From the Mouths of Babes

"Little boys should never be sent to bed.  They always wake up a day older"

- Peter Pan

If you were kind enough to notice that I didn’t write a blog last week, I apologise.  And thanks for noticing.  But I have a good excuse.

I had the opportunity to spend a final night with my sister and her family.  There was a big dinner in my other sister’s house.  I couldn’t resist.  Also, I’m a martyr to the fear of missing out.

I’ve had a whale of a time with them all.  I was an aunt for about twenty years before I got a nephew.  For years it was all girls, and they were all amazing and funny and lovely, and remain some of my favourite people.  Then nine years ago, the first little boy came along, my darling godson, handsome and funny, and he has been followed, so far, by three more little boys, two nephews and, amazingly, given my youthful looks, a great-nephew. 

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve spent time with all four little heroes, and they have been kind enough to give me advice, and to teach me a few lessons about life.

One of my six-year-old nephews was in my mother’s on Saturday.  This child is hilarious and might just turn out to be the wittiest person in Ireland as an adult.  

We’d just said goodbye to my sister and brother in law and their sons.  His Nibs rang me to make sure I was okay.  He probably just wanted to confirm that I would get a grip and not be still roaring when I got home, but I appreciated it all the same.  After the call, I turned to my nephew and apologised for not giving him the chance to speak to his uncle.  He just looked baffled. 

“I presume you wanted to tell him you love him”.  I was joking.  This child is too cool for that sort of caper.

“No.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“Because I don’t.” 

Fair enough, I was highly amused.  My brother, the child’s father said

“Be nice to people, or I’ll smack you”.  He’s one of the parents who threatens to hit his child but wouldn’t think of raising a hand to him.

“Bring it on Dad.  D’you want a punch in the willie?”

My brother, not usually a man who would draw back from crude comments for the sake of a joke, was scandalised.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen him speechless before.

Lesson number one.  When someone is giving you trouble, try to shock them into silence rather than argue.  You might even make your aunt helpless with laughter.

The second lesson came from the same nephew.  I found myself alone with him for a little while.   Rather than let him discover that I know less than nothing about Wii U games or fidget spinners, I decided to start my own conversation.  We played “Would you rather”.  

I asked him “Would you rather never eat pizza again, or never get summer holidays again?” He answered quickly.  It appears he loves his summer holidays.

Then he looked at my cigarettes and lighter and said “Would you rather give up smoking or get cancer?” 

Is there such a thing as a child being too intelligent?

His father keeps telling me I’m not allowed to give him money anymore, or he’ll only love me because I sneak him cash.  I can’t understand this.  Why wouldn’t I give him cash if it will make him love me?  Give him the money I say, and feck it. But I’m not in charge, so this week I got him a fidget spinner and handed over no banknotes.  He noticed though.

We were all sitting there, hearts were heavy from parting with the others.  It was about nine in the morning, and I was still in my pyjamas and dressing gown.

“Do you have a tenner in your pocket?” he suddenly asked me.

“No.”

His father interjected

“I’m serious now, behave yourself.  I’ve told you before you’re not allowed ask people for money.”

“I didn’t ask her for money, Dad.  I just thought I heard the rustle of a tenner, that’s all.”

The rustle of a tenner.

Second lesson.  If you’re insanely handsome and have lovely freckles you can say whatever you want.

Thirdly, if you want someone to share information that they don’t want to tell you, adopt a professional attitude to fool them into your confidence.

When I’m in the car with children, I like to sing loudly, and teach them car songs.  I find it makes the journey fly by, and makes the children like me more.  Although it doesn’t usually endear me to the adults.

Last Thursday I sat in the back of the car with two of my nephews, Luc and Seán.  I went through my usual repertoire, (“Trup Trup a Capalín”, because it’s in Irish.  I don’t know any other Irish, so this one gets a few goes.  Then I like a round of “Build me up Buttercup”, and maybe Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” if nothing else comes to mind).  Anyway, I discovered that “God Save Ireland” is one of their favourites, so we started on rebel songs.  I burst into “Some say the Devil is dead”.  After the first verse I realised I had to stop because the song is filthy.

“Oh no, I can’t sing that, it’s too dirty.” I couldn’t have said anything more stupid.

