Dear LPG,

Over the past year we have had a taste of what it is like to live without so many high street shops, and, I for one, have been made to realise just how I have missed many of the things we did, or had done to us, inside them.  So many of us have taken so many of those services for granted and they have suddenly become so conspicuous because of their absence.   One of the many things that we ladies have had to learn to live without is our manicured nails unless we managed to learn yet another DIY skill. 

I know that I have missed popping into a salon to have my nails done, but although I can’t do all the preparation as well as the people in the shop, I have learned how to apply a couple of coats of nail varnish with a reasonable amount of success.   

Being right-handed the nails on my left hand always look a bit less perfect than the ones on the right, but they don’t look too bad most of the time. The only time they get seen is when I am video calling and I can keep them moving, but I have to say that they just don’t look right to me if they are not up to a minimum standard.

The biggest problem for me is that, in spite of all the extra time that lockdown has forced us to find things to fill, I have found that the wait that is needed after the application of the stuff gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘watching paint dry’. 

I wonder if my fingers are the only ten that find it practically impossible to do nothing for the few minutes that seems like an eternity when the time comes. I always seem to find something that needs doing just at that time when I need to keep still.  There are the things that you can do without making contact with your actual nails; watching television only requires you to sit quietly, unless you need to use the remote control to change the channel, or you get so lost in what you are watching that you forget not to move them. I always find that not using my hands often forces me to have a thought that just has to be written down; an act that can be achieved with careful positioning of the pen, right? Wrong, most of the time!  And if nothing else, there will be that sudden desperate need to deal with an itch that will find that very period of time to suddenly develop.

Then there is the problem of how long you wait for them before testing to see if they are dry.  You will be pleased to know that I have found some online advice there.  I wonder if sales of those finger nail air dryers have gone up. I bought one but I am not convinced that they work at home. 

Could it be that when they are finally allowed to open again, nail shops will have lost out because clients will have either decided their nails don’t need to be professionally beautified or we ladies have got used to doing it for ourselves again?  I don’t think so.  I can’t wait to have an expert let loose on mine again.

I thought that I was the only lady of a certain age that feels quite naked if the natural colour of my nails is exposed, but I was quite surprised to find some statistics that show many older ladies feel the need to colour the hardest working parts of their bodies.

When watching paint dry the gentlemen will tell us that, having usually spread a lot more of the stuff onto a much bigger surface, they have earned the right to sit and watch but, for the ladies who have learned how not to let nail standards drop, the watching is only half of the struggle.  The not doing anything that will jeopardise the hard work of putting relatively little amounts of paint on is a much harder task. 

DB, Sydenham.

DB shares the statistics that prove more older ladies wear nail varnish than you might think…

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… and a few ideas about how long to wait and what to do while they are drying…

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