Is the Internet OK? I mean, truly is the world OK but maybe that’s a bigger question for another day.

Last week I took a conscious step away from the World Wide Web and social media specifically. This was partly down to real-life issues; a stinking cold and an equally snotty email from my estranged mother. Truth is, sometimes when I feel depleted by cruel words and endless nose blowing a good old social scroll is actually restorative. The power of the doom scroll and all that.

This certainly wasn’t the case last week.

A local newspaper reported on their socials that a nine-year-old boy had been bitten on the face by a dog outside a local branch of Costa coffee. Details were sketchy, as is often the way with modern click bait reporting. I scrolled to read the comments.

“Not the dogs fault. What was the kid doing to antagonise the dog?” asked one post.

“There’s definitely two sides to every story. What was the kid doing?”

“I’d rather have dogs in coffee shops than kids. Dogs are better behaved.”

So, with zero context, somehow the kid is to blame? Suddenly, much like the young woman in a short skirt on a night out, he was asking for it? The lack of empathy was vile.

As for kids being better behaved than dogs? Dogs themselves are great but dogs need good owners. My youngest is slightly afraid of dogs after a small pup jumped up him in a park in Windsor. The dog was being walked off the lead and literally bounded over to Mr J who was only a tot at the time. The dog jumped up him, front paws on Mr J’s shoulders nearly knocking him over. The owner looked on non-plussed with not even an attempt at recall, nor an apology. Don’t even get me started on when off the lead dogs decide to invite themselves over to your park picnic and the owner just laughs. Imagine if our kids just wondered onto someone else’s picnic blanket and we just giggled. Hmmm.

Anyway, onwards and… oh wait. There’s a nice new coffee shop in a village near our town which we have been meaning to visit… but, much like the other coffee shop that recently closed down in the same village, they have decided to take to social media to ‘shame’ some customers who dared to leave their table in a mess. Don’t get me wrong, all of the emptied sugar packets must have been a nightmare to clean up, and they had dropped food packets (that were purchased from somewhere other than the cafe) all over the floor. I sympathise but 1. Why not address it while the customers are in the cafe if it’s such an issue. 2. Although it’s not fun tidying up after people is kind of your job when you work in hospitality, take it from one who used to have to clean up after teenage boys threw gherkins up the wall in McDonald’s. 3. As an independent business, or any business for that matter, it just makes you look really unprofessional having a b*tch on social media. Le sigh.

Scrolling on to find something more uplifting.

‘SToP tHe BoaTs”

Oh for effs sake. And that’s why I took a break from socials.

Who do I need to be following to find the good stuff?

Today is World Menopause Day. As a woman of a certain age and a certain stage (Perimenopause), I feel like I should have a lot to wax lyrical about today, and yet I find myself ominously mute.

While I experience symptoms of Peri pretty much every day (oh hi, hot flashes and brain fog) I really don’t want to be wholly defined by what’s going on in my uterus.

“We don’t talk about Menopause enough.” scream the militants.

Retailers respond. “Here you go ladies, here are some products that might help you through this stage of life.”

“nOt like THat!”, scream the militant Menopausers giving the aisle end displays a particularly feisty side-eye.

“Er, OK.” goes the retailer slowly backing away and stashing the Menopause vitamin supplements behind the cans of mushy peas.

For the Menopause militants anything short of a cocktail of HRT; replacement oestrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and anything else that comes in a patch or a lotion is just Menopause-washing. Don’t get me wrong, HRT has come a long way, and when I feel the time is right it’s something I will investigate but it isn’t a one solution fits all. Often it takes a while to get doses and concoctions of HRT right, some individuals have pre-existing health conditions that make taking HRT more complex, and some of us (me) just aren’t there yet. Our symptoms warrant a bit of help (hello, Lions Mane) but not a full on assault of medication.

And do we really not talk about it enough? It might be my middle aged mama algorithm but I see people chatting about Menopause everywhere, pretty much everyday.

