A man’s guide to knickers

Men: if you see this, keep her (and thank M&S)

 

Speed Blog by Wendy Saunt

 

Men of the world, listen up - you might think you know your lady (gazed into her eyes (window to the soul? My arse)) or had a sneaky peak at the inside of her handbag (and then regretted it - yesterday’s knickers, a broken Rimmel compact and a half eaten Mars should never be seen in close proximity), but if you really want to understand her very being... check out her keks. Here are a few pointers: 

Split-crotch panties: A definite Readers’ Wives wannabe. Upside is full-throttle porn sex (this woman does not spoon); downside is that she wears highly flammable red polyester-mix keks while doing it. 

Re-enforced gusset and gut control: Desperately needs a shag but self-sabotaging as won’t let anyone within a two-foot radius of offending fortified underwear. Ideally, would prefer a bit of notice before getting her leg over. Like, two weeks. 

Cotton briefs with girlie details (rainbows, horses, fairies): Suffering from ‘little girl syndrome’. Check for any resemblance you may have to her father before proceeding. 

Figleaves: A dreamer. Has aspirations to wear them every day but do not be fooled – these are shag-pants only. Daywear is decidedly baggy and greying. Affections can be bought with the purchase of decent lingerie sets (this is not a judgement). 

Bling bling G-string: High-street and high-maintenance. Who wants a ton of zirconia decorating their arse? Moreover, who thinks their arse is worth decorating? Without doubt, going into Tulisa territory with this one. 

Commando: Either fancies herself as a bit of goer or is a hippy (check bikini line for details). 

Marks & Spencer: A keeper. 

Wendy Saunt is a interior designer, writer and art consultant. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @Wendy__Saunt

 

What to do about the Visible Panty Line?

Speed blog by Sarah Farraway

 

I will confess to being a long-time lover of the G-string. Obsessed as I am with the dreaded VPL and fond as I am of a nice pair of tailored trousers - the G-string has been my friend for many a year. Probably since the night my father suggested I go knickerless under my skirt for the school disco to avoid a case of VPL. He thought it was unsightly. I was 15 - and aghast. I had visions of being the ‘girl with no knickers’ for the rest of my school days, of pimply teenage boys hanging around like flies. I wore the knickers, put up with the VPL and bought my first G-string soon after.

 

I always found them comfortable but my adventures in G-string land have caused some embarrassment. There was the time I left my favourite black cotton Bendon G-string at my friends’ grandparents house after staying there with her. They sent it back to us in the mail with a note saying they weren’t sure what it was but thought it probably belonged to one of us.  This was 15 years ago and I saw them two months ago at her wedding and even though they are now very elderly and have dementia, they chuckled as they remembered me as ‘the G-string girl’.

 

Or the time my girlfriend decided it would be hilarious to wear my (admittedly very tiny) candy-pink coloured G-string as an eye patch at a dinner party we were hosting, when I had a crush on one of our male guests and was trying to impress him.

 

But I had a baby last year and sad as this is to admit, my bottom is NOT the same. Its not round and perky like it used to be and it just doesn’t look - or feel - good in a G-string anymore.  So I tried developing a fondness for the ‘big knicker’.....but still there’s the VPL problem.  Even the ones that go right under your bottom leave a line across your thigh. I am a daggy full-time mum these days and can’t be bothered to wear a bra most days but I still have standards!

 

So my solution ladies, which I’m sure you’ve all tried, is the French knicker, with their cut across the middle of your bottom. I love them. They look beautiful and even though they sound like a VPL nightmare, if you get them in a delicate enough lace or other material, they don’t show - at all. And the best bit is I chuck them in my front-load washing machine on a delicate cycle and they come out good as new.

 

But I do suggest being discerning about who you get dressed in front of.  As I walked around my bedroom in a lovely pair of pale-green lace French knickers recently, my 9-year-old stepson laughed and said “Sarah, your undies don’t fit, your bottom’s hanging out”. Charming.

 

Sarah Farraway is living and studying in Sydney while raising a newborn and three stepchildren.

