David Bowie relaxes into his golden years I see him in the elevator or coming and going in the lobby. I will nod or say: 'Hello, how are you? I don't run up and ask for his autograph, or ask him what he thinks of modern music, because that's just not what you do. The thing about living in New York is that everybody respects and appreciates the idea of privacy. I see his wife occasionally, too, and their daughter. I would just say that he is a lovely neighbour. Bowie lives with his wife, former supermodel Iman (now 57), and their daughter Alexandria, known as Lexi, who turned 12 in August. The family divide their time between Manhattan and a sprawling country estate in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. Iman runs her own multi-million dollar make-up business and likes to convey an impression of an idyllic private life. She has revealed that the couple love "going to the park and sitting in cafés. We're just ordinary people. Our life is domestic. She says she likes to cook, while David helps his daughter with her homework and insists she reads for at least two hours every evening. On June 6 this year, Iman took to Twitter to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary by quoting from Bowie's The Wedding Song: "I believe in magic/Angel for life." This month, she described him as "lovely as ever." Piecing together comments from old friends and acquaintances, and public sightings in local art galleries and book shops, it would appear that Bowie spends his time painting, drawing and reading, and doting on his daughter. Business associates suggest he still takes a keen interest in the exploitation of his back catalogue, which brings in millions of pounds a year. But what he does not appear to be doing is writing new songs and preparing a dramatic and lucrative comeback. It says a lot about the contemporary cult of celebrity that we constantly grumble about the rich and famous being inescapable yet when someone lives a quiet, normal life they are labelled a recluse. Perhaps the question we should be asking is when should a rock star stop rocking? It's hard to avoid the evidence that many of our greatest stars are showing signs of wear and tear. Bob Dylan's latest album, Tempest, is a lyrical triumph but in his live performances, the 71-year-old's gargling, croaky vocals render his songs almost indecipherable. The Rolling Stones are about to stage another comeback, despite the fact that their youngest member is 65, and creative mainstays Mick Jagger, 69, and Keith Richards, 68, haven't got on for decades. And The Who uttered the generational battle cry "I hope I die before I get old" but are rehearsing for another tour, no matter that two members are deceased and Pete Townshend suffers from tinnitus. The last album Bowie released was Reality in 2003. He began to curtail work commitments after suffering a minor heart attack during a world tour in 2004. For a while, he was apparently on steroids and put on weight, leading to comments about him turning into The Fat White Duke. Yet he looked and sounded fantastic during his last stage performance, a guest spot at a charity concert in New York in 2006. For a few years, he popped up contributing backing vocals to tracks by friends, including Arcade Fire, David Gilmour, Alicia Keys, Scarlett Johansson and TV On The Radio. But by the turn of the new decade, even this had stopped. Bowie's offices in New York and London regularly turn down offers of work on his behalf, recently declining an invitation to star at the Olympics closing ceremony (even though his Heroes became London 2012"s unofficial anthem). It is, perhaps, difficult for fans to accept that their hero's last notable acting role was a voice-over in SpongeBob SquarePants in 2008, and that the last significant Bowie song was from Ricky Gervais's Extras in 2006, a comical ditty entitled "The Little Fat Man (With the Pug-Nosed Face) ." And yet would we really prefer that this ground-breaking musical adventurer try and re-stake his position as a major force of pop culture at the age of 65? I met Bowie backstage at the Royal Festival Show, in 2002, in the company of Bono and Brian Eno, where he was proudly showing off photos of his young daughter. And there, I think, is the secret to Bowie's retirement. He has a strong relationship with his son by first wife Angie Bowie, the acclaimed filmmaker Duncan Jones, but regrets having missed much of his childhood. "I don't want to repeat the same mistakes," he confessed in a revealing 2007 interview that suggested his new family was easing a lifelong sense of alienation. I don't have that sense of loneliness I had before, which was very strong. I'm very at ease, and I like it. I never thought I would be such a family-oriented guy. I didn't think that was part of my make-up. But somebody said that as you get older you become the person you always should have been, and I feel that's happening to me. I'm rather surprised at who I am, because I'm actually like my dad. Bowie has even taken to using his original family name. When Iman told Twitter followers that she and her husband were watching their daughter in a school production of Willy Wonka, one fan responded: "Imagine David Bowie turning up to your school." The model replied: "He turns [up] as David Jones, dad." It seems like David Bowie really is the man who fell to earth - and liked it so much, he decided to stay.