Vanity, vanity...

There are certain things that happen to a woman as you are getting older and they are not all as freely anticipated as long hairs sprouting on your chin or starting to grow a moustache.

(Himself sometimes twiddles the end of a particularly long whisker and jokes that I am getting ready to join the RAF if I haven’t used my tweezers for a while.)

For a start, you don’t just grow white hairs in your eyebrows; you grow great, long, black, wiry ones as well. If you left them alone, you’d start to look like that politician, what was his name? Big bushy eyebrows... Chancellor of the Exchequer... Jim. Jim somebody. Definitely began with a ‘J’. John? James? Jeremy?

Oh, no. Denis. Denis Healey.

And whilst the hair is growing luxuriously all over the face, it is rapidly fizzling out on the legs and under the arms and er-hum… Everywhere else. All those young women are paying for ‘Brazilians’ or ‘Landing Strips’ and designs with names like that, would, if only they would have the patience, save themselves a lot of pain and money. To our surprise, many of us older ladies find ourselves remarkably on trend.

It is, of course, much demanded that one should maintain  a sylph-like figure. To that end (so difficult to lose a baby tum, even when you are a great-grandmother.) I caught a bus yesterday afternoon and went to the big town instead of the little one for a special purchase.  

I'd heard they were miraculous. I chose black, rather than the white or nude ones which were also on offer; they seemed more glamorous. I was tired when I got home, though, and I had to water the plants and cook a meal and one or two other things, so I put off trying them on till today. I'll have a go this afternoon.

*

Well, I've tried them on and it looks like another bus journey. I followed the instructions carefully and rolled them up like you do with tights before trying to get into them, but I could hardly get them up as far as my knees.

They're back in the packet now. It was worth a try.