They were fascinated.  “Please, please, whisper the words in my ear”.  Luc was determined to hear a dirty song as part of his holiday experience.  No, I insisted, it’s far too foul.  I’d sing it to him when he is eighteen.  He was disgusted. Then Seán, all of six years old, turned to me, patted me on the back of the hand and said

“Please, go on.  Don’t be embarrassed.”  He sounded like a doctor.  He said it so gently and so kindly that I was tempted to obey.  Only his mother’s whipping around from the passenger seat and saying my name loudly stopped me.  Lesson three.  Never underestimate what you can achieve with the right attitude.

Seán also taught me that sometimes the best way to win a fight is to stop fighting. 

Obviously the two brothers fight.  Luc is like his father, a level-headed sort of person.  Seán is more like our side.  He tends toward the hot-headed.  One night last week, Luc wouldn’t lend Seán his iPad.  To be fair, Seán has his own iPad.  Things seem to have escalated very quickly, and Seán decided to give Luc a few belts for himself.  Eventually Luc, who in fairness is very patient, hit back in self-defence.  At which point Seán gave a roar that was heard around the house, then lay down on the floor before any adults could get to the scene.

So poor Luc, despite having been the recipient of more than one clatter, found himself him standing over the prone form of his small brother when a group of adults rushed into the room.  Luckily his parents are used to this type of carry on and got details before accusations began to fly.

Another lesson, don’t suffer fools gladly.  On their last night, I was subjecting my poor little nephews to what can only be described as a protracted goodbye. I decided that I should share as much advice as possible, in the limited time we had left together.

“Be good.”

Seán was too tired for my nonsense.  He just turned over and closed his eyes.  Luc, however, wasn’t going to take my bossiness without retaliating.

“You be good too.  Especially at work.  Stop getting into trouble.”

Yikes.

“Try to be kind to people”.

“Don’t dye your hair brown again.  It’s nicer now.”

“I love you every day, even when you don’t see me.”

“Give up smoking, it’s very bad for you.”

Christ almighty, I hadn’t expected all the comebacks. 

“I’ll miss you, but I’ll see you on Facetime.”

“And of course, you’ll be sending us a box of gifts at Christmas, won’t you?"

“Yes, and you can call me any time you want to.”

“But you’ll definitely send the box?  Before Christmas?”

“Definitely.  Don’t worry.”

“Do you want to tell me what you’re thinking of sending us?”

“No thanks.”  Sometimes I think the child doesn’t know me at all.  Does he honestly see me as the type of person who knows what she’s putting in a Christmas box in August?

As for my three-year-old great-nephew, he doesn’t have the vocabulary yet to put me in my place.  But he also taught me something.  He taught me that if your face lights up when someone walks into a room, and you run up to them with hugs or to hold their hand for no apparent reason, and say things like “But I love you” when they refuse to go on the climbing frame with you, you can make that person fall in love with you, and then they are your plaything, to do with what you wish.

Sisters before Misters!

“We are family, I’ve got all my sisters with me” – Sister Sledge

Regular readers will know that I like to do a bit of giving out on this blog.  I’m afraid if that’s what you’re looking for this week, you’ll be disappointed, as it’s been a joyful time in our family.  Not alone did we have the wedstival last week, but this week my sister, her husband, and their two sons arrived home from Chicago, where they’ve been living for two years.  The children have grown and grown without a thought for aunts and uncles and grannies who don’t see them and now they’re nine and a half and almost six and far taller than we thought they’d be.

They arrived on Saturday morning, as a surprise for my mother.  The rest of us were expecting them.  My nephews walked into the kitchen and said “Hi Gran” as if it’s the most normal thing in the world for two children to stroll in from Chicago with no warning whatsoever.  I know it’s a common saying, that somebody can’t believe their eyes, but it was the first time I’ve actually seen it.  My Mam looked at them, rubbed her eyes, looked at them again.  She hugged them and kissed them, and cried a little.  Then their parents walked in.  My sister and her husband.  My mother loves her French son-in-law.  They both had their arms open for a hug.  I’ll gloss over the part where my mother ran past my sister and into my brother-in-law’s arms.  Teresa can be seen, on the video, roaring “four thousand miles.  For thousand miles, and she runs past me.”  The video stops soon afterwards.  Probably for the best.

We all celebrated that evening with a barbecue and drinking and talking all night and grinning at each other like idiots.  As darkness fell the small boys were put to bed.  They were exhausted and jet lagged, and needed to get used to Irish time.

They got into the bed, no lights were put on, and their mother specifically told me not to go into the room they were in, that they might take a while to nod off, because their body clocks were messed up, but they must sleep.  We were not to go near them.  I was not allowed to tell them a story.  It would be no help. 

So I sat in the garden as instructed and drank my wine and talked to my sister, overjoyed to see her again at last.

