Early in 2018 I posted this piece about body weight. It recorded the fluctuations in my own weight using three different measurements (stones, pounds, kilos) and noted how I lost a couple of stone in 2012, by swimming most days and eating less. Apart from the year up to summer 2013 I have generally been 10% either side of 13 stone (182lb, 82.7kg) for the last 24 years. That earlier piece concluded with these words:

“Today, as in 1997, the scales read 13 stone 10lb (192lb, 87kg).”

I haven’t changed much. Today’s reading is 13 stone 12lb (194lb, 88kg) and I have still never seen the scales top 14 stone (196lb, 89kg). It’s possible that my weight has crept above that figure at some point, but I have no evidence of it.

The main change in the 42 months since I posted that earlier piece is that my children (aged 16 and 14) now outweigh me. Their combined weight today is 98kg (216lb, or 15 stone 6lb). I do not expect to catch up with them. All being well there will come a time when their combined age exceeds my own. I will be in my 80s. When they were younger, I worked out the date when the product of their ages (their two ages multiplied) equalled mine. It turned out to be 21 December 2012, a date when some believed the world would end. This page from the NASA website lists their responses to the questions they received about the event, notably this one:

Q: What is the origin of the prediction that the world will end in 2012?

A: The story started with claims that Nibiru, a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians, is headed toward Earth. This catastrophe was initially predicted for May 2003, but when nothing happened the doomsday date was moved forward to December 2012 and linked to the end of one of the cycles in the ancient Mayan calendar at the winter solstice in 2012 – hence the predicted doomsday date of December 21, 2012.

The world did not end in 2012. I’m a couple of stone heavier than I was when that year ended but otherwise pretty much the same.