As Austin reaches a landmark personal milestone, you'll find him in a reflective mood. Happy birthday, Austin.

I am coming up to 50 years old (not telling you when exactly, you would want to send a card, I know) and it is the kind of crossroads at which you reflect a bit.

I remember being 40 – that was more comedy than pathos. The staff put a full afternoon of appointments in my diary that I did not look too closely at. Mr. I P Squint, Mr. F . O’Rty, Miss St. Ripper and suchlike. When I came back from court at lunchtime they had transformed the office and invited family and friends in, and we had an impromptu party for the rest of the day.

This time around it is a quieter affair all round. I am working again on the day, but have no intention at all of any overt celebrations. Not that I am down or depressed - it is just not a big deal.

Physically it's interesting. I do feel all of 50 – though I still train hard at the karate and have no illness or injury apart from niggles I have picked up over the years - both knees are dodgy ( I can't kneel on my right one at all), it is a struggle to keep the weight down, my eyesight is at the screwing-up-eyes-hideously-to-see-anything-close-up stage, and it takes me as long to get up and going in the morning as cranking a Model T Ford.

As for career and work, I cannot help the feeling that the skittles are being bowled over one by one. When I started out as a solicitor, one of the plusses was that it was a job for life - no likelihood of ever being out of work. That’s gone. We all used to look forward to a comfortable pension-supported retirement at 65. That’s gone too - now we are all primed for working on to 77+. The economic catastrophe we are all in now has put paid to any sense of relaxation or security. The old back-up of your home going relentlessly up in value is gone. I can't even take up a political career, as the game is a bogey thanks to those do-gooders putting the brake on the gravy train. The earth environment is deteriorating around us. I now think that the high point of our civilisation, materially at least, was maybe two years ago, but now we are on the back nine, heading ever more speedily to hell in an electric handcart. Talk about the last days of ancient Rome?

I think back to my father who was Austin Lafferty, solicitor, before I was. He worked hard by the standards of the 50's , 60's and 70's, but he got to the office at 9.35, had an hour and half for lunch, did a fair amount of floating about the court, and stopped work at 6 if it was a long day. I remember going on holiday for a whole 4 weeks to France each years. He managed to put 5 of us through private school and my Mum didn't go out to work (though before you rip my head off for sexism, I make it clear I am of the school of thought that spousal workloads would cost a fortune on the open market, and if you've got a traditional wife you also get to go to bed with them for free). I am writing this at 7 am in my office, and will be on until 7 pm at least. And weekends? Pah.

When I were a lad, we didn't have all the gizmos that are now de rigueur, but I don't remember pining after a mobile phone or an Ipod when I was wee. A football and some mates to play cops and robbers (actually it was japs and commandos, which would probably be frowned on now for a number of reasons) and getting shouted in for a home-cooked tea, then watching Doctor Who was a happy life.

But on the other hand, maturity brings, if not wisdom, then acceptance of the things I cannot change. My mid-life crisis is now several years in the past, and I think I understand the world, or my bit of it, better. And although I still have ambitions, disappointments, frustrations, my philosophy has more in it that is good than is bad. And having health, strength, a job and a ( healthy) family, though not necessarily in that order, ain't no mean thang.

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Austin… you know the rest.

Austin