Things I still can't do at 40

So, "that birthday" has been and gone and I've had a couple of weeks as a fully-fledged 40 year old. I'll forgive you if you missed it, I didn't particularly publicise the actual date due to a (possibly irrational?) fear that all you internet weirdos are going to steal my identity if you have my full date of birth. Plus, the introvert in me cringes at anything that draws too much attention to myself. (Yes, I fully realise the irony in that last statement as I broadcast my thoughts out to all and sundry).

Anyway, I've never been one to subscribe to the significance of birthdays - it's all just another number, after all, and the ageing process is so much more gradual than overnight. Still, it is fun to take stock on such occasions and look back at all the things I have achieved, which, let's face it, is a lot. 40 years is quite a long time after all - you'd hope there were one or two achievements in there!

By contrast, the list of achievements since turning 40 are probably somewhat slimmer...(yep, still jobless).

So here instead is the list of things that have stumped me over the last couple of weeks:

- I still struggle to tell the difference between mumsnet and netmums.
- Applying nail varnish that doesn't look like my kids had a go.
- I really should have learned that I must ALWAYS go back and buy a second pair of my "ideal" jeans when I find them, as they will promptly be discontinued and I'll have to go through the whole tortuous process of trying gazillions of pairs on again.
- While it took me a long time to become a "handbag person", I still don't understand the appeal of satchels for grown women. They'll always be cute school bags to me.
- Will I ever master the art of putting a king-size duvet on a bed by myself?

Is there anything more frightening than make up counters?

As someone who is very-nearly-but-not-quite-thank-you-very-much 40, it strikes me that it's strange how there are still some things that can instill an irrational amount of fear into me. I'm not necessarily talking about those weird phobias that we all have, but more the kind of things that you would think become easier with practice. Silly things like tipping, public speaking and eating spaghetti in public without getting it all down your front.

One thing, however, that still brings me out in a cold sweat is the department store make-up counter. There's just something incredibly intimidating about those immaculate assistants smiling at you from behind a shiny glass stand with their perfect teeth. A smile that's supposed to signal encouragement but more often than not reeks of pity as you hover nervously wanting simultaneously for them to ignore you and take you in hand and sort you out. My experiences over the years have not been mixed, it has to be said. My first ever purchase was a blusher from a Clinique counter that prompted my then-housemate to declare that the makeover was "quite nice apart from the blusher". Plus, each one of them seems to have been obsessed with putting put me in the brightest Barbie pink lipstick they can find.

I've noticed over the last year or two that I've definitely hit a tipping point when it comes to make-up. Once, I used to wear make-up to look older. Going out without it meant I'd get asked for ID ("I'm 35!" I once squealed at the elderly dear in M&S, secretly wondering if they did it on purpose so that people like me would have a story to boast about), answering the door without it meant the double-glazing salesmen would ask if my parents were in (this happened to me at 31. Have I given you enough clues about how wonderfully youthful I once looked?)

Anyway, these days I'm now at the stage where I wear make-up to look younger. I no longer get asked for ID when I venture out without it. Instead, people act concerned and say things like "you look tired, are you ok?"

Then there are the studies and womens' magazines that tell us things like "36 is the optimum face age" or "women at best at 30, start to age at 41". Plus stuff about how wearing the same "look" you've been wearing since you were 20 isn't flattering once you get past 35. Much as you tell yourself you are above that stuff, eventually the insidious messages get to you. So you finally pluck up the courage to approach the women nearly half your age on a random make-up counter.

"Can I 'elp you?" she says. (Winning smile. French accent)
"mumble...mumble..update look...mumble...mumble..." (pick up random highlighter pen hoping it will leap onto my face and instantly cover up my blushes).

Thankfully she takes charge straight away, and sets to work with a random selection of products, all the time oohing and aaahing over my bone structure and my skin colour, and I'm finally starting to relax. We even converse in my rusty French, and I teach her the word "oomph" for "'ow you say in Eenglish, ze peps?"

It's all going swimmingly. Until, that is, she delivers that killer line: "Ah, I zink we 'ave similar skin. I 'ope mine is as good when I get to your age".

I'm sticking to Boots in future.

via Beauty Blitz

Stuck In the Middle

Today marks a pretty momentous occasion. After five years of trying to sell her house, my mother-in-law is finally moving from the Midlands to the same town, to be closer to us. In a lot of ways I can't quite believe the day has finally come, and whilst I know this is a good move overall, I can't help but feel a certain amount of trepidation at how this might change things.

My husband is an only child whose parents divorced when he was seven, and he's had little contact with his father, so in many ways my mother-in-law is very independent and self-sufficient. However, I think the whole process of this move, now that it has finally arrived, has brought with it the realisation of how much more dependent on us she will be once she has settled in. I suddenly find myself weighed down by feeling a great deal of responsibility for her happiness. We are the reason she is moving. We are the reason she is leaving the house she has lived in for 35 years. We are dragging her somewhere strange, where the only people she knows are us and my parents. Whether I am being overdramatic or not remains to be seen, I suppose, but it's certainly true that she will need to rely on us a lot more than she has done up until now.

