WHAT links me with Milton Keynes, the Summer of Love, Noel Gallagher, Disney's Jungle Book, Sgt Pepper, Pamela Anderson and the cash machine? We’re all the same age.

Tomorrow I reach my half century, the Big Five O, an age I always thought was a lifetime away.

And for some people it IS a lifetime, it’s all they get, while others don’t even reach 50 - which is why I’ve decided to embrace it. There’s nothing we can do about age, so we might as well just crack on with it.

There is however a 'taking stock of life' element to a big birthday. Am I where I wanted to be at 50? Well, I’m not a best-selling, super-rich novelist posing for a Vanity Fair photo-shoot in the chic basement kitchen of my gorgeous Victorian townhouse, so I guess not. But I’m doing the job I wanted to do from the age of 12, so that’s something.

Inevitably, your thoughts turn to those ‘Things Everyone Should Do Before They Turn 50’ lists. According to one list I came across, these are some of the things I should have done by now - or at least by tomorrow.

* Have a tattoo: Tick - it was the reckless thing I did before turning 30

* See the Northern Lights: Almost - I went up in a ‘plane with my dad to see them but it was so cloudy, all we saw was something resembling the Shetland Isles

* Skinny-dipping: Tick - if a hot tub in Morecambe counts, then yes

* Quit a job: Tick - I walked out of a temping job in a London Underground office after a week of people stepping over me while I sat on the floor, filing. If I’d dropped dead they wouldn’t have noticed

* Stay out all night partying: Tick - I’m a journalist, for heaven’s sake

* See your favourite band or musician live: Tick - thank you Kate Bush, Hammersmith, 2014

* Sleep beneath the stars: Tick - A cheap and fearless holiday in Greece, aged 19

* Swim with dolphins: I’d rather boil my head

* Go to an airport and pick a random flight: No, but I once sat behind the Archbishop of York on a ‘plane to Belgium

* Ride a gondola in Venice: Not at 80 euros a pop, thanks

* Jump into a pool fully-clothed: Tick - Portugal, aged 41. Not so much jumping in as falling in

* Dance in the rain: Does standing miserably in a muddy field, losing the will to live at a festival in Warrington count?

* Travel alone: No, but I like the idea of it

* Become an expert at something: I know pretty much everything about Coronation Street, 1982-present day

* Take a helicopter ride: Tick - I even took the controls for several stomach-churning minutes

* Take part in a protest: Tick - you name it, I marched against it as a student, mainly because it looked cool

* Go up in a hot air balloon: Tick - it was a giant Bertie Bassett at a balloon festival, and I felt a bit daft

* Backpack across Europe: Too old now, but I once hitch-hiked around a couple of Greek islands (see cheap and fearless holiday)

* Run a marathon: That’s never going to happen

* Ride an elephant: Hopefully by 60

* See a volcano: Ditto

* Eat fish and chips on the end of a pier: That tops everything else.

According to other lists, 50s is the decade to seize the moment. Far from winding down, 50-somethings are busier than ever; taking up new interests, seeing new places and living life to the full.

I’m all for that. Hey, I’m lucky to be here. Bring it on.

* THERE was something not quite right about my brother and his mates when I saw them at a bus stop in town one Saturday afternoon, on their way home from a City match. It was the way they stood there, gazing into space, a silence hanging over them.

The bus arrived and they shuffled up to the top deck. I sat below, with busy shopping crowds, someone mentioned something about a fire but I wasn't really listening,

It wasn't until I got home and saw the horror unfolding on TV that the day's events started to sink in. I'll never forget my mum's relief when my brother walked through the door. May 11, 1985 would turn out to be a very different day for the families of 56 other people who went to Valley Parade that afternoon and never came home.

* ONE of the downsides of ageing (see above) is weird sleep patterns.

I can lie awake for hours in bed, yet as soon as I'm seated in a cinema sleep crawls over me like a rash. Going to the pictures is one of my favourite things, but these days the opening credits have barely rolled and I'm nodding off, cocooned in the warm darkness. It doesn't matter what the film is; even if I'm enjoying it I have to fight the urge to close my eyes. I've snoozed my way through entire scenes, and ended up going to see the film again. Old lady naps are costing me a small fortune.