I will get to Tartuffe, (1664), Molière's play, one of the productions at the Stratford Festival Theatre this past summer. To my mind, it was the best of the summer crop, and that was a very good thing because it took my mind off my personal pain.

For some reason my sciatica, about which I am in constant denial, flared up worse than I have ever experienced, in my right leg, from hip to ankle. I had trouble limping to the pool in the morning and did not swim my full half hour. I took pills to get through the day: a lot of sitting in the car to and from Stratford and, of course, the play. That's major; I do not take pills. I had some in the cabinet, dating from my leg trauma two years ago when I fell and ripped open my left leg below the knee, to the bone - thirty- three stitches on the outside, I don't know how many on the inside, and four different courses of antibiotics to beat the infection. I took three pills, each one lasting 6 hours, to get through the day. Tartuffe also helped with the pain.

But the next day I was tired, very very tired, still limping but a little more limber. Today, on the third day, I'm walking very well and I went for a brisk walk to prove it, as brisk as I can be, that is. And that's when I realised, no - acknowledged - another lesson learned in this new country I find myself in, the country of old age ("from whose bourne no traveller returns".) I'm in uncharted territory now and I guess this should be the ongoing theme of my blog, going where few people have gone before. More and more of us are there now, though, leading the way. Here's a bulletin: you'll get tired, more tired and more often than you have been before. Guess you never knew that.

I read that there are more people over the age of 65 alive today than existed in all of recorded history. The evidence is all around us. A few years ago it was hard to find a birthday card for anyone over 60. Last week I found four for 90-year-olds. We're all getting' there. So: blog yesterday and blog today and Tartuffe tomorrow.

When things get back to normal. You hear that promise all the time, not just from me but from others you may recognise. "I'll fe fine once things get back to normal." I'll catch up when things get back to normal." Define normal. Ain't gonna happen.

Words, though, words will keep you level and focused and sane. So here are some more words;

prosopography noun: a description of a person's appearance, personality, career, etc., or a collection of such descriptions. Genet's prosopography of the members of the University of Paris in the Middle Ages.• [ mass noun ] the study of prosopographies, especially as an aspect of the study of Roman history. DERIVATIVES prosopographer noun prosopographical adjective: ORIGIN 1920s: from modern Latin prosopographia, from Greek prosōpon ‘face, person’ + -graphia ‘writing’. You might remember prosopon. I've told you that I have prosopagnosia, which is why people think I'm rude or absentminded, because I don't speak to people I have recently met but can't remember and don't know who they are. It takes me a while to learn a face.

prosopagnosia noun: Psychiatry, the inability to recognise the faces of familiar people, typically as a result of damage to the brain. ORIGIN 1950s: modern Latin, from Greek prosōpon ‘face’ + agnōsia ‘ignorance’.

fractal noun: a curve or geometrical figure, each part of which has the same statistical character as the whole. They are useful in modelling structures (such as snowflakes) in which similar patterns recur at progressively smaller scales, and in describing partly random or chaotic phenomena such as crystal growth and galaxy formation. adjective: relating to or of the nature of a fractal or fractals: fractal geometry. ORIGIN 1970s: from French, from Latin fract- ‘broken’, from the verb frangere . I've seen this one a lot recently. Words go in and out of fashion Here's one that has cropped up lately:

iteration noun: the repetition of a process or utterance.• repetition of a mathematical or computational procedure applied to the result of a previous application, typically as a means of obtaining successively closer approximations to the solution of a problem.• [ count noun ] a new version of a piece of computer hardware or software. ORIGIN late Middle English: from Latin iteratio(n-), from the verb iterate (see iterate) . This one is really popular right now. before it was being used so much , the verb I was used to seeing was reiterate.

anneal verb [ with obj. ] heat (metal or glass) and allow it to cool slowly, in order to remove internal stresses and toughen it. copper tubes must be annealed after bending or they will be brittle. (as adj. annealing) : the chimneys of annealing furnaces. figurative : Dr Lowenstein, annealed to hostility, looked at me coolly. 2. Biochemistry: recombine (DNA) in the double-stranded form. DERIVATIVES annealer noun : ORIGIN Old English onǣlan, from on+ ǣlan‘burn, bake’ from āl‘fire, burning’. The original sense was ‘set on fire’, hence (in late Middle English)‘subject to fire, alter by heating’.

contraspective - I couldn't find this one in the online dictionary. I think it must be related to introspective. It kept giving me contraceptive - not the same thing at all.

polyphonic adjective: producing or involving many sounds or voices. 64-voice polyphonic sound module. figurative : dialogue is a staple of all polyphonic novels.• Music (especially of vocal music) in two or more parts each having a melody of its own; contrapuntal. Compare with homophonic. polyphonic choral music.• Music (of an instrument) capable of producing more than one note at a time. keyboards and other polyphonic instruments. DERIVATIVES polyphonically adverb: ORIGIN late 18th cent.: from Greek poluphōnos (from polu- ‘many’ + phōnē ‘voice, sound’) + -ic. I like this one and I think I can use it.

quincunx (pl. quincunxes)1 an arrangement of five objects with four at the corners of a square or rectangle and the fifth at its centre, used for the five on a dice or playing card, and in planting trees. 2 [ mass noun ] Astrology: an aspect of 150°, equivalent to five zodiacal signs. DERIVATIVES quincuncil, adjective: quincuncially, adverb: ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Latin, literally ‘five twelfths’, from quince ‘five’ + uncial ‘twelfth’. The word I was looking up was quincunx but I figure this is right. I also was looking up uncial and I couldn't find it standing alone but here it is: twelfth. I like mowing the name of the dot in the middle of the 5 dice playing card.

striatum noun (pl.striata) Anatomy: short for corpus striatum. DERIVATIVES striatal adjective:

corpus striatum noun (pl. corpora striata) Anatomy: part of the basal ganglia of the brain, comprising the caudate and lentiform nuclei. ORIGIN from corpus and Latin striatum, neuter of striatus ‘grooved’.

glial glia noun [ mass noun ] Anatomy: the connective tissue of the nervous system, consisting of several different types of cell associated with neurons. [ as modifier ] : glia cells. Also called neuroglia. DERIVATIVES glial adjective: ORIGIN late 19th cent.: from Greek, literally ‘glue’.

There. I didn't finish last night because the battery and I were out of power. I want to tell you about Tartuffe, but it will have to wait.