My parents, who made a similar move around five years ago, have each other, and while they too were in a similar position of moving somewhere where they did not know anyone other than us, I can imagine it is a lot less daunting to "start over" in a strange place when you have a partner to do it with.

Despite the fact that all three of them are sprightly and travel the world, this move has also brought home the fact that they are ageing. Given family history, there is a good chance they'll be energetic and dynamic for a good 15 years or so yet, but somehow having all of them close by has made me so much more conscious of the fact that this might not be the case. Coupled with the fact that the first of our close group of friends recently lost a parent, and it seems I've got mortality on the brain. It's stating the bleeding obvious that none of us are getting any younger, but I confess the prospect of having to look after both children AND parents in future is a frightening one.

Monday moan.

We watched the film "Gambit" last night. I'm not going to go into a full-on review of the film here, but it was a vaguely amusing (but ultimately pretty forgettable) hour and a half. For brevity alone it gets extra marks - it's nice to find a film these days that isn't an over-inflated 2 and a half hour chore. It was a freebie, so I wasn't too disappointed.

Anyway, the film stars Colin Firth (52), Alan Rickman (67) and Cameron Diaz (40). All well-established actors, no longer in the very first flushes of youth. Why is it, therefore, that Ms Diaz was the only one of the three whose appearance I inwardly commented on, not in a good way, but in a "what has she done to her face" sort of way?

It's no secret that Cameron Diaz had plastic surgery to correct her nose, but a furtive google later and it seems that is not the only work she is rumoured to have had done.

Now, I will acknowledge that it must be bloody hard to be in the public spotlight all the time, judged on your appearance, competing for roles against nubile 20-somethings... but it does depress me how many actresses get into their thirties and forties and start having plastic surgery. The thing is, for every star whose plastic surgery does seem to halt ageing (Demi Moore?), there do seem to be a plethora of stars who just end up looking...well...slightly odd, and I do fear Cameron may well be heading towards a Meg Ryan or Melanie Griffiths.

Now, I don't particularly have a stake in Cameron Diaz's career, but as a mother to daughters it just seems to be another of the many daily reminders of how many double-standards there still are. If Colin Firth and Alan Rickman can be both respected actors and sex symbols at their respective ages, wrinkles and all without going under the knife, why can't Cameron Diaz?






P.S. I love your comments, but sometimes disqus doesn't love mobile devices. If you've got something burning to say, you might have to view the web version of this post. Sorry, and thank you!

Hair Dilemmas

Hair is weird, isn't it? Women spend forever fussing over it. If it's not removing excess body hair (a whole separate subject in its own right), it's fiddling with the stuff on our heads.
My own hair has been on my mind a lot lately as I know it's time for another visit to the hairdresser. I know this, because I have started tying my hair back a lot because it just doesn't quite sit right any more. Luckily I know a trip to my trusty salon will sort me out pretty quickly. (I've perfected the art of the messy bun by now, and although I'd love to attempt a thick, luscious ponytail as modelled by Victoria Beckham et al, somehow it just looks like a scraggy 5 year old's... which does make me wonder - how old is too old for a ponytail?) 

I have a good relationship with my hairdresser - I've been going to the same salon for longer than I care to remember, and, with the exception of her two maternity leaves, the same stylist has chopped my locks for that time (including wedding hair, the lot). It's fair to say I trust her judgement and she knows the kind of thing that would work with my "lifestyle", my poker straight tresses, face shape, blah, blah.

It's been a while since my last visit, and I probably shouldn't have left it as long as I have. It's been even longer since I last had the colour tended to. Much as it might shock some of you to learn (ahem), while I would class myself as a "natural blonde" for want of any other definition, the shade I have sported for probably the last ten years is a tad lighter than what nature blessed me with. I have to look back at old pictures to remind myself that I actually quite like my natural colour. Unfortunately for it, most of the time now I merely think of it as "roots" when the blonde highlights haven't been touched up.

All those chemicals can't be good for it, however, and I think it might be time to give my hair a bit of a rest from all those poxygloxylycins. The thing that has occurred to me, however, is what happens if the colour underneath has changed after all these years? What if I'm - horror of horrors - going grey?! Of course there is really only one way to find out, and luckily for women it's more socially acceptable to go back to dying hair...

Maybe I should try a blonde afro?

The One In Which I Remember The Point I Forgot to Add To My Last Post

(.....also known as The One In Which The Sun Shines Out Of My Head.)

My previous post about the signs of my mid-life crisis already included the vaguely fashion-related point, but as we old people are allowed to be scatty and generally fickle, I'm going to blather on about a vaguely clothing-related subject for a bit longer.

