There’s this neat old lady who mans (?!) a service desk at the Social Security (Bituach Leumi) office in Jerusalem. She certainly isn’t a day under 80. The last time I was here, she was wearing a enormously wide-brimmed hot pink floppy hat and an old-fashioned floral print dress. Today she’s got on a cardigan, a fashionable scarf and a chic black beret trimmed with white ribbon.

She’s obviously completely with it, and doing her job as she must have done for the last 50 years. I think it’s great that if she wants to and is able to, she’s allowed to keep working, to keep on being productive. I’m glad they haven’t forced her retirement (this is the social security office, after all). I think that’s the way it ought to be.