I started at fifty one and I do not want a round of applause

I was fifty one when I first put my hands on any of this, which was two years ago, and the most tiring part of the whole experience has been the reaction. People are delighted. They tell me it is wonderful. Twice somebody has said, in front of others, that it is never too late, in the voice you would use with a man who had taken up swimming after an illness.

Fifty three, North York, two years in. I would like to be treated as what I am, which is a person two years into something with a great deal still to learn and no particular anxiety about that. Not brave. Not an inspiration. And not an unusually promising student, which is the other one I get and which is somehow worse.

My working life was thirty years of a trade where being careful was the entire job, so I am comfortable going slowly and comfortable being corrected. What I am not comfortable with is being congratulated on my progress by somebody who is being kind to me.

What I want is a partner rather than an audience. One person, an evening or two a week, over a long stretch. Somebody around my own age would suit me, although I care far less about that than about being spoken to normally. I have a house, a quiet street, and a dog who will be in the building and never in the room.