I've never really classed myself as a major fashionista. In fact, since working from home, I ashamed to say that my "style" is more slobby than smart. It may therefore come as a bit of a shock to most people to discover that I do actually have a vague interest in fashion and clothing - almost as a "spectator sport", or as one would appreciate art - I wouldn't necessarily hang all of it on my walls, but I can certainly appreciate the design that has gone into it. I think it's fair to say that my personal aim, however, has always been to be "stylish", rather than "fashionable" (a vague dalliance with high fashion in the 80s has left me with enough photographic evidence to prove that slavishly following trends is not always a Good Idea).

My head tells me about the importance of the capsule wardrobe and regularly warns against the dangers of the impulse purchase that does not follow my self-imposed rules. Having said this, there are generally one or two items in my wardrobe that probably go against this general principle. The interesting thing is that some of these items are much loved by myself, and yet appear to create great consternation amongst both my husband and my children when I wear them.

Exhibit one - this fabulous Pringle kimono cardigan that I bought a few years ago at the height of my "I'm never buying anything black ever again" phase. (Note the colour). Some things are bargains you just fall in love with and simply blow any rules out of the window.

Needless to say, the photo above does not do it justice in the slightest. The reason I love it is its versatility  - it can be light and airy for a cooler summer day when worn with a vest top underneath, and yet also fabulously warm when I hide my arms in the vast billowing sleeves.

And yet whenever I wear this much-loved item, I can guarantee that at least one of my children will ask why I am wearing it, or comment about me "looking funny". The adult me should respond in a perfectly rational, grown-up way, maybe explaining why this item is so beloved....and yet what seems to happen instead is that I suddenly turn into my teenage self and have flashbacks to the sulky reactions I had whenever my mother used to gently criticise my fashion choices.(It is at this point I should probably grudgingly agree that she may have had a point about the stripey purple cropped dungarees).

In conclusion - if middle age is about finding the things that make you happy and not caring what other people think, I'm definitely all in favour.

The One In Which I Wonder If I'm Having A Mid-Life Crisis

I had to google what the average life expectancy for the UK was this week, in a quest to prove to myself that my current woes were all down to the great Mid-life Crisis. I'm all for absolving myself of any kind of responsibility for anything and giving in to fatalism, after all.

Bad news, however, as it seems life expectancy has risen to around 87 (as opposed to the 82ish I had firmly fixed in my head). This means I won't hit the halfway stage in life for around another five years.Still, as the big FOUR-OH looms in the distant future (it goes without saying that the end of next year is of course MILES away, and there's no way I look a day over 29) so I guess I'm allowed a little wobble every now and then.

Here, then, is proof that I am officially middle-aged:

1) I've started wearing a lot of beige. Oh, it's dressed up with fancy names like "taupe", or "camel", or "ecru", but we all know it's just shades of beige.I made a conscious effort to banish black from my wardrobe as much as humanly possible a couple of years ago, and my standard "base" colour is now navy. When I'm feeling colourful, I team it with a jaunty red, but when I'm aiming for a "effortlessly elegant" a lot of khaki seems to be creeping in. It can only be a matter of time before I slip into some nice comfortable farah trousers...

"Pantyline 300", no less

2) Remember those sitcoms involving middle-aged people like Terry and June sitting in their beds with a book each, her in a little bed jacket? Well, that's me on most nights. Occasionally my husband joins me and then we really rock the whole Morecambe and Wise vibe. Of course, now he has bought himself one of those new-fangled tablet devices he is more likely to be surfing the web, but I can still be found tucked up at 9.30 with my library paperback. None of that kindle nonsense for me, no sirree, I like the smell of musty paper that has been thumbed by hundreds of middle-aged women before me.
(As an aside, my library has recently started loaning e-books - it's a slippery slope. Also - what's with the tiredness? I thought humans are supposed to need less sleep as they get older? Why then, do I find myself craving 12 hours and still waking up exhausted? I'm supposed to be the morning person in this relationship.)

3) Despite my previous protestations to the contrary, I recently found myself lusting after a certain Zac Efron. (I know, the shame). There I was, minding my own business when I saw this trailer:



Now, I like to think that the two years since my previous post featuring Mr Efron have made all the difference in terms of his maturity - I mean, he's all of 24 now! -but I also have a sneaking suspicion that a sudden interest in younger men must be a sign of the mid-life crisis sneaking up on me. It's not just Mr Efron you see....I find myself humming along to tunes by boy bands half my age and can only assume that I am somehow regressing to a teenager in an attempt to staving off the ageing process.

4) Aches and Pains. I have a permanent crick in my neck, a pain in my ankle, and am on enough allergy medication for asthma, hayfever and eczema to open my own pharmacy. Next step - HRT!

5) Forgetfulness. I've been mentally making notes for this post for at least two weeks now. I even got as far as scribbling several bullet points down on a piece of paper, which I last remember seeing in the pocket of my terry towelling dressing gown silky negligée, from whence it appears to have totally disappeared. As I can't for the life of me remember what points five and six were supposed to be, you'll just have to trust me that they were REALLY GOOD.