Smoke and mirrors

Everything is all about age at the moment in house Tart as my birthday this year involves a zero.

If you live long enough you have to face the fact that you are too old to die young…… and leave a good looking corpse.

I’d like to say that I don’t worry about what I look like, but is that true? Is it? Really? I’m definitely not keen on photos of myself.

I absolutely have to blow dry my hair now that I’ve decided to be grey or I look like a mad old lady. I don’t look young and I don’t want to look too try hard but the mad old lady look doesn’t work for me either.

Grooming has become essential in a way it didn’t used to be.

Every day requires some cosmetic intervention before facing the world. As mentioned I almost always blow dry these days, I pretty much always wear some makeup. I absolutely couldn’t leave the house without a bra, heavens no.

This grooming issue is particularly obvious now that I’m off to visit Frenchie on her island. I’m not there long but the preparation involved for sunshine travel is the same regardless of length of stay. This morning there was a salt oil scrub. The first of many before the first fake tan of the year. I don’t like being in the sun but I do like to look like I have been. Yes, complicated. Usually it’s just my legs but there will potentially be pool and beach activity so the whole of me needs doing. I’ll be lying in the shade already brown. You’re right, it’s ridiculous. Soon it’ll be the mass hair removal, facial scrub, face pack, toe nails painted and on and on. It’s all smoke and mirrors, hair, makeup, corsetry, fake tan. My nails are my own.

So all that effort and where will it get me?

I’ll look ok…for my age.

One of my favourite ageing stories involves a woman, a late mother, trying for a second child. She went to see a Chinese herbalist to find out what might be on offer to help conception wise. In my experience the Chinese can be very direct, I assume it’s a cultural thing or maybe it’s a language thing. Anyway, this woman was chatting, upbeat, telling the herbalist how fit she was, how she could pass for many years younger than her actual years when the Chinese doctor stopped her mid flow and said….yes, but inside you’re old.

It made me laugh. No sugar coating….some people are in better nick than others but basically you are the age you are.

Live well, die old…….and leave a crinkly old corpse, that’s what I say.