Second Flowering

Years I have waited for my Second Flowering to commence. Once I had shed the scent of Napisan, I thought, I would rise resplendent from the mire of motherhood and bedazzle Waitrose check-outs with new radiance. An epilator and a selection of brand new vests have been on standby for the Moment when it happens. The trouble is, it shows no sign of happening.

And so I decide to hurry things along a little. I invite a friend round with a mascara stick. She shows me what to do with lash clamps and gel pens. She turns my eyelids blue and silver and fills in crevices with pink mortar.

Over the ensuing days, with lesser skill, I replicate her efforts. And, as I face the world with Cleopatra eyes, things do indeed begin to happen.

The churchwarden comes hurrying up to me as I jive round my brolly at her 50th wedding anniversary bash. 'That man over there,' she giggles, 'has just pointed you out and said, 'she's going to be a beauty when she grows up'!' I peer at an elderly gentleman hunched myopically in a distant corner of the church. It must be my mascara, I think. 'It's because you're dancing like a six-year-old,' explains my daughter.

I'm chatting to a fellow mother under a lamp post outside the scout hall. A car crawls along the kerb and comes to a halt alongside us. Two youths peer out of the passenger window. 'We're being picked up!' marvels my companion. It must be my mascara, I think. Then the car slides into reverse and the youths lean out to greet a blonde who's been awaiting them in the shadows further up.

I'm discussing bathroom cleaning products and Syria with the man at the Boots check-out.  'You will forever linger in my mind!' he grins as he hands me a voucher for anti-ageing cream. It must be my mascara, I think. 'It's because you went on so much about your black mould,' hisses my daughter.

I am becoming disillusioned with Second Flowerings. I've spent £15 on beauty aids, but no heads turn in the Communion queue and the Vicar is oblivious to my coal-black lashes. Even the young man who pursues me through Co-op turns out to be returning a tin of Vaseline I've dropped.

Then, as I serve teas to school children in the church hall, a Year 6 girl peers at me closely. 'You're wearing mascara!' she remarks. I am jubilant. 'You're the first person who's noticed,' I say. She looks at me pityingly. 'Anyone would notice,' she replies. 'It's running all down your face.'

Has your Second Flowering begun yet?






Comments

  1. Sarah3 February 2015 at 12:04

    I was really pleased yesterday when my daughter came home from school and asked me if I'd dyed my hair (I had) - 'You noticed' I said - 'Not really' she replied 'but you obviously dropped some on the bathroom floor and trod in it and now there's a trail of brown footprints right through the kitchen and on the dining room carpet' ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Iota 4 February 2015 at 08:59

    To answer that question would imply I had had a first flowering, and I'm not sure I ever did.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron4 February 2015 at 10:06

      I'm told I had a blooming complexion when I was three. I hoped that counted!

      Delete
  3. Older Single Mum24 February 2015 at 15:28

    I'm finding it necessary to wear more make up and there's been no head turning for some time, so definitely still waiting here too. You're a stunner anyhow X

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Adventures of a Middle-aged Matron24 February 2015 at 17:19

      I've just had a new photo taken for my office security pass. It looks as though I've been fished out of a river. But I'm grateful for the flattery!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Daily Mail Columnists Should Wear Burkas

Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones has provoked the ire of Twitter with by declaring that mummy bloggers are blinkered dimwits whose lives are spiced by Napisan. I'm afraid I have to sympathise with her, for all of her prejudices echo my own: Writing about my life has pretty much ruined it. Supper last night was an elderly carrot glued to the fridge shelf by a pool of brown mucus and the floor was flooded when I left the bath taps running because Blogger has diverted me from domestic essentials. I've had to shut the children in front of the television when a new post has assailed me and some family members no longer speak to me because Twitter interactions leave me no time to reach the telephone. But there is a big part of me that thinks writing should be hard: you should cringe whenever you press that 'publish' button. Artists – and I'm sorry, I do consider myself an artist – have to wrench the dirtiest, most disgusting part of their inner soul and show it t...
Read more

The Various Uses of Rubber

I have ordered a new pair of wellies from Amazon for the daily walk to school. My current hardly-at-all-old pair has developed a fissure along one toe. I only noticed this when I was wading along the stream that flows brownly past bobbing Argos bags en route to the afternoon pick up, and I was not pleased. They are a glamorous pair with pink spots and white swirls, bought to ease my daughter's pain in ackowledging a wellie-wearing, stream-paddling mother in public. I now distrust wellies with spots and swirls, so order a safe-looking green pair. Better to be waterproof than glamorous. Royal Mail gets them as far as my door, thrusts through a 'Sorry you were out' card, and promptly loses them. Amazon is sympathetic and dispatches a replacement pair. This also makes it to my door and again a card is left. This time I decide to pick them up in person from the Royal Mail depot. The man behind the glass screen makes off with my delivery card and probably has a cup of tea and...
Read more

A DIY Guide to the Middle-Classes

I wonder sometimes what I am. I have lived the last decade on an inner city council estate, amid Oxford academia, in a remote country town and in London suburbia. In the first we were, with our relentless consonants and sagging bookshelves, regarded as aristocrats. In the second, as the 'squeezed middle'. In the third, as city sophisticates and now, sometimes, isolated in my tweed amid the Ralph Lauren and the hoodies, I feel myself a bumpkin. Class should no longer matter. Nowadays, for most of us, it's more a question of perception than birth. But the perception matters. My daughter battles to adjust speech, habits and dress to blend in with each new environment; the political parties compete to woo the amorphous throng they deem Middle England and Melvyn Bragg has started a television series on class and culture. The British, he decides, no longer define themselves by class, but by the music they listen to, the books they read. I listen to Dolly Parton and Beethoven....
Read more