Pat Calvert marked her 90th birthday with a workout at the gym. Mind you, she did have a cake with her gym buddies afterwards.
And you know what they say: 90 is the new 80.
Pat has been attending the same gym at Warners Bay for 29 years.
She celebrated her 90th birthday on Wednesday with her friends at Genetic Fitness Club's active over-50s class, including four women over 80.
Pat, of Warners Bay, said: "I really don't feel any different".
"I just can't believe it that I'm 90. I'm still doing everything I was doing, maybe slowing down a little bit," she said.
"When I look around me, I think how lucky I am that I can still do what I'm doing."
Pat has tried to look after herself and do the right thing. "I'm a non-smoker," she said.
She said exercise and friendship had greatly helped her stay healthy.
"When I started at the gym, I thought I'd give it two years and I'm still there," she said.
"I just get so much encouragement from all the other girls. They're just great. It makes you get up and go and you enjoy it and feel the benefit of it.
"We do steps, weights, exercise machines, aerobics - just about everything."
Fellow gym enthusiast Gillian Clarke says the group's motto is "see what you can achieve when you keep moving".
"It is a full-on aerobic class - cardio, step, weights and core work. We may stop for a drink of water a couple of times," she quipped. "As Pat says, it sure beats sitting at home stiffening up."
Gillian said coffee at the gym cafe after class was "very important, too".
Pat was born and bred in Newcastle. Her dad was in World War II in New Guinea.
"I was about 11 when he went. He was there until the end of the war," she said.
She and her husband Harold lived in Melbourne for 20 years.
"We wanted to travel a bit. We ended up going down there and got work. I did mainly sales work in ladies fashion.
"We came back here in 1977."
Her husband Harold died almost 42 years ago at age 51. Family and friends kept her going.
She has one daughter, three grandchildren and three great grandchildren.
"They're all wonderful," she said.
She has lived life to the fullest, going on adventures with friends.
"For my 75th birthday, I did the harbour bridge climb," she said.
"I've done things I never thought I would do. We've ridden a camel, been in a hot air balloon and we went to the Tattoo in Scotland.
"We travelled around England and Ireland. We went to the centre of Australia in 2010 and overseas in 2011. I went to Thailand three years ago with my family."
Her advice to others: "Do it while you can. Once you can't do it, it's too late. Get out and enjoy yourself".
Building Bridges
This from Glen Fredericks, of Adamstown Heights: "We do have a coat-hanger shaped Newcastle harbour bridge!"
"It's just that it's on the other side of the world."
Glen was responding to New Lambton's Ross Greig saying a quarter of the steel in the Sydney Harbour Bridge was produced by BHP in Newcastle.
And Glen was referring to a bridge in Newcastle - Newcastle in the UK, that is.
The Tyne Bridge was completed in 1928, almost four years before the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
