You can call Jane Messina an old biddy, a hipster, or just a plain loser

Just because I’m under the age of 75 doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy an evening cuddled on the sofa with the fire on, working on my knitting while I sip a delicious glass of dry sherry.

In fact, I’d like to speak out to everyone in Oxford who thinks that makes me the perfect target for old lady jokes (some have actually made them to my face).

This is not to scold people for this type of humour, as I love a bit of self-deprecation and often use my love of handmade crafts and fortified wines as a source of inspiration.

What I’d really like to say is that, yeah, I share a lot of common interests with the eighty-somethings widow crowd in Oxford — so what?

If you’ve ever had a conversation with one of these women, you’ll know they can be some of the most interesting people you’ve ever met.

You wouldn’t be foolish to assume I began drinking sherry and knitting as a result of living in a house whose flats are occupied primarily by women aged 79 and over here in Oxford.

But while I was delighted to be offered a sherry before lunch at one of their homes, and happily accepted her offerings of leftover wool, I’ve been a crocheter since I was 11, a knitter since 23, and an appreciator of a good Spanish sherry since 28.

And, yes, when I took an online quiz to find out what decade I belong in, I took it as a compliment that I would have fit in well in the 1920s.

The Oxford Drunken Knitwits and three new yarn stores in town are proof that knitting is finally experiencing a revival amongst younger people in the UK (it happened long ago in the US).

And while sherry drinking doesn’t seem to have caught on as much in my age demographic yet, the Internet tells me I’m not alone in my recent (re)discovery of this highly enjoyable libation.

But these things don’t really matter.

What matters is that I’m enjoying myself, and while I would love to encourage everyone else in this town under the age of 75 to give knitting and/or sherry a try (I’d especially love it if more pubs started serving sherry), I’d mostly like to discourage people from avoiding trying certain things just because they’re “for old ladies”.

I think we can all agree that Blanche, Rose, Dorothy, and Sophia proved long ago that old ladies can be pretty awesome.

So call me an old biddy, a hipster, or just a plain loser.

Call me what you’d like.

But like they always say, “what’s old is new again”, so I suggest you follow my lead and hop on board with what the octogenarians are doing these days, before everyone else starts catching on.

All I’ve got to do now is convince more men in Oxford to take up knitting and Scotch lovers to switch to bourbon — but, hey, one step at a time.