Pant rant

Speed Blog, by Wendy Saunt

If there was ever a word that makes me feel decidedly unwell, it’s panties. I know it’s
meant to be sweet and innocuous, but it isn’t - it makes me want to be sick down my
front. It is, you see, the word of choice for glamour photographers, Japanese
businessmen and their ilk - as in “I know you’re only 15 but if you could just slip your
panties off, love” and “I know I’m married with teenage daughters but I really want
some panties worn by schoolgirls” - and that can never be a good thing.

And, of course, aside from the nasty ‘barely legal’ connotations, there are so many
better words for them: grundies, shreddies, underclackers or the achingly beautiful and
simple knickers, to name but a few.

Knickers - proper knickers, that is, with a proper back bit - are very important indeed
and it’s time to bring them back. Back, that is, to the lingerie sets they rightly belong to
and from which someone decided to replace them with fugly boy shorts and anus-
garroting g-strings. Seriously, did you, Marks & Spencer man, ask any woman about
this? Any woman over the age of 25, that is?

Seeing as I don’t think you did, let me tell you this: women love knickers - with their
canny ability to cover arse, be relatively flattering (unlike their respectively dowdier
and sluttier compatriots) and not have to be constantly retrieved from one’s bottom.
So, stop denying us ladies one of life’s great pleasures - a really great pair of knickers.

Wendy Saunt is a interior designer, writer and art consultant. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @Wendy__Saunt

 

SpeedBlog No. 5 - Pants pants pants...the small things we love to love and love to hate.

Any good stories about pants big or small? Have they caused you, or anyone you know, thrombosis? Ever forgotten to wear them? Ever 'forgotten' to wear them? What was your favourite pair? Have you found the perfect manufacturer of beautiful big pants? Tell us, tell all.

Yes, SpeedBlog No. 5 is about pants. Knickers, panties, keks, jocks, lingerie...we all wear it love or hate. What good pants stories have you got for us? Photos encouraged.

Send your entry to notthestylepages AT gmail DOT com. 

You can read Katherine Burgdorf's amusing advocacy of big knickers here.

and Gabrielle Jackson's shock confession on nanna knickers here.

Orphans, circuses and shoes excite this young reader

By Ellen Francis

I was describing one of my favourite childhood books to a friend the other day. It was about a pair of children who are orphaned and run off to find their long lost uncle Gus who is a circus performer. They find him, the boy becomes an elephant trainer, the girl becomes an acrobat, the reluctant uncle learns to love them (as does the whole circus) and they're allowed to stay. A quick Google reveals this is Circus Shoes by Noel Streatfeild and reminds me I also loved her books Ballet Shoes and White Boots, stories about sisters who become brilliant ballet dancers and ice skaters respectively. 

I also loved the Secret Garden, with its precocious child prodigy; I enjoyed Anne of Green Gables, who made a happy life from a difficult beginning; I ploughed through the adventurous Swallows and Amazons. It does appear I preferred books with strong female characters, although I hadn't realised this before. Perhaps it is also telling to look at what we didn't enjoy in comparison to our peers. I never liked any of the Enid Blyton type books: all too wholesome. And I couldn't get to grips with school-set fiction like Mallory Towers: too obviously idealized.

I'm not quite sure what all this says about me. I’d love to be brilliant at something but at 36 I've yet to discover an untapped talent (to my great chagrin). I haven't run away to join the circus but I probably am a bit of an escapist/fantastist; the positive spin would be that I am an adventurous, unconventional type. One analysis is clear to me: these favourite characters were all fiercely independent and individualistic often with fairly dysfunctional/absent families; and that I could (and still can) definitely identify with.
 

If I were a child today I'd be reading heaps about orphaned child prodigy Harry Potter, no surprises there.

Published as part of Not The Style Page's SpeedBlog series

Cross dressing and gender repudiation - the stories I loved as a kid

Speedblog, by Katherine Burgdorf.

Girls are silly, weak and annoying. Not even subconsciously this has always been my standard worldview. Or am I wrong about ‘always been’? Until about three months ago I just thought I was just born angry, but suddenly it suddenly occurred to me that all the ‘series’ books I’d loved as a kid were all dominated by girls who didn’t want to be girls or, at the very least, girls who gave two fingers up to frills and knitting. Was this the reason I’ve turned out the way I have? Is it why I get annoyed when people announce their pregnancies and engagements, or why women tottering around on too-high heel irritates me so much?

