I had just emerged from a benign and wholly unnecessary meeting with WINZ Senior Services. A different world where they speak slow and clear, are graciously deferential and call you sir. Seniors are a different class of beneficiary deserving of a comfortable quiet space well away from the mewling masses queued next door.

This meeting, which could have been completed on-line in less than two minutes, were I a ten year old, was generously arranged to spare me the minor trauma of typing and fiddling with the send button. So at our first meeting I was given a form along with clear, simple instructions and a week to complete it. I had come in so that a school boy in shorts could check that I’d put my name in the right box. So thoughtful.

As I said, I emerged from this delightful interlude, feeling fully my age, into the sparkling sunshine of a Whangarei afternoon to meet Janet. Standing on the footpath outside Warren’s Electrical, I noticed an elderly man, white-headed, bound toward me, his wife in tow.

‘Are you a Goldcard holder?’ he asked, breathless.

I looked around for the object of his interest and, finding no one, concluded, somewhat perplexed, that he must be referring to me.

‘No. Well, not quite.’ Do I look like a pensioner already, I wondered? ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Well, the white hair.’ I wasn't warming to this man. ‘Do you know where the petrol station is that gives Goldcard holders seventeen cents a litre off?’ He waved a gold and black card at me. ‘We're from out of town.’

Janet, who was finding this all terribly amusing, engaged with our new friends. I hung back, resenting this confirmation of my soon-to-be new status. She discovered that, quite apart from being able to catch the Waiheke ferry for free, I would soon be eligible for a smorgasbord of discounts, that our friends were sailors from Nelson and that life with a Goldcard could be great fun. I'm still digesting this.