midlife blogger – How Not to Have a Midlife Crisis

To ski or not to ski?

December 13, 2022 No Comments 3 Mins Read

As a further consolation for having to curtail my ‘Big Central American’ adventure this year, I booked onto an intensive ski course in Switzerland. Considering the amount of times I have been skiing in the past, I should be a contender for the British Ski Team, but, sadly, I am still absolutely terrible. Whilst skiing in March, Husband got infuriated with me whimpering at the top of a blue run, so I decided to ‘Go for it’ as instructed. This resulted in me sustaining two broken ribs. I continued skiing (badly) for the rest of the week, but was unable to cough or laugh for a further six weeks. I see this ski course as my last attempt to improve, before I hang up my ski poles and just concentrate on drinking cappuccinos in Alpine cafes, whilst everyone else hurls themselves off mountains. My journey here yesterday was pretty challenging.…

Greetings Galápagos!

October 25, 2021 4 Comments 4 Mins Read

My journey from Ecuador to the Galápagos Islands was far from straightforward. Firstly, I had to catch a plane to the tiny island of Baltra, which is only the length of the runway and the airport terminal. So if a pilot gets it wrong his plane ends up in the Pacific. I was on a big plane so, needless to say, it was a heavy landing following by a deafening screech of brakes and screams from nervous passengers. Once through the tiny terminal, I caught a bus to the edge of the island where a small boat ferried passengers 200m across the sea to the island of Santa Cruz. This should have been a pleasant little crossing, but the majority of the passengers were short, plump Ecuadorian ladies with massive suitcases and even bigger behinds. I had a suffocating 5 minutes squashed between such two senoras and 4 suitcases, on…

Testing Times

June 25, 2020 2 Comments 4 Mins Read

Blogs On Women I have thoroughly enjoyed writing my blogs on women, or should I say me, over the past few months. Nice to see I have a few readers, so I have decided to continue for a while! 2 Metre Rule Ok, so we are coming out of lockdown after 12 weeks of baking and gardening and we are all venturing out into the ‘New Normal.’ The problem is, I haven’t got the foggiest idea what that is. I did, but then Boris changed it. I have just about mastered the shaking hands with my elbows and waving like a toddler when I see my best mate, but it is all the other rules I am struggling with. The ‘2-metre rule’ is now a ‘2-metre or 1-metre plus rule’, when we can’t do a ‘2-metre rule.’ So, in a supermarket if someone is browsing the Pinot Grigio do I squeeze…

I’m Free!

June 4, 2020 4 Comments 4 Mins Read

As a child I actually loathed cheese, of any description. When I was growing up, all those years ago, you came home, had your meat and two veg and a slice of apple pie, if you were lucky, and that was it. Food intolerances and allergies hadn’t been invented then.

Cheese Allergy?

One day at school I was given a particularly large slice of hideous soggy cheese pie, which I refused to eat. By the time lunch was technically over, I was a solitary child at the dining table, with the demonic headmistress glaring at me and repeatedly saying ‘Jayne, you will finish that, we don’t waste food here.’

Tech No Hope!

May 22, 2020 4 Comments 3 Mins Read

Filofax Days

If Coronavirus had struck 30 years ago it would have found a very different world from the one today. I was in my mid 20s then, mobile phones were the size of bricks and computers were the size of packing cases. I remember getting my first mobile phone, a huge Motorola with a short rubber aerial, and I thought it was the coolest things since eyelash curlers. Admittedly it weighed about 2 kg, and needed its own backpack, but it was a MOBILE phone! I had a sales job, and I remember strutting around with my Filofax in one hand and giant Motorola in the other, wearing jackets with shoulder pads on steroids.

Getting Trollied

April 20, 2020 10 Comments 3 Mins Read

Anti-social distancing Ok, I admit it, I haven’t spent every single day since Lockdown started in my pyjamas, watching TV and eating chocolate. I have actually got a little voluntary job. My Mum lives in a retirement village where 91 elderly residents are in total lockdown for 3 months. As a result, there are a lot of folks who need food shopping doing and prescriptions collecting. I am that person. This means that most days I have to extract myself from my leisurewear and brave the outside world. Rules Of Social Distancing I have been known to queue outside Sainsbury’s three times in one day. What strikes me most about this is how differently people interpret the whole ‘social distancing’ concept. Hours and hours of standing in supermarket carparks, with a trolley, has actually made me one of the world’s leading specialists on this topic. On the whole people can be divided…

Hot Birds

April 15, 2020 4 Comments 3 Mins Read

No, this isn’t an old photo… I usually get excited about Easter. It is like a mini Christmas without the presents. It is a time when all of the Family get together under one roof for a few days, we tacitly agree not to wind each other up, and we enjoy nice food and good company. The problem is everyone is still here. Don’t get me wrong, I do dearly love my Family, but I do now realise why young men between the ages of 18-21 must go on to Further Education. Their mothers quite simply cannot tolerate them being at home for prolonged periods. It is seriously damaging to their health. The Son During the university holidays I put up with Son rising from bed at about the time we are having lunch, doing absolutely sod all all day, apart from hogging the TV remote then shooting little men on a screen all…