Vanity Case

After 27 years I have decided to kick the habit....and in fact a  few other habits along the way....! Thats right people - suntanning is out, being pale is in. I know that the magazines have been going on about it for the past few years, models such as Lily Cole paving the way for the pale skin look, not to mention the Edward the Vampire look - but none of those things tempt me or indeed have persuaded me to change my ways and turn to the bottle (fake tan bottle). This is purely a matter of vanity and the reason? Wrinkles. And I dont want any. Having been on holiday recently in Turkey I saw a few suspect lines on my face and indeed on the faces of my peers. Shock shock horror and Im not yet even 30! As I get closer to being 30, those occasions of being ID'd in the supermarket are becoming less and less. The other casuality along the way is smoking. Having smoked on and off for the past 10 (ten - yikes!) years, its not the warning on the label, the pictures of blackened lungs and holes in peoples throats. It is purely once again totally shallow. I wont be young forever, but I may as well do everything I can to help retain my youthfulness.



A piece on the radio earlier this week reported that the one item of clothing that people do not throw away, despite the fact that it no longer fits, is jeans. When I heard this I realised that I was also guilty of this. I still have a pair that I bought when I was 19. They are now referred to as my skinny jeans, and not because they taper in all the way down but actually because I was skinny when I could fit into them. Why do I keep them? I am still holding out for the day where I can wear size 8 jeans again comfortably without giving me a stomach ache - and that’s only if I can get my legs into them! Face it, I said to a girlfriend as we were reminiscing about our “old” wardrobe, we are never going to fit into them again…we forget that of course when we could fit into them before we weren’t just thinner, we were also only 17 at the time! With age our bodies change, without exercise our muscles turn to fat much at a faster rate, metabolisms slow down, and everything becomes a little looser. Not just my morals I'm talking literally. Boobs, bingo wings, double chins, the skin under the eyes...you know it’s true!
Fundamentally you cant fight it. I am ageing. Every second of every minute of every day. And finally the expression healthy living is starting to make sense. And the casualties of the battle against time are the sun and cigarettes. Of course I will still go on sunny holidays, but Factor 30 all the way, and as for smoking, a little bit harder but then the picture of Dot Cotton comes to mind and I know I am making the right decision.

Two healthy looking characters