Some things your mother won't tell you about getting old...

My mother is negligent. To this day, she has never warned me of the pitfalls of aging. Of course, some of it is obvious - you get wrinklier, a little saggier. I know about the aching bones, the difficulties getting up from the chair, and the forgetting of important things - like the difference between an oven and a refrigerator - in fact anyone within a 20 metre radius of someone "getting on" knows these things. We know that our hearing will go, that our bones will hollow out and that, eventually, our urinary tract will give in to the slightest temptation to pee, whether asked or not.

BUT, what I didn't know about, and wasn't warned about, is the hair! Random hair, popping up in all sorts of places where it hasn't hitherto appeared - hair that for all intents and purposes looks like it belongs to someone else, or something else! (a wild boar comes immediately to mind).

I am luckier than most I guess, having blonde hairs, although they are fairly prolific. Thankfully, I am a woman, and my marginally lower testosterone levels mean that I am not as bad as my brother who looks like a relative of the polar bear. But in the few years since I turned 40 I have apparently been working on growing what can only be described as a whiskery white moustache. When I use the work bathroom, the neon lights shine down upon the twinkling galaxy that was once an ordinary upper lip, the wispy antennae lighting up the darkness. I am sure these hairs store enough solar energy that if the lights go out I am guaranteed not to lose my way. And, lately I am sure that I can feel a faint tickle when I talk or eat as the hairs waft together gently in the breeze. Ugh!

I have tried hair removal creams, only to be left with a festering rash for several weeks - alerting even the most casual observers to the danger zone - mmm, cracked and spotty upper lip, or a few hairs? The hairs won a reprieve. I recently tried "threading" - which involved me rubbing twisted cotton up and down my face while contorting my mouth into extremely dangerous positions, watching in the mirror for strips of skin being flailed from my face - well as much as I could between the tears pouring out of my eyes. It was relatively successful - no rash - but I was so worried about the wind changing direction and freezing my face that I haven't been seeking my sewing basket. And like most other parts of my body (with the exception of my eyebrows), there is no way that anything resembling hot wax is going anywhere near it.

I thought that potentially being called "Jo with the mo" was bad - that is until I found a pig bristle growing out of my neck, and a hair that is long enough to be plaited if it had partners, growing randomly from my shoulder. What the...? And that isn't even mentioning the fact that pubic hair does not appear to be immune from the gravitational pull of the earth, and a growing awareness that it is not only men who get nipple hair. I'll save those beauties for another blog.

So there you have it. You have been warned - but most likely not by your mothers. Hopefully (sorry dear readership of none) it's not just me!