AS TIME GOES BY
Involuntary noises and pre-emptive pees, Rosie Green is feeling her age (although she’s actually only 43)
Rosie Green’s age isn’t creeping up on her – it’s making announcements
ALPHA MALE HAS RETURNED FROM THE NEW HAIRDRESSERS AND HE HASN’T LOOK THIS SHOCKED SINCE HE FIRST ENCOUNTERED A HYGIENIST.
(‘Thought it would be like a spa treatment, Green.’) Midway through his 10-minute cut, they combed his eyebrow hair through, then buzzed off the worst with the clippers. Didn’t even ask. They then used a naked flame to shrivel the fur in his lugholes.
For him, it’s a watershed moment.
A sign he getting O.L.D (er). For me, these signs have been coming faster than Trump’s tweets. Nowadays, applying eyeliner involves stretching skin up and out (somebody should invent a clamp). Plus, just last week, I made an involuntary ‘oof’ when getting out of a chair.
But this pales into insignificance compared to when I booked flights recently. In the time taken to click back the wheel to the year of my birth I could have sung every one of Ed Sheeran’s number ones. Other worrying signs? When I put my socks on in the morning, I have to catch my foot and sort of guide it in.
And there aren’t just physical changes – there are also mental ones. I want warm plates for dinner and milk in a jug. One day you’re a spring chicken, the next you’re doing that weird back and forth thing to read menus. In the last week alone, I have…
Discussed meeting up at a cool new bar (I know, crazy) and thought, ‘Yes, but will I be able to sit down?’
Googled how old people are when watching them on TV. This week alone: Claudia Winkleman, Jennifer Saunders and James Norton (the latter depressingly young). And don’t even start me on how-old.net.
Been scared/frustrated/baffled by my own computer. When I left my desk at towers for a freelance life, the team celebrated with some Colin The Caterpillar cake, but the real party was in the IT department up on the 4th floor (average number of daily calls = 6).
Gone upstairs to brush my teeth. Noticed a full wash basket. Come downstairs with it. Remembered purpose of going upstairs was to clean my canines. Returned upstairs. Hmmph. My conversations are now affected by forgetfulness, too. Just last week I flashed my manicure for a friend to admire. Then did it again two hours later. ‘Is this chat on a loop?’ she said (rather unkindly I thought).
Surveyed our box of obsolete tech equipment, but too scared to throw away. Contains chargers dating back to the Blair government and complicated controls for unknown devices. A documentary about U2 revealed their rider wasn’t full of requests for strippers and booze, but for a TV remote with clearly labelled on/off channels. Bliss.
Had multiple pre-emptive pees. When you were young, you never even thought about going till you were bladder-burstingly desperate, right? Now I have one before I go to the bloody corner shop.
Put on subtitles. What is it with all this mumbling by Norton types? Bring back enunciation.
BUT IT’S NOT ALL BAD. I don’t have to shave my legs as often. I’m no longer mortified by returning things (in fact, I see it as a kind of blood sport). Plus, I’m not tempted to have a bob when it inevitably comes back into fashion because I know I will not look like Sienna Miller, but like a bowling ball with a wig on. And I’ve managed to turn autocorrect off on my computer all by myself. AM has not replicated my digital nous. In fact, he recently sent out an email to his team about a bonding day in the muddy English countryside, which read: ‘Please bring your willies with you…’
‘I FLASHED MY MANICURE FOR A FRIEND TO ADMIRE. AND DID IT AGAIN TWO HOURS LATER’