But medical professionals still don’t take it seriously. This I can get on board with. At my ‘Over 40 Medical MOT’ Menopause doesn’t get mentioned once. Doctors are frequently seen to be dishing out anti-depressants when perhaps HRT might be the better solution. But let’s be honest, medical professionals don’t take female health seriously anyway. From pregnancy, puberty, pain relief, gynaecological procedures, birth control, and everything else our biological sex means we still draw the short straw. Women frequently face uncomfortable invasive procedures without pain relief when comparative procedures for men are anaesthetised. Instead of getting tribal, why don’t we band together and campaign for better women’s healthcare at all stages of life not just during Menopause?

Not to mention, not everything is Menopause related. I guarantee, if I posted on my Instagram that I had a sore foot I would have at least three comments or messages telling me that it was a common symptom of menopause. In fact, I feel like most health complaints of us women of a certain age age are explained away by being Menopause related when in fact they might not be. I worry that the future holds a surge of poorly women who received late diagnoses for other health conditions because their early symptoms were just explained away as part of Menopause.

One thing I think we weirdly forget, is we’ve been here before. From what I can recall, puberty wasn’t a walk in the park. For me it was a time filled with mood swings, greasy hair, awful skin, bloating, painful heavy periods… I know it makes some cringe, but I think there is a certain aptness to referring to my current stage of life as ‘cougar puberty’.

When I was going through puberty 1.0 nobody really defined me by what my hormones were doing. Sure, I was a teenage girl (and had the attitude to match) but I was also a huge (obsessive) Take That fan, a keen reader, a writer. I loved shopping and McDonalds, cheesy Australian soap operas and eating breakfast cereal for any meal apart from breakfast. Now it seems like I’m expected to a Peri woman first and then have my interests (which haven’t actually changed all that much from my teenage days) as a secondary feature to who I am, and, well, that makes me a bit sad. Later life is a stage where women notoriously lose sight of who they are and placing so much emphasis on our hormones rather than our whole self both helps and hinders us.

When we talk about Menopause we also forget the power that can come with it. It’s a new stage in our life and one we perhaps need to learn to embrace a little more rather than fight. It’s where we step into our wisdom and power. Let’s not forget that. In fact, let’s use our power to be Menopausal, yes, but to not let that define us, and instead chose to live fully as the amazing women we are. Whether that be by taking HRT or stroking crystals, let’s respect each other and use our wisdom to help all women to benefit from better healthcare.

Gotta go, I’m off for a Maccy D’s and a listen of Robbie’s new single. Might throw in a hot flash later but it’s not going to stop me having fun.

With tan lines fading and summer memories starting to tarnish I am feeling bleugh (or another word if you take a look at my Instagram post today). Summer was action packed, hi-octane and full of fun and adventure.

Now? Now, there’s a heady combination of back to school, peri, a super-busy workload, and general meh-ness.

Back to school is always busy. Class Dojo messages ping through at frenetic pace. Group chats stir back to life. I wonder if the Foodbank donation is for Beavers or a school event? Just three weeks in and I’m already confused and drowning in mum-min.

It’s all a bit intensified this year. My eldest has to choose which secondary school he wants to go to which means attending endless open mornings and evenings. When we’re not at the events it’s all we can talk about. All we can think about. I go to sleep planning the safest walking routes to local schools. My husband and I discuss how we are going to strategically complete the application form to ensure we don’t end up with a school we don’t want. I’m starting to analyse every minuscule detail of each school. Today, I called one school to book in for, yet another, open event and the receptionist wasn’t certain what time the event finished. Tsk! I thought to myself, poor admin - that’s a red flag. My thinking is bordering on obsessional and irrational. Much the same as the other year six parents around me.

Perimenopause is an interesting addition to the mix. I think I’m in the ‘eye of the storm’ stage. The symptoms have intensified. Hot flashes are flashier (not in a good sense). I am on a constant emotional rollercoaster, swinging from angst ridden to angry in a matter of nano-seconds. I often feel nauseous. I can never think of the right word, thanks brain fog. And, honestly, I just feel tired and not like myself.