I specialised in post-war British and American fiction...from the 40s up to the 70s. The most important book series in my life was The Famous Five (first published in 1942). I read so many Enid Blyton books I have forgotten most of them but the character George (Georgina as her parents named her) in this series is the ultimate tomboy hero. I didn’t particularly care for Timmy, her dog (I thought he was badly behaved and responsible for most of the group’s life threatening situations) but George and her swimming, rowing, camping and rescue skills, was an idol. She refused to be called by her girl name, and delighted in dressing, talking and behaving like a boy to the extent people thought she was.

The other huge influence on my life was Trixie Belden, a dungaree-wearing girl detective. Trixie was smarter, braver and tougher than any of her brothers or ‘Bob-Whites of the Glen’ club friends. She was selected to be a positive influence on girly girl neighbour Honey, and even with her short sandy curls, freckles and mannish ways she attracted Jim Frayne’s devotion. She also solved all crimes committed in the greater Westchester area from antique theft to fraud and family imposters. In a strange community of prissy millionaire ladies, Trixie was a lion.

In the same vein my other heroines were go getters like Jill Crewe, who rode horses in the fictitious Chatton area, had the respect of military men like Captain Cholly-Sawcutt and set up her own pony club, Nancy Drew (more crime busting) and Ginny, who lived in wild Scotland with her mystical Arab mare Shantih...and hated her frilly sister Petra.

These were the grrrllls of my childhood. If I had to write the sequels to their lives I suspect they all moved to Manhattan and ate their twin-set wearing counterparts for second breakfast (they were all good eaters). I don’t know if they still write characters like this – I’m sure they do – and I’m not saying these women were perfect but when I think about the risk to our lives from hideous boredom, the confines of having kids and all the dreary suburban lives of others, I have no fear for these friends.

Shock confession rocks NTSP: 'Dim' bloke was my literary hero

I have a confession, and it’s not going to be pretty. In fact, good feminists and literary types might want to look away now.

Obelix, of Asterix and Obelix fame, was my childhood literary hero. Yes, you know the one: the stonemason with a taste for xenophobic violence and who, looking back, was perennially dim. His BMI was probably at the ‘morbidly obese’ end of the scale and he had a girl’s haircut. And he wore his trousers too high. And he was French.

Hmmm. I’m not sure I can actually fill the remaining 114 words of this speed blog after that clanger.

But there you have it: I’m a feminist and my childhood literary icon was a man, and not a very inspiring one at that.

I could put it down to my childhood reading list - for reasons I cannot recollect – being short on the classics. No Anne of Green Gables for me. Nor The Railway Children. Or Little Women. Of course, Pippy Longstocking (whose eponymous heroine had a similar haircut to Obelix) was very, very, very cool indeed. She was confident, independent and, best of all, irreverent. But the fact is, for some reason, she didn’t have as much impact on me as that wild boar-scarfing, Roman legionnaire-thumping Gaul. But then I was also quite keen on Pigsy from Monkey, described on Wiki as “a pig monster”, so perhaps I always set the bar low.

Wendy Saunt is a interior designer, writer and art consultant. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @Wendy__Saunt

What might psychology teach us about ourselves and the books we read as children?

Dr Pauline Rennie-Peyton writes in response to our SpeedBlog series on childhood reading....

'There are lots of psychology professionals who support the theory that the stories we read in childhood and the characters we identify with help to form our life pattern in later life.  I invite your contributors to look at their own life pattern and see if they can see links with who they were as children.

'One woman identified with Heidi, the story of a little girl who befriends a little boy with a physical disability that affected his walking.  She was later shocked to find that she was the carer of a husband who was wheelchair bound and resenting it.  

'Another woman had been hooked on adventure stories and wanted to be married to a hero, she did find her outdoor hero in the form of a wildlife photographer and complained that she was stuck at home being the domestic and raising children alone while he went off exploring and having fun.

'What is also difficult to come to terms with is that real grown up life is rarely as exciting as our childhood fantasies.  The male heroes in picture books don't have smelly feet and watch football and the heroines don't suffer from PMT and complain when they don't get enough attention.'

