Are 40ths the new weddings?
Or am I being *very* miserable about this?
How old is Prince Harry? Duh, he’s 40. He turned 40 on Sunday and it was everywhere, his birthday having been breathlessly reported on for weeks. How was he going to celebrate his fortieth? What does his life look like at this milestone? He seemed to be either a sad, angry, middle-aged man, depending on what you read/listened to, or a happy, carefree father living his best life in California. Would he speak to his father on the big day? Would he speak to his brother? How many millions was he going to inherit from his great-grandmother’s trust, etc etc ETC.
(Side note: Harry’s brother did, technically, wish him a Happy Birthday, various news outlets reported excitedly on Sunday, because William and Kate’s Instagram account wished him a Happy Birthday. Am I the only person IN THE WORLD who finds this sort of performative, public wishing of happy birthday weird? Do the Royal family do it to seem youthful and *with it*? I find it quite strange and also a bit funny when, for example, the main Royal family Insta account wishes another member of the Royal family a happy birthday with a few jaunty emojis. Why not send a card? Not the one above though, obviously.)
Anyway. Perhaps the 40th thing struck a nerve because I’m a few months out from turning 40 myself and I’m finding the pressure of turning 40 Quite A Lot. I’m currently a member of four separate WhatsApp groups dedicated to four different friends’ 40th birthday presents. In June, I went to the Lake District for a 40th; in a few weeks, I’m going to Dorset for the weekend to celebrate a joint 40th. Instagram is full of 40ths and some slightly questionable fancy dress. ‘What are you going to do for your 40th?’ people keep asking me.
It’s not that I’m panicked about turning 40. One of my closest friends died four years ago and isn’t around to see her two girls growing up, which means I’m a fully paid up member of the ‘ageing is a privilege’ club. Vix would have turned 40 on December 1, and a gang of us have made a plan to go to a carol service to think about her. Another 40th date in the diary and you’re not even here, Vix, thanks a lot. (Kidding, we miss you.)
I’m also not grumbling about celebrating my friends’ birthdays. Honest! I had a magnificent time in the Lake District; Dorset will be splendid. Other 40ths have been equally wonderful. I’m grateful, I promise! Especially if you’re reading this!
There just seems to be so much PRESSURE on the 40th. So much EXPECTATION. I’m all for celebrating milestones. See my point about Vix, above. It just feels a bit competitive, this ‘what are you doing for your 40th?’ thing.
Why do we put so much pressure on 40? Why is it deemed such a benchmark? Is it because, with any luck, we’re sort of half way? Some will get more, some will get less, but 40 is a pretty decent halfway point? Literally *middle-aged*. Is it because a good number of people have spent the previous few years knee-deep in nappies and want to have a knees-up instead? Is it adios, youth, and, hello, groaning every time you get into the car?
Is it because various of us are delighted to see the back of our 30s? I am, I think. My 30s have been my most confusing, heartbroken decade, dominated, as it will also have been for various women, by one question: to have children or not? Not that this is definitively answered as I slide into my 40s. Last week I interviewed a woman who had a baby with a donor egg when she was 48. ‘You’ve frozen your eggs, you’re fine! You’ve got a decade!’ she told me except, really, please, no, can I not have another ten years of mulling this over?
I had a conversation with a friend who’s the same age a few weeks ago about turning 40. She got married relatively recently and said that was her big celebration. In other words, she doesn’t want to do anything much to mark her fortieth because it’s too much, too soon after her wedding. When the next thing worth celebrating comes along, she said, that’s when she’ll throw a party. Which makes sense to me.
Hitting a new decade is an obvious time to throw a party. Course it is. I get it. You made it! Others maybe didn’t. Great. But what if you feel more like doing something when you’re 39 or 41? Or 49 or 51? Are those ages less valid because they’re not a nice round number? I wonder, slightly as with weddings, whether the culture of social media feeds into this. You see someone else throwing a 40th, and you feel the need to do the same. OR am I over-thinking this (quite probably), and is it just a nice time to gather together your pals and have a drink?
I know, I know, this sounds really miserable and ungrateful. It’s not really meant to be a grumble. More just a panicked bleat that I’m feeling the pressure to do something BIG and AMAZING and IMPRESSIVE for my 40th when, really, what I’d most like to do is take a five-hour bath and then have dinner with a few pals and my fam. Which obviously I’m entirely free to do. I’ve always been a bit weird about my birthday. I think because I hate that pressure to *do* something. I’m (almost) in awe of those people who string theirs out for a week or so. All I’m saying is can the rest of us be allowed to go about it more quietly?
Picture Video of the Week
I’ve been in Sussex dog-sitting for Mum for the past week. I’ve got a book deadline, or technically two book deadlines, that I’m (quite slowly) working on, interspersed with bits of journalism, quite a lot of toast, and walks. It’s lovely down here because I can fling open the door and both Dennis and Beano (Mum’s terrier) can race out, tumbling over one another into the fields, which is quite different to our routine in London where I have to bribe Dennis with a biscuit to get his lead on, and then there’s a five-minute walk (if we’re lucky, 10 minutes if we’re not) to the park, because we have to stop every 5-10 seconds for sniffs of the pavement, or an abandoned sock, or an empty fag packet, or a hair tie, or an old chicken bone. Or, a few weeks ago, a couple of used condoms, which seemed to have slid from a neighbour’s recycling bin, neat knots tied in the end of them. Can you recycle used condoms? (Rhetorical question). Dennis was appallingly interested in them.
