Feeling Frumpy

About 15 years ago it came as quite a shock when I realised that the soft slapping noise following me around was my bum banging on the back of my knees, I comforted myself with the thought that long as I had spanx I could get through it right? Except what has followed is much worse.

This latest ageing dilemma started several months ago when it started taking me ages to get ready. It’s not that I haven’t decided what to wear but every time I put on an outfit which in my head is cute and quirky, I find a frumpy and middle-aged woman looking back at me in the mirror.

Everything is looking MUMSY!!

I have been inspecting the suspected crime scene that is my face to confirm if this is indeed the nerve centre of the middle aged aura. Is it the hooded eyes, the crows feet or the droopy mouth that are the perpetrators of this ageist violation, or just a deluxe combo of all 3. And the findings? I’m running out of plump in all the important places. My juicy face fat has slid down to my ever burgeoning midriff. What was once moist is now dessicated, curves replaced by crepe and perky overtaken by limpness.

That very essence of youth, the dewy plumpness that oozes from every pore of the young has seeped out of me when I wasn’t looking. Youth has left me like a one a night stand. No apologies, no phone calls, or plans to pop in again – just gone. I feel abandoned, the longest relationship I ever had was with my youth. So I creep into this new era feeling dowdy and apologetic for my lack of plump and join all those other lovely ladies in their 40’s who feel exactly the same way.

In the sweet shop of life where once I was a juicy fruit I have become a liquorice lace and it takes a bit of getting used to. It has also made me realise that as I now look like a member of the WI I need to seriously up-skill my baking abilities.

Wardrobe Malfunction

What a traumatic 3 hours I’ve just had … we are off to the wedding of my best friend’s son tomorrow which is a blessing and curse in itself, since it’s wonderful to have had a friendship that has lasted that long and knowing this lovely groom since birth but how did I get to be this bloody old, surely this can’t be true etc etc.

Anyways I have my exquisite outfit all picked out, ankle grazer trousers, a gorgeous sparkley top coupled with fabulous high heels and handbag all in all a totally cute 50’s styled outfit and I love it. Well I did love it until I tried it on when I got home tonight. I have put on so much weight over the Christmas holidays, blue January and beyond that the pants give me a fucking camel toe! Disgusting, how can I embarrass my self and my friend by turning up with my vag looking like a giant yoyo  – and I can assure you there’s nothing 50’s about that apart from my chronological age!

I have completed a high intensity aerobic class in the lounge and skipped dinner but let’s be honest is it really going to make any difference, no absolutely none and tomorrow I will still be left with a even-toed ungulates hoof down the front of my pants – emergency wardrobe rethink required.

I hadn’t allowed for this type of fat eventuality and therefore have no contingency plan in place to for an alternative outfit and no time to buy one. I was under the impression that I had been reasonably reserved in the calorie intake department over the Christmas holidays and gloomy January but the trousers tell a different fatter story.

Husband has not been particularly helpful in light of this wardrobe emergency, his suggestion was that I don’t stand up for the whole affair and spend the entire time sitting at a table with a well positioned tablecloth over the offending area. I am wondering if the constant rain has diluted his brain cells, everyone knows that weddings are a place where very little sitting and lots of mingling and dancing takes place, no place for the camel toe to hide or be disguised!

The bigger decision is; do I go whole hog and convert to elasticated waistbands from hereon until my dying day or save my money and have everything from the waistdown lipsuctioned, like a Hollywood diva with a designer vagina? Oh the shame of it all.

Tis the Season

To have a cold and be jolly miserable, at least that’s how the song goes in our household. I cannot remember a year when either husband or myself has not spent the bulk of the Christmas holidays languishing on the sofa surgically attached to a box of tissues and feeling sorry for ourselves.

This year it’s my turn, having managed to produce one of the finest snot producing, eye watering colds for a very long time. I would like to imagine that I’m on the chaise looking wan and interesting like a 1930’s diva when in reality I know that wrapped in a duvet I look like a blotchy silk worm lava if they ever grew to be over 5ft in size and had a racking old man’s cough.

Our friends have disappeared quicker than a box of Rennie on Boxing Day on hearing about me being sick with the sound of closed doors and rescinded invitations ringing loudly in our ears. Even husband is treating the lounge like an isolation unit putting his head around the door to tell me that he’s left provisions on the counter.

It seems that just when you think you have time off to dress up, drink like a drain and enjoy all the lovely grub that comes with this custard guzzling, chocolate scoffing season the universe has other ideas and says ‘No, what you really need is a few days of bed rest with a splitting sinus headache, aching limbs and a very bad temper to truly appreciate your holiday’. I mean what good is struggling through a Christmas dinner that you can’t taste –  no good at all for a roast dinner lover like myself.

I am hoping that by Friday I will be sufficiently recovered to hurl myself into the party spirit with inappropriate abandon, until then my pity-party will have to be the only one I attend and console myself that whilst I may not look like a diva I can still bemoan my fate like one, now where did I leave my lace edged hankie …