How To Be 60 with Kaye Adams

On this week's Midweek Catchup, we come back down to earth after the Fringe — to a filthy house, a poorly husband and the guilty remains of a packet of chocolate-covered pecans. Kaye's been in London doing ITV, where she talked a very nice photographer into taking her passport photo while she still had her telly makeup on. That's her sorted until she's 72. Karen, meanwhile, has been collecting firewood. In August.Mostly though, this one belongs to the emails from people who came to the Edinburgh shows. There's one that nearly finishes Karen off, and a sorry tale from Katie, whose train from Aberdeen stopped after ten minutes and sat there for four and a half hours — she never made it to the show at all. If we ever do a tour, Aberdeen, we're coming to you. And there is talk of a tour. We're saying nothing else for now.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Jan Birley, who decided at 58 that she was going to produce a feature film, and had one finished by 60.She'd spent thirty years as an IT project manager, and by her own count she has been in the film industry for two. She raised a budget of around £800,000, put her own money in, and when an experienced line producer told her she wasn't ready, she told him she'd crew it up herself and do it. He came back a couple of days later and said he was in. The film is Hot Flash, shot in Yorkshire, with Gaynor Faye as a woman starting again in her forties with no money and a business idea nobody has asked for. Jan also tells us about the fear of heights that turned into a climbing habit, the triathlons she signed up for before she could swim, and the mentor who told her years ago to put "writer" in her email signature. She never did. She does now.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Barbara Scully, who did her first stand-up gig at 60, mostly because two women wouldn’t let her out of their flat until she agreed. Now she’s about to tour her second one-woman show. She tells us about hitting rock bottom at 50 in the dole office car park, being mistaken for the children’s chaperone minutes before her own show, and why she has no interest in getting her oestrogen back. As for menopausal brain fog, she’s renamed it an information retrieval slowdown, and her husband has it just as badly. Because no one tells you that being underestimated might be the best thing you’ve got going for you.Barbara’s new show, Because I’m Worth It, tours Ireland from 27 August, with all dates and tickets at barbarascully.com. Her book, Wise Up, is out now.

On this week's Midweek Catchup, one of us has news. Proper news. You'll have to listen. What we can say: Kaye's been to Manchester for her roots, finally claimed her third off the train fare, and rode an electric bike home through Glasgow like a witch on a broomstick.Then there's the passport photo. Rejected. Eyes shut, said the computer. They were open. That's hooded eyes for you. All this two days before our first Fringe show, with Friday and Saturday sold out and a few Sunday tickets going. Barbara Scully, the Irish Joan Rivers, joins us on Friday's episode.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

Episode descriptionOn this week's episode, we're joined by Marisa Peer, who was once asked to do therapy in a jacuzzi in a bikini. She said no, and says it probably cost her work. Marisa is a therapist and bestselling author who started out as a fitness trainer at Jane Fonda's fitness centre in LA, got married for the first time at 51, and reckons she did the whole thing the wrong way round. She tells Kaye and Karen about the male friend she handed a television job to, who went straight to the network and suggested they drop her for someone younger. About the three ages we all have, only one of which is on your birth certificate. And about the small daily trick she uses to stop her brain settling, which starts with the hand you hold your toothbrush in.At 67 she is the happiest she has ever been, and still moving countries every few years — London to America to Dubai, and possibly Portugal next. Marisa's seventh book, Your Mind, Your Rules, is out now.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.Marisa's Book: https://smarturl.it/u3hAnQMarisa's Podcast: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWcHna_Pla5dhel7QP31t1desz_eT3qqx&si=TGXSZY3r6F_qBmLp

On this week's Midweek Catchup, we find out what one load of washing costs at the laundrette when your house is in bits. Thirty-six pounds. Kaye has no kitchen, no washing machine, and a dishwashing arrangement involving a baby bath, so she's on an economy drive: not buying food, not washing anything. Then there's the railcard she resisted for years, right up until it saved her forty quid to Manchester. That's a wash, as she points out. Karen has Stephen, a quarter of toffees, and eight wrappers, one under the bed. Kaye marks eight years since her mum died with yellow roses at the cemetery.We're at the Edinburgh Fringe on the 7th, 8th and 9th of August, nearly sold out. On Friday's podcast, Marissa Peer joins us. She's 67, eight books in, and says she's the happiest she's been in her life.

On this week's episode, we're joined by Mimi Anderson, who set off into the Canadian Arctic on a fat bike in minus 35 and turned back with frostbite. She didn't start running until she was 36, and only then because somebody told her it would make her legs thinner. It went from there to the Sahara and a world record between Land's End and John o'Groats.She tells us about the day a consultant showed her the hole in her knee, forty days into a run from Los Angeles to New York and on track to break the record. It took her over an hour to decide to stop. Her second book is called Limitless. She isn't pretending the body doesn't change, she just keeps finding something else to do with it.Get in touch with your thoughts at podcast@htb60.com.

On this week's Midweek Catchup, Kaye gets home from holiday to no power, no kitchen, no running water, and a chest freezer of the dog's raw meat that had been switched off for ten days. Six inches of blood at the bottom. She's calling it the abattoir. Karen, meanwhile, has spent the fortnight losing to a squash plant that's trying to take over the garden, washing up in a baby bath, and keeping an eye on her husband's brand-new pre-diabetic diet — which is going about as well as you'd expect when there's homemade ice cream in the freezer and half of it's already gone.They're also both Fringe-bound. How To Be 60 is on stage on the 7th, 8th and 9th of August, 2:45pm, at the Gilded Balloon at the Museum, and the tickets are going fast — 83% gone at the last count. Kaye reckons they ought to rehearse. Karen would like to know what exactly there is to rehearse about two people talking to each other. Tickets: https://tickets.gildedballoon.co.uk/event/14:7161/