Eventually I went into the house.  As I crossed the hall I saw a movement from the corner of my eye.  It was the legs of a tall nine year old, running around his Granny’s bedroom.  What could I do?  I could hardly ignore them, could I?  Their mother thought they were lying quietly waiting for sleep to overtake them.  It was my job as their aunt to make sure all was well and that they were only running around the bedroom for fun, that they hadn’t set the place on fire or anything.  I decided to investigate.

“What are you doing, lads?  Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“He gave me a wedgie” the bigger one got his defence in first.

“So what?  He tried to give me an Extreme Wedgie!” the five year old was offended at the accusation.  The little boy had stepped into a t-shirt, his legs in the sleeves, to somehow protect himself from further attacks.   I think I might forever regret not calling a halt to everything to discuss the difference between a wedgie and an extreme wedgie.  But as I say, I’d been drinking, I just wanted to be near them, and to talk to them, and my presence of mind wasn’t with me.

I have two sisters.  One is older than me, and the other slightly younger.  Both of them are mothers, I am not.  They are busy grown up women and I’m a bit of an eejit who can’t get her act together to save up a fare to Chicago, and so we haven’t spent a day together, just the three of us, for years.

My younger sister Teresa had not brought her full makeup bag with her.  I suppose it’s hard to pack for four people, and make sure you have four passports and the house locked up and the dog being cared for by a responsible person, without having to worry about your blending brushes and liquid eyeliner as well.

On the Sunday morning, Teresa was still jet lagged and exhausted.  And hungover.  She didn’t look her usual fabulous self.  And she had to go to Dublin.  Into the car we got, my elder sister Mary and I, like a pair of faithful spaniels.  I think we were so happy to be with Teresa again that we couldn’t let her out of our sight.

We talked her into going shopping.  Poor Teresa.  Because she’s the one on holidays she’s expected to spend all her holiday money on things that Mary and I want, so that we can live vicariously through her.  We pushed and prodded her to the first beauty counter and told the woman to sell her a tinted moisturiser and a foundation.  Teresa is not a woman who can usually be pushed and prodded into doing anything, but tiredness and a hangover had made her vulnerable.

At the next counter I practically pushed my sister aside to explain to the saleswoman what our business was.  I don’t know how many readers remember the nineties, when eyebrows were considered a shameful and terrible thing. That was the decade of the smaller the eyebrow the better.

For me, plucking my eyebrows into oblivion was never an option.  They are naturally enormous.   Plucking the feckers enough is the real problem.

But Teresa insists that she’s the opposite.  That she plucked her brows so much as a young lassie that they never grew back properly and remain sparse.

Even though she was just browsing the beauty halls I took it upon myself to tell the woman that Teresa was unhappy with her brows and asked her what she proposed to do about it.  Teresa was instructed to hop up on the chair, so that we could all stand staring at her, our hands on our chins, wise looks on our faces.

Before we knew what was going on she’d been moisturised, primed, powdered, highlighted, and contoured.  I was torn between being impressed and being jealous.  You’d never know, to look at us, that Teresa and I are related.  She is tall and thin and has actual cheekbones, I am shorter, anything but thin, and would have to be dead six months before we could actually establish whether there’s bones in my face at all.  The woman’s swishing and blending and dotting brought Teresa’s cheekbones out so much that she looked like a model.

Through all the work, Mary and I stood behind the woman who was painting Teresa’s face.  We were very encouraging, and very vocal.  And sometimes, when a brand-new product we’d never heard of was pulled from this woman’s bag of tricks, we almost stood up her shoulders, craning our necks and involving ourselves far more than was appropriate. 

“What’s that called?”

“How much is it?”

“What brush are you using?”

“Would that be nice on me?”

“It’s lovely Teresa, you’ll be delighted with yourself.”

“Do it again there, so we can see what you’re at properly.”

Only after all this work had been done did the woman approach Teresa’s brows.  There was a lot more colouring and blending, but she made them gorgeous.

Teresa looked amazing.  By her own admission her jet lag and hangover had taken its toll, and she wasn’t looking her best.  By the time her face was done, she looked ten years younger than she had that morning.  I was openly jealous by now.  She decided to buy most, if not all, of the products the woman had used.  Samples were promised, and a free makeup bag.  Mary and I edged around, so that we were standing between her and Teresa, with our begging faces on. 

When it was confirmed that we too would be getting makeup bags, we decided to celebrate by buying a product or two ourselves.

