I remember spending my 24th birthday thinking my life was practically over.

I was just a year away from reaching the dreaded quarter of a century, when I would no longer be eligible for a young person’s railcard, and as far as I was concerned that meant my youth was officially coming to an end.

I have always felt old, even when I wasn’t. Maybe it’s because I’m the eldest child in my family and was expected to set an example and be the sensible older sister.

The age I dreaded most was 20 because it meant I was no longer a teenager. I felt ancient throughout my twenties. Turning 30 wasn’t so bad because it was an eventful year, professionally and personally, and my thirties turned out to be fun.

Now in my forties, I’ve accepted middle-age. Yet according to a survey by website Love to Learn – which reveals that people now don’t consider themselves middle-aged until 55 – I’ve still got another decade to go. As our ageing population grows, it seems we feel younger for longer.

Sorry to sound ungrateful, but I like being middle-aged. It’s like meeting someone and feeling you’ve known them years. I think it’s the age I was meant to be.

Signs of middle-age creep up, but I find them strangely comforting. I call people ‘love’. I slide my TV specs down my nose and peer over them when reading the paper. I tut at mothers whose children eat pasties in the street. I find students annoying. I will never again listen to Radio 1. I sometimes have a nap on a Saturday afternoon (bliss). I sing along to CDs by the Human League and Duran Duran in my car. I visit stately homes and buy novelty coasters in the gift shop.

I watch Downton Abbey on Sunday evenings because it’s what people my age do, whereas when I watched Where The Heart Is on Sunday evenings, in my thirties, I often felt I should be out at a gig or an arthouse cinema instead.

I’ve started listening to The Archers too. I grew up with the long-running radio drama, as my mum always did the ironing to it, but I dismissed it as something for, well, middle-aged people. Now I’ve returned to Ambridge and it feels like coming home.

I was shocked though to discover that Eddie Grundy, who I remember as a bit of a laugh, has turned into a bumbling old man. Never mind Eddie, it comes to us all. If age is a state of mind, I’m fair to middling, as people my age tend to say.