Tanning irregularities
I have the summer syndrome of big brown nose. Why does my nose tan so much quicker than the rest of me? This is a conundrum of several years’ standing. In my youth, I burnt my way through lobster to conker evenly (one year on a beach in Mykonos, I even reached the water blister stage, such was my yearning for the Bo Derek all-over bronzed Goddess look) but now, I am walking around with distinctly uneven tanning. I know my nose is closer to the sun than the rest of me but no matter how much sun cream I slather on, it just keeps getting browner and browner! And it’s not only my nose that’s afflicted.
Every summer, I also acquire exceedingly brown knees. They’re sort of fried pork sausage-coloured, a brown knobble between the Rich Tea Biscuit of my shins and the Findus Crispy Pancake that is my thighs. I believe Kate Moss may have the same tanning issues as she has my knees – huge and a bit loose where the flesh above the knee can’t be bothered to hold itself up anymore and collapses in a concertina. I already have damaged legs – thanks to a lifetime of falling over and off things. I’ve fallen out of trees and cars, down concrete steps and off bunk beds. My most dramatic topple was when I impersonated Jenny Agutter’s sprint up the train station platform to meet her father (“Daddy, my daddy”) in The Railway Children. Such was my theatrical exuberance, I failed to see the small dog on a lead until I was sprawled on top of it, my denim-clad legs shredded and bleeding. I will never, ever be a leg model.
Help, my eyebrows!
To add to the problematics of my brown nose, I now have a hairy face. Unable to visit the hairy woman’s haven (Karisma, Narborough Road, Leicester), for my monthly threading and waxing session, I’m sporting quite sizeable eyebrows and a pubescent boy’s moustache. I have contemplated buying a home waxing kit but the last time I took the DIY route, I ended up looking like I’d been having oral sex with everyone in the VD clinic. Top tip: when you have a cluster of herpes-like lesions on your upper lip, avoid client meetings (unless they’re in a leper colony).
Useful/less birthday presents
This year’s birthday presents were by and large useful (gin, plants, books, gin) but there was one oddity. Thanks to those crazy Icelandic lesbian friends of mine, I now have what I take to be a hand muffler for enjoying coffee mornings in a blizzard. The last time I was in Iceland, when I wasn’t getting tipsy in an outdoor hotpot (a jacuzzi to you and me), I did a ramble on a glacier in a balaclava. I could have done with a hand muffler on that occasion. One hand could have remained firmly on the rope preventing my slipping into a crevasse, the other could have been clasping a mug of steaming oxtail soup. I wonder if Ranulph Fiennes has got one.