Dr Pauline Rennie-Peyton

Dr Pauline Rennie-Peyton is a Chartered Psychologist specialising in relationships www.renniepeyton.com

*** We would be fascinated to read people's stories or thoughts on these kinds of links, and interested to know what your children are reading now.' ***

Anne and Elizabeth: My headstrong heroes

By Gabrielle Jackson

There were two adventurous young girls I was obsessed with as a young girl myself and I read about them with rapacious enthusiasm.

They were Elizabeth Allen from Enid Blyton’s The Naughtiest Girl in the School series and Anne (with a e) Shirley from Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables epic. They were both headstrong but smart, troublesome but kind. I idolised and identified with them both.

Every birthday or Christmas brought the next book in the series and every time I finished one was a time of intense mourning . When Elizabeth finally graduated from the school in which she was the naughtiest, it was time for Anne to come into my life. I was older when I read about Anne and perhaps that’s why – or where – the line blurred between me reading about Anne and thinking I was Anne. Back when being called Gaye was still acceptable, I even insisted on being Gaye with an e.

I gave that up at about the time I began looking for my own Gilbert Blythe. Perhaps it’s time to re-read the Anne series and draw a line  - finally - under me as Anne since I am neither a teacher, nor married (to a doctor), but still as inspired now by her imagination and wit as I was then. 

This post was published as part of Not the Style Pages' SpeedBlog series

The upside to never being satisfied....

A SpeedBlog response from Sarah Farraway

I put the advice 'enjoy every stage of life' in the same basket as 'treat every day as if it's your last'. All sounds good in theory but in reality - not possible, or even desirable.

I mean, who can treat everyday as if it's their last? If I lived my life like that I'd be a lazy bum who never finished school, got a degree (or a job), did the washing up or the grocery shopping. I sort of feel the same about 'enjoy every stage of life'.

I've never been happy with where I was. I have always lived with one foot in the future - daydreaming impatiently for the day to arrive when I will be living exactly the life I want to. Of course, with age I have worked out that day will never arrive and I will always be seeking and wanting more. But is this bad?  I don't think so. Some people will think it sounds as though I never enjoy a moment or have any fun. That's not true, I have fun all the time. But the fact that I am never satisfied has given me focus and discipline and I believe is the reason why I have achieved everything I ever set my mind to.

There are downsides of course. I am hideously impatient and I’ve never been able to enjoy a night out as much as my friends (I can only have a good time up to the point where I start thinking about what I’ve got to do the following day….). But I like having a goal to work towards, even if it keeps changing as mine have a tendency to do.

I’m curious to see if having my first baby later this year changes this lifelong aversion to living in the moment. The ever-present needs of a new child and having wanted to be a mother for a long time may conspire to force me to live in the here and now.

But I think it’s just as likely I will start planning for the next baby…or finishing my degree….or buying my dream house, or something……

Sarah is living, working and studying in Sydney with her partner and 3 1/2 children.

The beautiful truth of life's pleasures

A speedblog entry by Ellen Francis.

"Life is what happens when you're busy making plans". So I stopped making them, and got a life. I had been working in the City in a job which was making me short-tempered, deeply cynical and, despite many friends and endless dates, rather lonely. So last January I quit my job, moved onto a Dutch barge moored in a quiet part of Battersea and, to complete the picture of a mid-life crisis, bought a sports car.

"What are your plans?" I was asked. I hadn't a clue, I vaguely just wanted "a year off to think about what I actually want to do".

From the outside my non-working life looks great, but more importantly it also feels great from the inside too. Exactly six months after quitting my job I met a man. And he came with a dog. The absolute highlight of my day is meandering down the river with Daisy on our hour long, sometimes two-hour long, yomp to Battersea Park. I take real joy, heart bursting joy, in this simple activity. I have reconnected in small, but to me life-changing, ways with the physical world around me: the tides make the boat creak, rain sometimes leaks through the roof, a sunny day finds me sitting on deck. I am at Nature's mercy and this has forced me to make another wonderful connection: with the community on my doorstep who answer distressed calls when I spring a leak.

It is now 15 months since I quit my job and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up (except maybe marry that man who is now my fiance). I am extremely lucky to afford this time off, but my new life has also taught me that it's the little things which make me happy and, like the dog, as long as I am fed, watered, walked and given a little unconditional love each day then all will be well.

