Michelle Hanson is having a problem with her appearance...
Last week the daughter, who is twenty-two, dressed up as a mermaid. She wore an azure blue wig, a scallop-shell bra, pearls, glitter and flares and looked ravishing. Rather a lot of her body was showing. This reminded me that holiday time is getting closer, I am planning a holiday on a Greek Island and because I want to swim about and sunbathe, my body will also be showing and as I am fifty-eight, it no longer looks ravishing at all.
In fact, my body is doing rather odd things, shapewise. This is the time of year when I tend to notice it. For a start my waist has disappeared, and if I look sideways in the mirror, which I try not to do very often, I notice I have a widow's hump growing and that my bottom no longer sticks out as bottoms are meant to, but is curved in a depressing way, so that I'm beginning to look like an up-ended tortoise on legs, which means that a bikini will soon be out of the question. It probably already is, especially as nowadays, the high cut leg is still in vogue.
For anyone with a saggy bottom, the high cut leg is a disaster. Last year I went looking for a modest swimming costume - one piece - and couldn't avoid seeing my bottom in the mirror. What a shock to see I had four buttocks. The costume elasic had cruelly divided each buttock into two, and from the inside, thanks to the dread high cut leg, my thighs look like an uncooked side of ham. One longs nostalgically for low cut legs or even those bathing costumes with the little skirt or frill round the bottom to cover as much of the thigh as possible. I haven't found one yet.
Perhaps I should try no to dwell on my bottom and to concentrate instead on what can be improved. The widow's hump is mainly posture, I find, from sitting stooping with a pokey neck glaring at the computer, or the papers or a book. If I remember my Alexander technique and sit up straight, the widow's hump nearly disappears.
But that leaves the middle bit. Daughter's middle is perfectly flat and tanned with a twinkly blue jewel in the navel. But the navel is lost. Do I still have one? How long since I've seen it? I never see it in the bath. Sitting in the bath, I notice that my bosoms are resting on my stomach like a pile of balloons.
For a decade now I've planned to lose the balloons and get myself into shape. Every year, starting about now, I thought that if I began a strict regime of sit-ups and leg raisings, then by holiday time, there would still be a change that I could look spiffing on the beach. All I needed to do was get out and buy a really good swimsuit early , before all the other people who are better organised than me snap up the best ones. I'd also have to stop eating chocs and cakes and instead of plodding along chatting on my dog walks, I must stride along briskly, making the heart beat more rapidly, sprucing up the leg shape and shedding excess buttocks.
Every February, I am still optimistic. And aren't I lucky. At least I can still stride about. Things are much worse for my mother. She is an even bigger pile of balloons. I often hear her moaning poignantly in from of the bathroom mirror. My mother's swimming costume days are over. Admittedly her body shape is four decades further down the drain than mine, but she has said a firm No to Tai Chi at the Day Centre. You can see exactly what Old Age has done to bodies, especially in shorts and lycra.
Obviously things are going to get worse. Perhaps the flab, the extra buttocks and moles are a warning sign. They're saying, "Give up - stop driving yourself mad. Look at those jogggers and power walkers on the Heath. Do they seem happy? No." They have a tormented look. Much better to swim in a T-shirt and sensible knickers and have a laugh and an extra Retzina or Sangria.
And I must admit, all those years I have failed to look fabulous and slobbed about with wet hair and a lobster tan, I saw no crowds pointing or calling out in a mocking way, "Hey! Look at that oddly-shaped woman over there in an ill-fitting costume!" Any why not? Because they're too busy worrying about their own bottoms, costumes, flab etcetera. They haven't reached the haven of fifty-eight, when it's too late anyway and one can really relax and look a fright.
So this year I shall just wear any old outfit and let the sunny personailty shine through. And I can always sit next to the mermaid.