When all this was done, we went upstairs, and Teresa bought clothes for her children and Mary bought household stuff for her kitchen.  They are excellent wives.  I too was being an excellent wife that day, as I did not purchase a handbag.

I have the week off work to spend with them.  There is endless joy in spending time with them, in telling stories, and small faces being turned up for goodnight kisses at bedtime.  And in my sisters and I falling naturally back into casually teasing and insulting each other, as only sisters can. And that’s why I can’t think of anything to give out about this week.  Sorry.

What's a Wedstival?

“How do you make a marriage work?  Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck” – Ricky, Age 10

My beloved niece Emma and her boyfriend Cian announced some time ago that they were going to get married this summer, in a super cool wedding.  There would be a hand fastening ceremony, where a rope is wound around the joined hands of the couple, until they’re more or less lashed together, appropriately enough. His Nibs and I often look at each other in disbelief that we tied ourselves together in the legal sense.  I’d never seen anyone physically do so before.

Emma and Cian would go to the registry office a couple of days after the ceremony and have a civil ceremony, with witnesses only.

I was recently informed that weddings of this description are known as wedstivals –something between a wedding and a festival. 

His Nibs was very confused when the invitation arrived, because there would be no signing anything.  I think he felt a bit put out.  He’d had to put paper to pen at our wedding, I think he thought Cian was getting away with something.

“So are they hippies?”

“No.  Well, maybe they are.  I don’t know.  Does it matter?  You don’t have to wear a suit.”

 “It’s not a real wedding if there’s no registrar there.”

“They’re going to the registry office on the Tuesday, to get legally married, but they’re getting married on Saturday.”

“Love, they’re not.  They’re actually getting married on the Tuesday.”

“No, they’re getting married on the Saturday.  Why are we arguing about this?”

But argue he did.  On and on about whether this was a wedding or not.  Eventually I had to fight dirty.

 “Listen, do you remember when we got married?  What was more important to you, promising to love each other, or signing the register?  Which of those things makes you more married?”

His Nibs is not such an eejit that he would suggest to me that we are married only because we are contractually bound to it.

“The promises” – this was said in a sulky tone which told me that he knew he was beaten.

“Right.  So the important bit is on the Saturday.  You’re not allowed to wear your Crocs.”

I thrashed myself about a bit, confused about how to dress for a casual wedding. I knew Emma had a stunning wedding dress.  I didn’t want to turn up in jeans if everyone else was dressed up.  On the other hand, it was a fairly hippie affair.  I didn’t want to look uptight and prissy.  I was a fool to think about it so much.  Because this was the wedding where you could wear literally anything you wanted, and nobody would bat an eyelid. 

We took our seats in front of an arch with billowing fabric around it.  The wedding invitation had clearly stated that the ceremony would be at three.  When we got there we were informed that the other pair had gotten confused, and thought it was at half three.  When I say the other pair, I'm referring to Emma and Cian.  They'd forgotten the time of their own wedding.  We took our seats and waited.  Three o'clock came and went. So did half past three.  Apparently they were looking for their sunglasses, though this is unconfirmed.  Eventually, eight people came strolling up the garden, toward the arch, and took their places.  One girl in a gorgeous dress you could wear to a society wedding, Fiachra, the groom’s brother, in bare feet.  It was almost unbearably cool.  I was jealous of their youth and their nonchalant fabulousness. 

When the bride and groom came strolling along, holding hands, there was a standing ovation and some very excited cheering.  I liked that.  Why only clap after people get married?  It takes a lot of work to organise a wedding, brides and grooms deserve a cheer for even getting there. 

Next, each of the original eight stepped forward in turn and read a quote, I’ll give you an example; “I will love you forever, whatever happens, till I die and after I die..” and so on, then asked the happy couple to make a promise related to the quote, like to always love each other.

And of course, the poor innocent eejits, they promised.  When you’re there in your lovely dress and everyone is cheering you and there’s a party on for you, it’s easy to forget that you will feel no love for this person when they use up the last of the milk, or you step on a dirty underpants on the bedroom floor.  Or maybe that’s just us.

It was all so romantic that I was able to push away my thoughts of Emma and Cian turning to each other when the toilet seat is left up for the millionth time or there’s no money left, or they’re just irritating each other so much they can’t be in the same room, and wondering about the fact that they once chose to physically tie themselves together.

It was a lovely wedding.  I shed a tear, I might as well admit. When Emma’s three year old son handed the rings to his aunt he got the second standing ovation of the day.  When the groom kissed the bride we all became almost hysterical with joy.

