I started to walk up the stairs in a café, when I saw a woman waiting at the top of the stairs. She was wanting to come down the stairs, so I ran up the rest of the stairs. When I got to the top, she said: “I wish I could do that.” My reply was: “You can, if you go to the gym.”

She looked very puzzled as she started walking slowly down the stairs.

People often tell me that I’m lucky to be so fit and active. Sometimes people say things like “I wish I could be more active, but I’m in my sixties.” They are amazed when I tell them that I’m in my seventies.

From time to time I work with a personal trainer. He told me that I am one of his hardest working clients. He also uses me as an example with other clients. I asked him what the typical response was. He said it makes some people try harder, but others dismiss it “It must be her genes.”

I come from a family that didn’t engage in a lot of exercise. We didn’t have a car so we walked most places, or my parents and brother would bike. (I didn’t lean to ride a bike till I was in my forties, but that’s a whole other story.)

I remember when I was quite small running around the garden on a hot day. My mother stopped me on the grounds that I was sweating a lot and it would make me ill. I was definitely not encouraged to be fit as a child.

People say things like: “You’re lucky to be so well and active.” Or “I wish I was slim like you.”

It’s partly down to “luck” in that I have the money to afford a personal trainer; I have a supportive partner who also enjoys being fit and healthy, but it also represents many hours in the gym and on my bike. It also represents wise food choices.

Making these choices helps keep me fit into my seventies. I hope it will help keep me fit and well into my eighties and nineties.