So, to answer the speedblog question: the best stage in life is now. Or rather (borrowing nauseatingly from modern faux spiritualism) "the now", being "present" or "in the moment". The best stage in life is the stage when you stop making plans.

Watch a film about the Holocaust and walk through a cemetary - then tell me you've got real problems.

by Katherine Burgdorf.

I have spent the last two years unpacking the boxes of my mind. Many were marked 'fragile' and all of them were woeful. Had they been labelled they would have read something like 'Status', 'Comparison', 'Anger', 'Anticipation', 'Expectations' and 'Deservedness'. One of them was marked 'PMT - This way up you idiot'.

I don't mind telling you it's been something of a chore - like starting a session of Spring cleaning and still being surrounded by mess in Autumn.

But about a month ago I realised I had nothing to worry about. To continue the analogy the only box left was the one with my personality in it. It's not a neat filing case but it's no worse than anyone else's...and it's got loads of room in it. I realised I'd narrowed down the things I'll worry about to four. I told someone this at work and they thought I was crazy. 'Why would you list out the things you're going to worry about?' they said. But they had it wrong. I just meant that if it's not on the following list I'll have to think seriously before getting wound up:

1. my husband's health
2. my sisters and their families, including my sister in law and her family
3. cancer
4. my marriage

If there's a problem with anything to do with that list it's automatically classified as 'All out panic'. If it isn't on that list, like whether my pension is likely to be big enough in 40 year's time, then try not to worry unnecessarily.

Life, as it turns out, is really not so bad for me. So when I ask which phase of my life is the best, it has to be now. I don't own a pair of rose coloured glasses. While I had fun in my 20s what I remember most is vague or not-so-vague anxiety about my place in the world.

People often groan at the way I see the world. I'd be flattered if I really was that different but here are the things I find useful to think about at 33 and one-quarter.

1. When in trouble, ask yourself whether it will matter when you're 80. Instant perspective.

2. Watch documentaries and films about African poverty and the Holocaust. Very few of us have any real problems.

3. We will all be dead very soon. Wander through a cemetery. It's one of the most refreshing things you can do.

4. If you do one thing in life, ditch the sense of righteous expectation. No one owes you anything, no matter how many times your mother said it was all about school grades/kids/marriage/getting on the property ladder. Your life can turn to utter crap in a second, or over years. It might be your fault, it might not.

5. Women: If you regularly feel like you're going to kill a) yourself and/or b) other people I pass on the wonderful recommendation of B vitamins and Evening Primrose Oil. Because while it's galling to be afflicted with PMT (when you righteously expect to be above that kind of thing, see point 4) you cannot argue against hormones without some help.

Of course, my 5 pieces of advice as are useless to you as they are useful to me. If I gave the above advice to my 25-year-old self I'd have nodded wisely, thought I'd got it, and completely ignored it in practice. Success is probably best summarised as getting by as best you can with your silly problems until you die, or cannot live with them any longer. You'll either find a way to change them, or not.

Please Life, Don’t Get Any Better by Gabrielle's Mother

By Margaret Coulton

Further to my daughter’s lovely comments, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on my weekend as I approach my 63rd birthday.

My weekend started Friday afternoon with babysitting two of my beautiful grandchildren until 7.30pm, then onto a gig of the daughter of my dear friend, Cathy. After a few wines, chilling to some great music, a few dances, some karaoke (I was the best), we went back to Cathy's place for a few digestifs, a little more singing and dancing and finally to bed at 3am.

Saturday - a beautiful sunny 25 degrees, started with a long scrumptious breakfast with friends, then we were off to see two more of my beautiful grandchildren. Patricia, our daughter-in-law’s mother, was kind enough to provide a beautiful gourmet picnic lunch and a lovely white wine. We were home by 5pm and enjoyed a quiet night with a few drinks.