A strange thing, the joy created by a newly married man kissing his bride. I would never usually cheer or clap at the sight of one of my nieces being soundly snogged.  But I was delighted for them.

After they were untied, (more cynical thoughts, along the lines of “if only it was that simple in real life” pushed away) there was a great celebration with barbecue and drink and music, and since this was happening in a private garden in the middle of the country, miles from the nearest hotel, camping.

The whole place was filled with bubbles and bunting and balloons and small children running around.  We all sat around in the sun chatting and taking pictures and drinking, and then we were directed to the house, where there was tasty salads and roast meats and crusty bread , and lovely  gourmet burgers on the barbecue outside.  It was a sumptuous feast, and absolutely perfect food for a crowd of people who would do little but drink for the rest of the day.

At some point, as the day stretched into evening, someone reminded Emma that we still hadn’t heard the speeches.  “Oh yeah.” She shrugged.  “I forgot about that.  Oh well.”  If they were any more laid back they'd be in a coma.

Eventually it got cold.  Cian lit firepits and garden candles, and the massive bunch of balloons in the middle of the garden had LED lights in each one and they glowed in the dark.  The place was filled with fairy lights, even the tents in the camping area were festooned.

You can only imagine my relief when I found out that Emma and Cian are so normal.  When instead of being little lovesick fairies in a land of bubbles and flowers, it turns out, that he’ll make a holy show of her without batting an eyelid.  In the run up to the wedding, he had become obsessed with the weather forecast.  So obsessed, in fact, that he knew the times of expected showers, to within ten minutes.  And he kept telling everyone he met these details.  Emma said he’d make a trainspotter look fascinating, going on about it.

His Nibs and I didn’t stay the night.  I’m unreasonable when it comes to tents.  I tend to wake up a lot during the night and moan that the ground is hard or I’m cold or that I’m not happy having only a sheet of thin fabric between me and potential predators.  Yes, even in Waterford.  I wake His Nibs every time, so he’s like a savage by morning.  Also, I knew he’d be very unreasonable about being woken up by other people’s singsongs in the middle of the night. 

But I was sorry to leave.  I felt that every aspect of the wedding had gone incredibly well. I could have done without the part where I fell in the only dip in the entire garden and bruised my knees and my pride and showed my industrial strength undies to the group, but sure what harm?

Yesterday, they had an appointment to go to the registry office and get legally married.  At some point, the mother of the bride asked when they were going to get ready, and what everyone was wearing.  There would be no getting ready, she was informed, they were going as they were.  As far as they were concerned they’d been married since Saturday and this was only form filling.  So they went as they were and got married in the eyes of the State.  And then they all went for burritos.

At no stage was I, nor will I ever be, as cool as them.  If that’s what a hippie is, I sorely wish I was one.

It's a Cover Up - Or I wish it was!

Your clothes should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to show you're a lady - Marilyn Monroe

 It’s been another week without enough sleep.  Maybe that’s what’s making me cranky.  Or maybe I’m just an old bag.  Or, most likely I think, I’m deeply jealous of my betters.  But do you know what’s really annoying me this week?  Yoga pants.  Or leggings, as we used to call them before sportswear got notions about itself.

Yes indeed, leggings have been promoted.  They are now being referred to as yoga pants, which I consider just poor vocabulary. Yoga pants are actually a much softer, looser item which to the best of my knowledge can only be carried off by people who are genuinely into yoga and have the kind of body that screams "supple and fit" from a great distance, and the relaxed walk of a true Yogi, which helps to make their pants look less like a nappy. 

These days people are basically wearing leggings with colouredy bits down the sides, or even, God help us, criss cross open sides, and calling them yoga pants. 

Not the same thing at all.

Now don't get me wrong.  I know they say you should never wear an item if you remember its being in fashion the first time around.  But I own a few pairs of leggings.  Plain black leggings, that I wear in the winter with very long jumpers or shirts.

For when leggings were considered the height of fashion the first time around, the end of the eighties, I think it was, they were almost always black.  And being children of the seventies and eighties, we all suffered such a lack of confidence that we would no more have gone around with our arses hanging out and only a thin layer of lycra protecting our modesty than we would have worn our knickers on our heads.

Leggings could only be worn with long tops, in those happy days.  It was a cast iron rule.  In fact, when I first met His Nibs a pair of leggings, an oversized music t-shirt, usually Nirvana, and a long flannel shirt, all worn with Doc Martens boots, was considered perfectly appropriate clothing for a girl going out on a date on a Saturday night.