Of course, self care went out of the window, around the corner and down the garden path. I’m painfully aware that I’m not looking after myself and that that’s also why I am feeling shocking and not in the best of moods. I was in such a good groove pre-summer holidays and it’s my aim to get back to doing yoga, running, and everything else that brightens my mood. But for now — beware — I’m a grumpy old woman.

It’s gone, isn’t it? Summer, that is. No glorious Indian Summer as the kids return to school this year. Although to be fair we did get a lot of the good stuff while the kids were off, and wasn’t it wonderful? Well I thought so anyway.

In the interests of full disclosure I have emerged from the school holidays financially bankrupt, my healthy routine is in tatters and my house looks like it’s been ransacked. With my eldest transitioning to high school in September I was acutely aware that this summer was one for making memories, not trying to keep on top of housework, and it shows!

Not so Lucky Claw

We kicked the holidays off with a visit to Lucky Claw in Birmingham. An Eastern-style arcade filled with ‘grab’ machines which are apparently ‘easier’ than the ones you might get at your local bowling alley or seaside pier. Instagram boasted images of kids beaming, their cute yellow trolleys overflowing with soft toys. Turns out my kids don’t really have much patience and £20 later (after about 20-minutes of stabbing frantically at buttons) we left with just two cuddly toys! Two cuddly toys which I later discovered were manufactured just up the road from where we live, and which we could have probably purchased from the factory shop for about 50p each. Ah well, it was an experience. An experience we will never repeat.

Then there were visits to Sheldon Country Park for plane spotting, breakfast at the top of Clent Hills, a trip to London to do the Minecraft Experience with the whole family and take in the touristy sights. There were long overdue family reunions, library reading challenges, endless games of Uno… We had play dates, treated ourselves to food from the new M&S Food Hall at Merry Hill, made French Bread pizza, discovered a new country park at Waseley Hills. I even got to go out for (much needed) cocktails with a mummy friend.

Childhood Memories

I didn’t expect to be indulging my inner child during the six weeks holiday but the Butterfly Farm in Stratford-upon-Avon had barely changed since I visited as a kid. Lunch that day was on-board a stationary retro train a short walk along the river. Very insta-tastic and a mean bacon bap too.

Equally, nostalgic was our return to the Roald Dahl Museum with our annual pass. Honestly, I’m not sure what I love most about visiting, eyeballing Roald Dahl’s recreated writing shed with all of his paraphernalia, the museum itself, or the gorgeous village of Great Missenden which is quaint and charming and filled with wonderful pubs and eateries. We love Fan Fan for delicious pizza.

Oh I do like to be beside the sea

Of course, there was our BIG holiday. Amazing weather, superb food, a wonderful hotel, some chill time and lots of lovely sightseeing all gift-wrapped in the delight that is the beguiling, slightly chaotic and very charming Malta.

You can’t beat the British seaside though and my mid-mum crisis (like a midlife crisis but instead you are navigating the transition of your kid from small child to tween) meant I was longing for some sandcastle action. We headed to Brean and I soaked up the precious moments wondering how long it will be before a suggestion to head to the beach is met with an eyeroll? Maybe never. Maybe next week. Who knows?

Flags, Flags, Flags

Flags were a bit of a thing weren’t they? Keeping up with the news wasn’t my vibe this summer but that led me to have no idea why there were so many St George’s flapping from motorway bridges as we went about our many travels up and down the M40. Eventually the flags moved into our local area hanging at half mast around lamp posts, as if someone of significance had passed away. Mini roundabouts looked as though a toddler had been left alone with a pack of Crayola. Honestly, the half-arsed-ness of the whole thing says more about the state of the country than any influx of dinghies ever could.

TV

TV offered some relief and I found myself oddly drawn to With Love Meghan, a kind of grown up Blue Peter that blended escapism with romanticising life, and just a touch of nausea. Flower sprinkles, anyone? I also cringe-watched season two and three of And Just Like That but that’s for another post.

Summer’s Gone

And now – here we are – all Pumpkin Spice Lattes and cosy sweaters, with just the photos and memories of summer to look back on. I find myself filling my diary with fun plans for Autumn and winter, revisiting my midlife goals, trying to get back on track with my healthy habits… and probably pestering Mr H to book our 2026 holiday!

