All downhill from here

So I finally caved ... and bought some reading glasses. I had been wearing Dunk's spare pair occasionally and pretending that I didn't really need them. But I now have to officially admit that sometimes it's not just that the light is bad. Interestingly it was not reading but knitting Dunk's new jumper that tipped the balance. It has a complex cable and the yarn is very dark blue and I was finding it too hard to distinguish between the knit and purl stitches.

 However, in taking a photo of myself I got a very nasty shock. Mostly I kid myself that my face hasn't changed much over the last few years, in fact the frown line has been there since my twenties and has not got any worse, but when I uploaded the photos and tried to pick the nicest one I noticed that old age had been creeping up on me unawares:

It's the perniciousness of ageing that is most disturbing, or maybe it is just human nature to determinedly ignore these things until one day an old lady looks back at you from the mirror and you have the cheek to be upset about it. 
Well, it's 16 months since I started this little 'diary' and there has not been much progress. No particular symptoms have emerged other than a wayward irregularity in my cycle. I have stopped expecting anything predictable and at least my body has been predictable in it's unpredictability:-)

It's later than you think

There's nothing like a letter from the Pension Plan telling you that you have a mere 16 years and 340 days to go until you can retire on your 65th birthday to make you want to get a new job. The thought of having to do the whole thing again nearly twice over is just too much. Having said that it did feel like a surprisingly long time; certainly long enough to have a whole new career, like my dear sis who is venturing into the world of nursing after a lifetime in financial services ... Go Claire!

Menopause update: it feels more than anything like my body is merely getting forgetful.  My brain is already headed in that direction at an alarming rate so I guess it's just following suit.

More confusion

Don't you just love buying new yarn  ...  oh, sorry, wrong blog.


I have never had a nice predictable menstrual cycle. Being on the pill was the only thing that made it regular, but that's not real hormones anyway.  Maybe it was because of this that I didn't much bother keeping a record and trying to anticipate the next one. Or maybe I was just not that interesting and once it was gone I tended to forget about them until the next time. So in June I sat back and expected another long wait. I only realised that the last cycle was down to 21 days by checking the date of my previous post here. It confirmed for me that the discomfort is definitely in decline. I remember, when I was pregnant with Lewis, asking my mum about labour pains. She described them as being like period pains but worse, and this didn't help me much as I had not at this point experienced any period pains. After my pregnancies I found that I did start getting pains, not severe, I have always been a take-a-pill-and-get-on-with-it kind of person.  But in recent months I have noticed that I have not been bothered by cramps. So there you go, I've found another positive benefit of the menopausal process.

How can you tell

Had another long break, being over a month late. I have had two invites to go for a cervical smear test (ok, I confess, the first one was six months ago) and keep putting off booking the appointment, thinking that I don't want to book it and then have my period start. I have been feeling more and more weary over the last few months. I have no way of knowing if this is a menopausal symptom or just something to do with getting older. I used to be able to come home from work and do other stuff. Mainly now I come home and sit, maybe knit or blog browse, but just sit, until dinner time, and then sit some more. Or maybe it is just lethargy and I should pull myself together. And spots. Lots of them. And skin irritation. And putting on weight. Not a lot, just enough to notice that I really can't wear my old work trousers because the waist is now restrictive to actual breathing and movement. I have had a pretty steady weight since I was a teenager, only really varying by about half a stone or so, so I can tell when it is changing.
The thing that has really struck me is that I no longer feel broody when I see small babies. I remember so vividly the urge to reproduce, the craving to have and hold a tiny baby. The intoxication of the smell and the touch. The pleasure in being pregnant and anticipation of the arrival. And I used to worry that I would go on feeling like that, that the idea of another child would sit at the back of my mind and preoccupy me, and fill me with regret. But it's gone. No yearning whatsoever. I get warm, cosy, grandmotherly sensations about the idea of babies. And to tell you the truth I am pretty relieved.


(Picture, Beech forest by Gustav Klimt, just because it is one of my favourite paintings)

There will be blood

I sat over my breakfast today and listened to this very interesting interview entitled "There will be blood: Evolution and function of menstruation" over on Skeptically Speaking (it's an hour long but worth sitting through). The woman talking is Dr Kate Clancy who is a researcher into all things menstruational and who also writes an interesting blog over at Scientific American. The talk was partly about the evolution and physiology of periods but also some more cultural aspects and the impact on women. Particularly interesting was the prevalent urban myths around the whole subject. The idea of 'synchronisation' of cycles amongst women who live closely together is debunked and I just loved the fact that someone had bothered to research whether it was safe to go camping while on your period ... apparently there is no evidence the scent of blood will make you more vulnerable to attack by a bear:-)

(I borrowed the image here from The Period Blog)

Having had another extended break between cycles I then had a period that lasted ten days. On the plus side there were no cramps, which have got gradually worse over the years. No particular other symptoms that I might be able to attribute to my hormones.

Menopausal women in literature

I had been thinking about the way women are portrayed in literature, particularly older women, and how little mention there is of the menopause as a part of women's lives. So I am on the look out for examples of menopausal women in my reading. This first one is from 'The Personal History of Rachel Dupree' by Ann Weisgarber, that I have been listening to on audiobook. This is a description of Mrs Fills-the-pipe, a native american woman who Rachel invites for tea on the porch, in spite of her husband's antagonism to 'Indians'.

"She looked older and slower than she had in the spring. Her back was bent with a little hump reminding me how women folded in on themselves when their child bearing years had passed."