Dear LPG,

In my humble estimation, being a person of a certain age comes with its advantages and its disadvantages.  

Perhaps, once we retire, we have more time to see just what is happening to the way we really look. There comes a time when we realise that the lines are that bit more visible around our eyes and mouths, the rolls of extra skin are forming in all the wrong places and our shape is never going to stop altering for the worse.

For the most part, we have to accept what is happening to us gracefully. The many creams and potions that we see advertised in the newspapers, on line and on TV which are specifically designed to keep both the men and we women looking younger give out two messages.  The first is that many of us are becoming more and more obsessed with the way we all look, and that many of these products are much more successful at making their manufacturers rich than they are at realising any real improvement.  

I have to say in spite of my misgivings about how I look now, I am glad that I am of an age where I could never have afforded to go under the knife for the sake of keeping beautiful.  In these days of comparatively cheap cosmetic surgery, that so many frighteningly young people take advantage of, I often find myself thinking that, if today’s persons of a certain age find that being accepted as one of the worlds ‘beautiful people’ is a hard thing to deal with for them now, what say all those clinically enhanced young people when they reach my time of life?  I don’t think that I am unique because how I look is still important to me, and I fear that while some of tomorrow’s older people will be able to afford to stay young and beautiful, many will not with perhaps a more acute effect than it has on us now!

We are often told that the mirror is unforgiving ,but I think I may be one of those ladies that has managed to cope with looking at my reflection every morning and finding an acceptable version of myself looking back at me, but every now and then I find myself asking one of my friends that age old question, ‘Does my bum look big in this?’

I think that our mirrors are kinder to us than we think because we usually take a look every day and, being creatures that adapt, we tend to miss the details as they change.  It is when we see an old picture or video film of ourselves and compare it with a more recent one, that the difference really hits home. 

So I have found yet another couple of uses for that mobile phone of mine.  Instead of asking a friend what they think, I occasionally get one of them to take a picture of me which, when I compare it with some of the older ones, somehow allows me to be more objective about how I really look now!

HW, Catford.