How was your summer?

However, in reality I think I’ve been in my midlife crisis era for a good five years now. Again, if you follow me on the ‘gram, you might know that, for me, a midlife crisis is less about mourning my youth and trading in my trusty family car for a red sporty number, and instead, is more about embracing my age, leaning into a feeling of renewal and renaissance, and finally - after many years of people pleasing - living life on my terms. 

Bye!

What evidence do I have that my midlife crisis is, in fact, already underway? Well, firstly, I’ve cut people out of my life. That sounds super-harsh, doesn’t it? That’s OK. It kind of is super-harsh but also super-necessary. Sadly some relationships can only go around in destructive circles for so long before they disappear down the proverbial plug hole. Parental estrangement is not fun. It’s also never an easy choice. Many ‘Boomers’ on social media networks will denounce accounts that support those of us who decide to go no contact with our parents, and add unhelpful comments along the lines of: ‘bUt theY’Re YoU’Re pArENts’. Yes, indeed they are, and do you know what Judith that’s what made the decision to go no contact so ruddy difficult in the first place. That’s why I tried for years to make things right. That’s why I bent and bowed until I almost broke to try to be what my mother wanted me to be. But in the end I found the courage to break the cycle, to exit the stage and the drama. Only then could I see more clearly.

Therapy

That experience led me to therapy. My God. If you’re in midlife and you’ve never had a therapy session may I suggest that you book one post-haste. Heck, even if you’re not in midlife - get yourself on the therapist’s couch! Honestly, therapy was one of the best things I ever did. Finding a safe space to discuss my weird and wonderful life and upbringing, where I felt believed and not judged was incredible. Some aspects of my life are truly unbelievable. Like seriously, if you told them to me as if it was your life story I would likely roll my eyes in scepticism. Often when I’ve told friends of various tales (that seem perfectly normal to be by the way, after all we often only have our own life to base what’s normal and what’s not from) I’m met with disbelief and an exclaim of: ‘You’re making this up.’. Seriously, I wish I was. 

Therapy allowed me to process emotions that had been locked away. I went through a lot of tragedy at a young age. Not looking for sympathy it’s simply the truth. In true British stiff upper lip style, which was even stiffer in the eighties when I grew up, we just got on with it. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t get counselling. We didn’t ask for help. We didn’t allow ourselves to truly grieve, to truly process things. After all, there were people ‘far worse off than us, just get on with it’. Of course, whether the adults were actually just ‘getting on with it’ or whether they were self-soothing in other ways may never be known. Until I went to therapy I hadn’t realised how there were so many things ‘stuck’ in my head because I’d never really felt as if I had permission to ‘indulge’ in true grief. Again, I started seeing things more clearly, giving myself some grace and challenging some of the narratives that I’d told myself about me that simply weren’t true. 

Hair today, gone tomorrow

On a lighter note, I decided to grow out my blonde. My foray into being a blondie was accidental but addictive. I originally visited the hairdressers wanting a slight red tint in my mid-brown hair. Instead my hairdresser, who I trusted completely, suggested a few highlights. I was sold. A few highlights turned into a few more, then a few more, then more and… you get the idea. I loved the way the blonde made me look a little like a nineties TV weather presenter. At one stage I went for a full head of blonde. Typically that was just before Lockdown. Ah the irony of dark, dark roots alongside a block of yellow-blonde. 

Recently the upkeep has been too much. My hair has become dry and brittle. And, well, going blonde to hide the grey just felt a little cliche, so many others were doing it, and I’ve never been one to do what everyone else does. So I set about growing it out. The back parts weren’t too bad but my ‘money piece’. Yowza! That bad boy was luminous yellow and taking an age to grow out, and of course it’s the first thing you see when you look in the mirror. Now, I should tell you I am not a patient person, and so one day I took a pair of scissors and fashioned myself a pair of uneven side-bangs by cutting the blonde out of my Money Piece. While most people were cutting their own hair in Lockdown I waited for a quiet Sunday in July 2024. 

