TIPS FOR GOING BACK IN TIME

Ever feel like old age is a return to babyhood?

I first came across the idea of old age as a second childhood in My MiddleAged Baby Book: A Record of Milestones, Millstones & Gallstones, by Mary Lou Weisman.

Why not compile your own Oldie Record Book? Instead of baby firsts – a curl from the first haircut or the first tooth – record mature firsts.

Take your first grey hair and glue it into your book of old age. Start chalking your decreasing height on the wall.

Document all dramatic developments: turkey neck, liver spots and varicose veins.

Why not compile a photographic record of the tragicomedies of getting old? Cherish those photos where you no longer look 17 – or even 70 – any more.

Forget beauty tips aimed at recapturing a long-lost youth. Stick religiously to Growing Old Disgracefully Tips.

First, be sure there are no stains on your clothes or signs of obvious damage. Don’t pretend – like my mother did – that you just got that ladder in your tights!

If you wear lipstick, do follow the lip-line strictly. Don’t show cleavage or wear sleeveless dresses. Don’t call women over 40 the ‘Girls’.

Do consider becoming a burden to your children. If not now, when? It’s payback time!

Be daring. At this stage of life, you can get away with speaking your mind.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get. What are you waiting for?

A woman of a certain age was walking by a building site where men were whistling at the passing young women.

‘What about me?’ she asked. They whistled – it made everybody’s day!