Anyway, it’s been pretty nice in Sussex. Especially because it’s been so sunny. Also because I haven’t come across any used condoms. After every walk, the dogs retire to the sofa; Beano on the back of it, as per the video, and Dennis - on this occasion - upside down under a cushion. He particularly likes burrowing his head under a cushion. And don’t we all feel like that, on some days?
Recommendation of the Week
I haven’t turned the heating on yet, although I have had a couple of fires. This week obviously it’s HOT so we don’t have to panic. But I thought I’d alert you all to one of my favourite small companies in advance of the cold. It’s called Turtle Doves and they make EXCELLENT fingerless gloves which I essentially live in from October to March. I have three or four pairs that will be liberally sprinkled around my house come November - one pair balled up on my desk for writing in, another balled up in my coat pocket, another on my kitchen table for when I move my laptop to write there, possibly yet another pair in the car. And the reason I have so many is because they recycle old cashmere jumpers. Or at least they did last year. The scheme is on hold at the moment, but I emailed them yesterday to check and they said it will be returning at some stage, so you have to keep checking the website HERE.
All you do is send Turtle Doves an old moth-eaten old jersey (although check the label because they only accept 100 per cent cashmere, no blends here please), and they’ll send you back a pair of fingerless gloves in return. Isn’t that great? You don’t necessarily get gloves from your own jumper back, but last year I sent three jumpers in and got three pairs as a result. Quick, sustainable, cosy. Also make v good presents. They’ve also got a deal on atm, where you can buy a pair for £25 (instead of £37), so long as you don’t mind what colour you want.
Nonsense of the Week
Oh god, I’m going to sound like SUCH A GRINCH AGAIN. Maybe it’s something in the Sussex water, all the grumbling this week? But I regret to inform you the annual fuss about advent calendars has started. I must have received maybe a dozen emails last week about adult advent calendars. The Liberty advent calendar, the Boots advent calendar, the Space NK advent calendar, Lookfantastic’s advent calendar, Paxton and Whitfield’s ‘artisan cheese’ advent calendar, the Charlotte Tilbury advent calendar and SO ON AND SO ON. Apparently there are now waitlists for certain advent calendar, including Harvey Nichols’ and John Lewis’s (????). And I don’t wish to be rude, but might you need more going on in your life if you’re currently on the waitlist for the Harvey Nichols advent calendar?
A couple of autumns ago, a Catholic priest had a go at the rise and rise of adult advent calendars. ‘The job of advent is to clear the clutter of our lives away,’ thundered Dr Gavin Ashenden, ‘so that we have some space to welcome Christ when we celebrate the feast of the incarnation. But instead of decluttering and opening up every room for God, we are filling up every hole with money and excess.’
I did slightly wonder what a Catholic priest knew about filling up holes, but I agreed with the sentiment. Do we need to celebrate this time of year with a tiny pot of eye cream? And I’m not even religious.
Look, I like a dinky bottles of serum and mini mascara as much as the next person. I love Space NK. I am a big fan of cheese. I enjoy a spree in Boots (the Boots advent calendar contains things like tanning mousse and Carmex which is a pity, because what would be REALLY useful for Christmas is a bumper pack of Rennie and a bottle of First Defence).
I also like advent calendars. But paper advent calendars with little pictures behind them. This is going to make me sound like a tragic Dickens character, but when I was little I so remember the glee of rushing downstairs and being allowed to open the next door every morning. I guess some adults feel the same glee now when then rush downstairs and open the flap to find a new lip balm. It just doesn’t *quite* feel as festive, does it?!
There’s a sweet shop in South Kensington which always has a RAFT of paper advent calendars, if you’re after one of those. I’ve just had a quick look on Google maps. Is it The Medici Shop? I think it might be. They probably don’t have them in stock yet because IT’S SEPTEMBER, but from memory they have good ones. Or, the others that always make me laugh are the advent calendars you can get from posh houses - the likes of Highgrove, Chatsworth and Blenheim. Not very religious either, to have a Highgrove advent calendar with a cartoon pheasant and a Corgi on it instead of a donkey and a wise man. But I still reckon it’s better than a new nail varnish.
Also recommend the advent candle! Means you actually sit at a table and chat (or watch telly) and wait till you've burned your section for the day - obvs we always forget and ahve to do a frantic weeks burn or fall asleep on sofa and find out its now the 20th!
To be found in cathedral gift shops or your local church shop selling postcards of the church in snow in 1972 there is probs a dusty box of them
Why don’t charities do advent calendars? Say it costs £ 50 to buy one and each day they say what that day’s £2 is going towards. They could have nice pics too obv.