Sunday, a beautiful 25 degrees again, a walk on the beach, then prepared a delicious lamb ragout pappardelle for an early birthday celebratory lunch with friends and, of course the love of my life, Gazza. Following a few champagnes, magnificent lunch and a number of wines, as is the norm for our get-togethers, we partook in a number of extremely riveting discussions, including: the potential for starting our own reality TV series where we could give cooking and lifestyle advice; who was going to look the best at Janet's upcoming 60th birthday party in Hua Hin (Thailiand); appropriate hem lengths for women of our vintage (I did not agree with the guys that it was six inches above the knee); droopy boobs (none of us have them); politics (we all agreed we could run the country far better than our present government); our current medications; what we will do when we win lotto; and of course, bowel habits.

I must admit, looking after my beautiful granddaughter, Tilly, that night was quite a challenge at the end of such a weekend!

So what do I think about this stage of my life? Bloody exhausting!

Published in response to Not The Style Pages' SpeedBlog series

Could life get any better? asks Gabrielle Jackson

by Gabrielle Jackson

I’ve been hanging out with two gorgeous German girls in India. They’re 25. They were genuinely shocked when they discovered I was 10 years older than them and it became quite a topic of conversation for us. I said I was happy to be 35; that I liked getting older. Why?, they asked, with real curiosity.

I’m glad I went to a lot of parties when I was in my 20s and stayed out till dawn a few too many times, but I’m really happy I’m not still doing it in my 30s, I said, by way of explanation. It’s not that life gets easier, per se, it’s just that it gets easier to be you. To feel comfortable. To know what to do. And the fun doesn’t stop, not when you’re enjoying life because you like who you are and where you’re at. Hell, I’ve taken a year off to eat kebabs: could there be a better stage of life?

And when I look at my mum, in her 60s and still squeezing life for every bit of joy there is, I feel sure that life just gets better and better…forever. 

Gabrielle Jackson is publisher of this blog and is on a KebabQuest. You can follow her on Twitter @gabriellecj

Published as part of Not The Style Pages' SpeedBlog series.

Enjoy who you are, says Dr Pauline Rennie-Peyton

By Pauline Rennie-Peyton

She is absolutely right, if women could accept who they are at whatever age they are they would be much happier.

So, what does it mean that someone your age is slimmer, has less wrinkles than you.  It doesn't mean that she isn't looking outside herself and wishing she was more like you.

My big word at the moment is accept, you for who you are, the way you look and enjoy being you and the impact you have on the world.

Botox, fillers, hair colours, lifts and liposuction are not going to make any difference to your self acceptance when you wake and it is still dark.  Feeling good about who you are and content with what you have created for yourself is more likely to ease you back to sleep rather than you fooled someone into thinking how young you look.

Being 50 plus is wonderful, you no longer have to worry about the things that worried you in your earlier life. Take a look at a photograph of a younger you and remember the insecurities you carried with you then.  Take a good look at that young face and realise that worrying about things you could do little about -  like wanting straight hair when it was naturally curly or wanting larger/smaller breasts than you had  - and realise that you looked just great as you were.

I am sixty this year and this is what sixty looks and is like.

My advice, accept and enjoy who you are at whatever age.

Dr Pauline Rennie-Peyton is a Chartered Psychologist specialising in relationships www.renniepeyton.com

Published as part of Not The Style Pages' SpeedBlog series

A glass of wine will always help, says Naomi Tarszisz

By Naomi Tarszisz

I saw a terrific programme recently about twins - it looked at how our genes shape us - to a degree our health, and possibly our demise, is predetermined. But it also explored the extent to which our diet, habits and even our attitude can influence where and how we end up. Awesome, when science agrees with your intrinsic wisdom isn't it?

Becoming a mother has meant a complete revolution in where I see myself in the world - two little bright eyes watching your every move demands that you live consciously and authentically. This time is so precious, it goes so quickly – I want to live with more vibrancy in every moment of my life, especially when things aren’t as I would like them to be. Not just for myself but for the people I love most.

My offering:

Be present - breathe. Love (wisely is best). Laugh (a lot)

Live every moment fully and completely. 

Be grateful for what you have, don’t worry about what you don’t have. 

And a glass of wine at the end of the day will make you remember all this even if your day is beyond shite, whatever stage you’re at…

Naomi Tarszisz is a mother, digital consultant and yoga buff. She lives in Sydney, Australia. You can follow her on Twitter @naomitarz

Published as part of Not The Style Pages' SpeedBlog series 

Wind down the window, says Wendy Saunt

By Wendy Saunt

“Enjoy every stage of your life” is perhaps the single wisest piece of advice anyone can receive, at any age. It’s particularly pertinent, though, if the person it’s aimed at is in their 30s and thinks their life’s over.  

