Why Getting Older Is More Fun Than Being Young

Sometimes the stars align and one stupid thing lines up with one funny thing and you realise just how much more fun it is to Be Older.

Lots of people – mostly young ones – will assume that ‘tis better to be young and that we’re all trying hella hard to stay young. Well, maybe some of us are, but don’t confuse that for a second with actually wanting To Be Young Again.

Forking hell, Being Young looks exhausting these days. I offer you Katy Perry at Paris Couture Week. Katy has abs of steels – I know this because I have now seen all 27 of them. Sitting ramrod straight at Paris Couture Week. In fact, so steely are her abs that I daresay Superman himself could find no fault. You could bounce actual coins off them. I hope Orlando Bloom does just that! She has cuts and vees and hollows where most of us mere mortals only have flesh.

As the one-time editor of Women’s Health I can attest to the fact that this supreme level of abs ain’t easy. Also Katy Perry has a bebe. And I know this doesn’t entirely negate your abs returning, but it doesn’t make it any easier. So, Katy rolled into the Balenciaga show in rolled-down, ripped-up black tights and a fur coat. What? You thought I forgot a few words there? I didn’t. She wore ripped stockings – of the ‘I went to school in these’ variety and a coat. And sunnies. Three things.

This whole lewk obviously bothered me more than I thought because I even dreamed about it – I spent much of the dream nightmare trying to surreptitiously tug my lapels together so my tits wouldn’t fall out of my blazer. Katy must believe very strongly in the divine power of tit tape or whatever was holding her heavy fur in place because she is oiled and naked, bar the low-slung tights.

Like the old Downton Abby dowager duchess I’m clearly turning into, my first thought on viewing this whole ensemble was: what the actual fuck. Mainly because I’m just too Can’t Be Arsed to be rolling around town in heels, tights and a coat like a disheveled Dynasty-era call girl. It made me tired just looking at her.

It's like Demna Gvasalia of Balenciaga thought: hmmm, wait, Bianca Censori but make it fashun. Bianca is, of course, Mrs Kanye West – she of the pantyhose as pants and suspender belt as top school of fashun thought. It’s not a lewk. Well, it wasn’t until Thursday. So, there’s Katy.

On the other end of the relatable spectrum is Mrs Rod Stewart, Penny Lancaster. Penny is a towering blonde goddess of a woman who is turning 50, entering menopause and was interviewed in last weekend’s Brit paper, The Times. And here’s the bit I loved. Says Penny: “I was calling and calling them for dinner. They finally came down… The two boys and Rod. And I picked up the plates and I threw them across the kitchen. Which is an outrageous thing to think of. Who the hell would throw dinner? But the physical act [was hard to stop].”

Penny, darling, I don’t think this is outrageous at all. As someone who makes dinner almost every night to yell out into the cool evening air: “dinner’s ready” only to be greeted by complete and utter silence, the menopausal rage is strong in me too. No one in my family can figure why this small delay is remotely enraging, they’re all ‘cominnnng’ as they tell me again. And again. I know you’re forking coming. I need you to come now. Immediately. When I call. It’s the rage.

Penny, bless her, eventually figured out what was on the boil after throwing her dinner plates at them from the confines of her sprawling kitchen in Durrington House, Hertfordshire. Here in Cape Town, South Africa, I have taken a different route. I plug my Airpods in and I listen to an audiobook while I make dinner. And while I’m confessing, I may as well tell you all that the aural / literary fare of late is romantasy. You can read more about why in this newsletter here

The idea started off innocently enough. Henry Cavill was interviewed on Graham Norton’s show and he divulged that he listens to Stephen Fry read Harry Potter on audio book in order to fall asleep. And he just keeps the titles of repeat so he’s listened to them all a lot. Its genius, because he loves Stephen Fry’s posh somnambulant voice and he can fall asleep and still pick up the plot the next time because he knows the books so well. Huzzah thought I. This could be me. I must do this. So I did.

PS: I also thought that I will listent o anything he says because, look at the fella… And that if I ever get to bond with Henry Cavill, which surely if you manifest it enough, will happen, we will have lots to talk about.

Another thing they don’t tell you about menopause is the insomnia. You will wake for no reason in the dead-arse middle of the night – usually with a core body temperature as hot as the centre of the sun – and you won’t struggle to go back to sleep. Oh no. You will simply be awake. Wide awake. Get up and enjoy the day awake. Only it’s forking one in the morning.

So for all this, there is Stephen Fry. Once I’d got my jollies on with Miss Rowling and Mr Fry, I was onto something, but eventually the books ran out and unlike Henry, I wasn’t ready to just go back to the beginning of the Potterverse again. I thought: what else could I try that was super hefty – thus lots of hours of audio booking – and serialized and fine if you dozed off. A Court Of Thorn And Roses, thought I! Sarah J Maas’ infamous romantasy books seemed the ideal next attempt.

Hours and hours of fae shenanigans (in the truest sense of the word) awaited. And thus began my cooking-with-Airpods journey. There’s nothing like a bit of smutty fairy passion and intrigue to while away those hours in a cold kitchen, while you wait for your beloveds to tell you that they no longer really like said thing that you’ve just made for dinner.

As an aside and health warning: do not listen to same literature in the car. Pulling up at the traffic lights blasting one of the mannnny eye-watering sex scenes from Court of Silver Flames is very hard to explain to the guy asking for small change at your window. Cassian and Nesta are not shy of a shag 😬

But where was I? Yes, Penny Lancaster throwing plates at her ingrate family versus Katy Perry having to wear nothing but pantyhose to sit around in Paris. I’m entirely certain there were whole decades of my life where I would have wanted to be Katy-on-the-FROW, but now, like Penny, I know that it is waaaaay more relaxing and fun to be doing fuck all at home. Except maybe pissing off your respective children, throwing the odd sometimes-deserved raging fanny-wobble and then going to bed with a smutty book. To dream about Henry Cavill.

Am I right? Or am I right?