Ironing

Ironing. Seems to me that I blather on about ironing rather a lot. It does tend to loom rather large in my life, mostly because I allow it to breed under the kitchen table, where it lurks, glowering and growling at me.

And whilst it might seem extremely strange that I should choose to do this in my period of celebration, I developed the notion that to clear the basket out Would Be A Good Thing. So, with no further ado, with a drum roll, a fanfare, several loud and imperious chords, I give you....



...this rare and unusual sight. The bottom of the ironing basket, free and unencumbered. Wow.

Whilst I laboured, I had Coldplay on the cd player. (Another of my guilty secrets. I like Coldplay. And James Blunt. Get over it.) The two things led to meditation, the subject of which being - as should be no surprise - my upcoming significant date. Now, it may seem obvious to others, but it wasn't to me. One of the reasons that I have been feeling so equivocal about my birthday is that somewhere along the line, at a very early age, I must have acquired an image of what constituted an old lady. It is equally true, and this I was more aware of, that any such image is daily reinforced by the media. You do really still see in the paper, frequently, Mrs X, pensioner, aged 60. Hand on heart, I am not kidding, in this day and age. But still, it is the childhood-imprinted picture that is the most significant and hardest to overcome. Fast following this rather obvious conclusion, I realised that no, I am not going to wake up one morning next week with iron-grey hair set in tight curls and body clad head to toe in crimplene. (I do have from my childhood a memory of my grandmother, who would have been in her sixties at the time, struggling to encase herself in her Barbie-pink cotton corset. Would that lurk beneath?) Neither are the contents of my skull suddenly going to morph from where they are now, struggling along trying to make sense of a lunatic world, into a rigid neocon set of Values, Family or otherwise. Simply ain't gonna happen. You have only to look at, say, Germaine Greer or some other older woman icon. Joan Collins...no, perhaps not. Ark! Washes mind out.....

Anyway, as well as the empty ironing basket, I gained a calmer mind, and a better grip on certain things. So, now to return to the finer things in life, and go spin up this little lot, prepared yesterday sitting out in the sunshine. Oh, that is so much better.