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.

One toe is missing but you get the picture

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

Anyone living in an igloo probably has one of these

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.