of last July, I reached afternoon tea time on the Thursday of my life (4.00pm), and next month when I’ll turn 57 it’ll be six o’clock on Thursday – about supper time.  

My mother is 86. I guess that means she’s borrowing from eternity.

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Amendment: If you read the comments you will see that Pilgrim has correctly worked out that my life has reached Friday teatime, not Thursday! Nearly the weekend . . .