Hello all who are over 80! Never mind the rest of you, this is OUR SPACE.

In 2008 many of us, more than ever in history before, enter our ninth decade in very good nick. But the automatic respect old age used to command has gone. Therefore we need a Voice.

The Editor has kindly granted us this one. "For a limited time only", as the ads say. Well, no problem about that, obviously, but I hope, if I'm allowed to continue until the keys are too heavy for me to push, somebody else will take over the task.

Every decade has its flavour. The first when everybody thinks you are wonderful, the second when you prove yourself less enchanting and more irritating, the third when Life becomes Earnest, and you have to sink or swim, the fourth when you realise you are no longer young, and then there's the one that Life Begins At. This phrase, hitherto so infinitely puzzling, suddenly makes sense and you stride confidently forward to Middle Age and the height of Your Powers. Then, just when you have got really good at what you do, they put you out to pasture.

I have always enjoyed the pasture bit and been busier and happier doing what I really want to do rather than what I was paid for. People see a vacuum and obligingly fill it with tasks, which you take on or not, as you please.

But at last, when you are really old, Bliss! Nothing is expected of you! Suddenly you are back when people think you are wonderful for doing the simplest things. Just as a baby looks round in delighted astonishment when it does what seems completely natural like getting up and walking and everybody present becomes enraptured, people start saying you are wonderful all over again for baking a cake or cutting the grass.

There is a splendid freedom. From responsibility, from timetables, from fashion, from conventionality, from competitiveness. You can say whatever you please and people start to find you funny. You can even be politically incorrect if you want to, like calling yourself "old", not the nonsensical and ungrammatical "older". And if your refrigerator door needs careful handling or your wireless can only pick up your favourite station and must be left so tuned, nobody nags you about it any more, they just wink at each other and this becomes all part of your lovability.

I spent last weekend with an old, old friend, just the two of us. We did the grumpy old women bit for a while but also reminisced without boring anybody, unashamedly talked about our wonderful grandchildren, exchanged news and just generally enjoyed having known each other for 70 years and having the time for such a weekend.

What we badly need in our ninth decade is encouragement. PLEASE let the Editor know if you like this blog, and what subjects are nearest to your heart to be chewed over. Or, if, like me, you only use the e-mails when forced, you can actually write to me. I like the sound of letters plopping on the mat! Such is my faith in my dear old Post Office that you can write to me: Eloise, No. 28, London SE25 6JD and I know it will reach me, even second class, usually next day.