Next up, I decided to dye my hair. At home. With a box dye. This sort of thing is not my forte but honestly I didn’t do a bad job. Now I had dark short hair with weird side bangs. I home dyed it once more before finally going for a short bob and cutting out the remainder of the blonde. I am now back to natural, which is dark brown with a smattering of silver ‘wisdom’ highlights that seem to soar to the ceiling and stick out of the top of my head like Tellytubby aerials. I swing between loving it and feeling like going short as I get older is as much of a cliche as going blonde. I shall probably grow it and cut it umpteen times between now and the ‘end’ of my midlife crisis. Thankfully, I’ve never been the type to be precious about my hair. 

Middle aged cliche

Of course, there’s also been a smattering of the sort of things you would expect from a female midlife crisis. The blonde highlights might be cliche but so is the obsession with anything woo woo. Tapping, crystals, witchcraft - yep, I have become the type of mystical middle-aged woman that I would have once cringed at. 

There have probably been other signs of a midlife crisis too. Going to concerts on my own maybe? Instigating contact with people I haven’t seen in years? Renewing my love for colorful clothing? Introducing my kids to late 90s house music? Putting my journey into 40-something-ness on the Internet for all to see?

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If not already, then when?

Maybe 45 isn’t the start of my midlife crisis. Maybe it started as soon as I turned 40 and I never even realised? Or maybe, as I suspect, that was the soft launch to the main event which is due to kick off imminently. It was the groundwork to the renaissance that’s about to take place. All aboard. Let’s go! 

The term ‘midlife crisis’ was first coined by the Canadian Psychoanalyst, Elliott Jacques in a paper published in 1965. According to Harvard Business Review, Jacques, aged 48, wrote that: “during this period, we come face-to-face with our limitations, our restricted possibilities, and our mortality.” Yeesh!

The Atlantic, who cites the term midlife crisis as coming into being in 1957, says that Jacques: “said he’d identified this phenomenon by studying the lives of great artists, in whom it takes an extreme form. In ordinary people symptoms could include religious awakenings, promiscuity, a sudden inability to enjoy life, “hypochondriacal concern over health and appearance,” and “compulsive attempts” to remain young.”

By the time his paper came to be published in 1965 life had changed for many. Life expectancy had increased so, of course, if the second part of your life was going to be longer than that of previous generations you damn well wanted to enjoy it. Relaxed divorce rules, more readily available birth control and a general culture shift meant people more readily embraced the idea of a midlife crisis.

Of course, where there’s even a second of inner turmoil, there’s a swathe of self-help books, and so jumping on the bandwagon publishers and marketers pushed the concept of the midlife crisis and, of course, their wonder-book provided the solution!

At this time, the midlife crisis was predominantly reserved for “middle- and upper-class [males]. Classic sufferers were white, professional, and male, with the leisure time to ruminate on their personal development and the means to afford sports cars and mistresses. People who were working-class or black weren’t supposed to self-actualize. Women were assumed to be on a separate schedule set by marriage, menopause, and when their children left home.” [The Atlantic]

However, it wasn’t long before women started to embrace the midlife crisis too.

Typically marketers picked up on our desire to transform ourselves in midlife and thus came the deluge of wonder-creams and potions to erase wrinkles, grey hairs and any visible signs of aging. Sitting alongside this phenomenon came the introduction of Hallmark cards adorned with numbers to signify the recipients age. A pertinent and visual reminder of how the clock is ticking and time to live the life you’ve always dreamed of is running out.

It’s ironic to think that (according to The Atlantic) when Jacques originally presented his paper on ‘death and the midlife crisis’ to the British Psychoanalytical Society in 1957 he received a muted response. Yet here we are in 2025 with the phrase in common-usage. The Atlantic suggests it has caught on with little meaning because it is simply a catchy phrase, in the same way that ‘Terrible Two’s’ has become a common way of describing toddlers who are seldom terrible.

How peculiar that something that we have no true definition of, something that could be so unique to each individual, something that could be embraced by some and scorned by others is still such a common phrase. No matter how hard we try, much like Dawn’s beloved Pete, we just can’t precisely pinpoint what ‘it’ is.

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