Joy of Big Knickers by Garraway Kate

Author:Garraway, Kate
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blink Publishing
Published: 2017-06-20T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Slaying the Menopause Monster

‘You are utterly not qualified to write about midlife!’ my friend Vickie spluttered. ‘You’ve never even had a grey pubic hair.’

‘My God,’ I said, recoiling. ‘Am I going to get grey pubes?’

She sighed in exasperation. ‘You see? And grey eyebrows.’

Gawd! I spend so much time getting rid of the grey hair on my head that I didn’t stop to think that was coming too.

‘And since you haven’t got any symptoms of menopause, you don’t really know the full panic,’ she added.

‘True,’ I said. ‘I haven’t had any hot flushes. My periods still seem regular. But my skin is drier, definitely.’

‘That’s it? You’re forty-nine and all you’ve got is dry skin?’ she howled.

‘I thought fifty-one was the average age for menopause in the UK?’

‘Yes, but haven’t you heard of the perimenopause? The menopause’s little sister? Its oh-so-hilarious warm-up act? There are about fifty potential symptoms of the perimenopause alone.’

‘I don’t want to talk about this any more,’ I said.

‘Fine. Bury your head in the sand. But you’re not going to be able to avoid it, because it’s coming at you.’

The next day on Smooth, the producers were celebrating because a major skincare company had approached us about sponsoring my show. It’s great when a sponsor gets involved, not least because they nearly always offer listeners the chance to win a big prize – in this case, a luxury spa break. It’s good for the station and it shows great faith in the show as well. When announcing details of the competition, the company offering the prize gets a mention too.

In this case, we had to explain that the firm behind the prize were specialists in ‘expert skincare for women during the menopause’. I looked around at my team of twenty-year-old lads. They looked distinctly uncomfortable. Let’s be honest – boys don’t really like talking about periods, and I suspected they liked hearing about them stopping even less. ‘Do I actually have to use the word menopause? It’s not very glamorous, is it?!’ I ventured. ‘Can’t I just say “women of a certain age” or “women in their prime”?’

The team explained it had to be ‘menopause’ because the company wanted to reach out to the women who are looking for help at this specific time. Their philosophy was that if you are in the middle of the menopause, it’s dominating your thoughts and you are looking for anything to relieve it. So you tune into the word – it actually attracts you.

‘But surely it will repel everyone else?!’ I wailed.

Then an awful thought struck me – it was actually an entirely reasonable request from them, and I was the one being unreasonable. Why was I, a 49-year-old woman, recoiling at this being attached to my show? Shouldn’t I be embracing the idea? What on earth was going on?

I went to meet my friend Helen Warner for lunch. ‘We naturally shy away from discussing the menopause because it signifies all the negative things about being middle aged,’ she said over salad and chips.

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