Having just nudged over from the safety of my mid-30s into the yawning abyss of my late 30s, it seems that this is the decade when you realise your perpetual youth doesn’t exist and the screaming fear sets in.

On a side rant, this is probably because we have a bad habit of fetishising youth and writing off experience as a peculiar affliction of those over, say, 25, but that’s not much help when you’re assessing your loss of collagen in the cold morning light. 

But that’s the point right there: it’s very easy to think about what you haven’t got - be it collagen, the boyfriend/job/flat of your dreams, or even just the sense that time’s on your side. It’s far harder to think about all you have – experiences, memories, nuances and, my God, polished edges, all garnered from the good and the bad bits of your life.

So, as much as this is going to make me sound like a Paulo Coehlo-reading world of pain I’m going to say it anyway: life is a journey. Wind the window down and stick your head out. 

Wendy Saunt is a interior designer, writer and art consultant. She lives in London. You can follow her on Twitter @Wendy__Saunt

Published as part of Not The Style Pages' SpeedBlog series 

Every time, wonders John-George Nicholson

By John-George Nicholson

Every football pitch, every diving board, every running track, every bed, every joystick, every church, every pub, every beach, every thought, every sheet, every screen, every ring, every phone, every hill, every scream, every dance, every drink, every punch, every blade, every tower, every swing, every want, every bleed, every lie, every bike, every kiss, every yes, every no, every giggle, every trip, every click, every song, every film, every shower, every squeeze, every Christmas, every candle, every tube, every bus, every meeting, every belly, every bye, every corner, every book, every word, every lolly, every stranger, every friend, every cage, every fuck, every love, every surprise, every clown, every promise, every purchase, every dream, every square, every bead, every wave, every swallow, every retch, every tear, every cog, every bottle, every can, every can’t, every apple, every cherry, every conviction, every escape, every sorry, every light, every rewind, every shoe, every dress, every speech, every moan, every wall, every fairground, every tooth, every hairdresser, every anchor, every rock, every flat, every burn, every scribble, every trampoline, every touch, every stink, every grin, every silence, every slide, every time I wonder was that really me.

Published as part of Not The Style Page's SpeedBlog series

Oh fuck it, says Alison Lidderdale

By Alison Lidderdale


I guess I am at the 'Oh fuck it' stage!

Things that mattered so very much are now addressed with either a way out or compromise, and that’s not the lazy solution. It often takes more of a challenge to address things, but, hey there is a result! Before, I didn’t always find a solution, and regrets on that - well I might have a few!

There is always a point when you just can't do any more: in the workplace before a big event, a major presentation or meeting. No matter how much you have tried to nail things, you have to pass things over and think, 'Well I have done my best.' The confidence to do that is there now - if people don’t know that one small detail is missing, will they ever find out?

It sounds sly but it's not. The realisation that if you are going to do a job and do it well you need to prioritise and be sure the important stuff is done first. It’s the same in day to day living. I am now probably over half way through a very colourful life, much of that has been lived disgracefully and why change it? All I want to do is be sure I stick to the theme. Priorities are important here too, saying no is tricky but it’s a good word in some instances. Rather than trying to do everything, why not commit to the first invitation and make it a blinding night? What’s the point of running ragged and not enjoying anything?

There are so may F words that mean so much: Focus, Fantastic, Feelings, and the F word remains my mantra for now.

Published as part of Not The Style Page's SpeedBlog series

Speed blog #3: Enjoy every stage of life

One of the wisest, most fun and wonderful women I know once told me that the secret to a happy life (and still looking and feeling great at 70) is to enjoy every stage of life. Don't long for the past or future, she says, because every stage of life offers something wonderful.

What stage are you in? (You don't have to disclose your age, don't worry!) How does it distinguish itself from past stages and what makes it great? Or do you wholeheartedly disagree with this advice?

Usual rules apply: be loose with the theme but not the word limit (200 words).

Send your 200 words to notthestylepages@gmail.com
(Please include a one line bio and a link if you want one. Images welcome if you own the copyright.)