A happier, simpler time.  It was before we were all supposed to have eighty different makeup products which had to be lashed on in a complicated series of stripes, and called contouring.  I was young, and looked young, and a bit of mascara and a lip gloss could get me a long way.  These days, even without the contouring caper, I have to put on pre-make up primers to look young, and extra layers of makeup to make my skin look brighter, and post makeup sprays and stuff to stop the whole lot from sliding into my wrinkles and sitting there.

I much preferred the simple grungey look of the early nineties.  It suited me very well, what with me being bone idle.  I was having my glory days at the time myself, if only I'd known it, but I was never one for glamorous clothes and showing skin.  Maybe if I'd known what an incredibly short moment I'd have in the land of the thin, I would have made a bigger effort to make the most of it.

Anyway, I think I could be on my own in hating this trend for going out clad only in lycra.  Two young colleagues of mine have informed me that they don’t agree with me at all, on any level.  That they quite like this trend.  Both these colleagues are male and in their twenties, but I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

I may be a narky arse, but I’m fed up looking at people practically in their pelt.  What we're dealing with, with this new trend of people going around in their fancy leggings and crop tops, is basically nudity disguised as sportswear.  I'm walking the streets of Dublin lately with my eyes trained on the ground, for fear of what is to be seen. 

His Nibs and I once went on an adventure to the Wadi Rum Desert, in the Middle East.  His Nibs is the adventurer in our house, I'd be happy in a nice hotel with a bar near the pool.  But he has the soul of a wandering explorer and used to talk me into going on adventures that I never would have had otherwise, and that I've never regretted.  It was a great trip.  We had to cross the desert on camels, to reach the camp of the Bedouin people we were to stay with.  The Wadi Rum is an amazing desert, with red sand and huge rock formations everywhere.  I felt like I was on a movie set.  During the night we saw dozens of shooting stars, because we were so far from everywhere that there was no light pollution, and I've never seen a sky so velvety black.  The only sounds were the soft whisper of the sand moving, and the occasional snorts and grunts of the row of camels sleeping behind our makeshift tents, ready to carry us even further into the desert the following day. 

I see more camel toes during an average lunchtime on Henry Street, these days, than I did on that entire holiday.

All I'm saying is that the people who are parading around town in their sports clothes, especially if they're wearing a crop top or short top with leggings, need to be sure that they are happy for the rest of us to know what they look like naked.  Because we can all see exactly what you look like naked, believe me.

Now, of course some of my trouble here is good old-fashioned jealousy.  Because a lot of these women look amazing in their lycra.  I'd look like a hot dog squashed into the skin of a cocktail sausage in the same get up.  I wish I was one of these fabulous women.  That goes without saying.  I see them and I swear to give up fried food and chocolate and cake (and God do I love cake) and even milky coffees if it will get me into the sort of shape that these women have.  It won't of course.  The damage is done.  I think it's impossible for me to go back to the shape I had, in the original time of leggings, without major surgical intervention.  And so I sigh and roll my eyes and give out about the women who look the way I want to look.  But remember, even when I did look that way, and I did, you know, I was a size ten for a few minutes in 1995, I didn't go out wearing a second skin of spandex and nothing else.

Maybe I was just a kinder and more thoughtful thin person, and wouldn’t have enjoyed making women in their forties want to cry.  But even though you may have a stomach like a washboard, and a bottom you could bounce pennies off, please remember, when you jump on an escalator, and I waddle on behind you, I'm now eye to eye with your posterior.  If you've made the mistake of buying very cheap "yoga pants", there's a very good chance that I can see and could describe your underwear in disconcerting detail.  Or that I can see the individual stitches pulling across the centre of your bottom.  That's never dignified, and is one of the main reasons that we used to wear tops that practically reached our knees before getting into leggings.

Maybe we need a few rules.  Maybe if the outfit you’re going to wear to town is as revealing as your bikini, you should have to put on a sarong or similar before you leave the house.

Or maybe we should have rules about going out at all.  Maybe fat old moany people like me should be allowed into town one day, and the people who are addicted to Lycra could stay in, or actually do their exercise instead of just looking like they’re about to. 

The people who want to go out with their camel toe on display should be allowed out on other days.  Then we’d never have to meet and the people in my life wouldn’t have to listen to me ranting and raving all the time.

Or maybe, just possibly, you should try to retain some sort of mystery or dignity in your life and not put your privates on display on the streets.  You’re not a baboon.  But that's just one cranky woman's opinion.