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THE BLUE POOTLE – SEPTEMBER 2006
On Time, And Have You Got It?
The Blue Pootle looks great in puffy sleeves.
This is probably why I was recently selected to be a bridesmaid at a close friend’s wedding, along with five other women at various stages of life ranging from barely talking to barely alive. I was given the honour of the moniker Chief Bridesmaid, and so it was my job to organise this sorry bunch down the aisle.
It took some doing. The youngest ones had to be bribed with sweets I had secreted in my bosom and the eldest had to be poked with a bicycle spoke that I had secreted in my posy. By the end of the day I was exhausted, but at least the bride was happy, and that’s what it’s all about. Phew.
But I couldn’t shake the feeling that, aside from the fact that my arms looked great in my lilac puffy sleeves, I was being sniggered at. Isn’t it all a bit ridiculous to be a bridesmaid at 32? In fact, the only bridesmaid who looked vaguely comfortable with her lot was the eight year old, who probably spent the day imagining that she was a beautiful princess who just happened to be trapped in a church with a bunch of annoying peasants. Such fantasies are frowned on for the over-nines; we are all loaded down with the burden of reality.
And I wasn’t the only one who was the butt of the congregation’s jokes. The bride and groom were a perfectly happy couple for twelve years before they ran out of conversation and decided to get married in order to have a talking point for the next twelve years. But apparently twelve years is too long a time for a couple to be unmarried. People get suspicious: what were they doing for all those years? Why didn’t he propose before the ten year point? Why didn’t she make him? Of course, there are also cases of marriage with unacceptably short gestation periods – anything less than two years is likely to raise eyebrows, and lead to at least three comments in the best man’s speech about how the groom always has been on the premature side.
So, whilst waiting to be called by the photographer who was pretending not to remember my name so that he didn’t have to attempt to pronounce it, the timespan issue got me thinking. What else in life is subject to an optimum time? Obviously nobody is keen on dying before the seventy mark, and most people would prefer to shed their teenage acne before they reach thirty, but could it be that other, more ethereal, things should only be experienced at certain points along the road less travelled?
For instance, for my fifteenth birthday, my mother bought me a complete set of Dickens. I have diligently attempted all 36 books at some point, but upon reaching page four seem to always find myself drawn towards other, less worthy, activities, such as watching reality television or investigating the mating habits of slugs on the internet. I’m just not ready for Dickens. Maybe I’ll reach forty and find a friend in Oliver Twist and a passion for Little Dorrit. Or maybe it’ll have to wait until I need to invest in the large print versions, and we’ve run out of fossil fuels so electrical appliances can no longer prove a distraction. Other authors who belong in this category of ‘not until I’m old and incontinent’ include Hardy, Trollope, Kingsley Amis, John Donne and Andrea Levy.
On the other end of the spectrum are those authors who, for me, shouldn’t be reread past the age of eighteen for fear of discovering that they’re just not the way you remembered them, and are even, in fact, a little bit pants in places. A lot of fantasy writers belong here: Tolkein, David Eddings, Gael Baudino and Julian May spring readily to mind. Also James Herbert: how I wish he’d finished writing all his books before I turned a teenager. Then I could have read and enjoyed them all without being struck by the vaguely dirty feeling that I should really be reading something, well, better.
So what, in early middle age, should I feel qualified to enjoy, writing-wise or otherwise? I came up with the following list of society-approved activities for the 30-40 age bracketed amongst us:
Unfortunately, although I pretend to enjoy most of these state-sponsored things, the truth is that they’ve pretty much all passed me by. Aren’t some £2.99 wines just as good once you’re pissed? Isn’t there always some boring twit at a dinner party who corners you and moans on about Kazuo Ishiguro? Don’t Cadburys Schweppes own Green and Black’s now?
I’m not sure what age bracket I truly fit into. Maybe, with my liking for Roald Dahl stories and Tunnocks Caramel Wafers I’m an amalgam of the Under Tens and the Over Fifties. Or maybe I’m just a miserable git who hasn’t got a slot in life. Would that be so bad?
I think I’ll endeavour to persevere with missing my time slot. Although I’m going to keep up the boxercise: one never knows when one might need toned arms in order to look good in puffy sleeves, sniggering audience or otherwise.
Word of the Day: Gutterniform. Shaped like a water pitcher.
Go here to provide the Pootle with feedback, start a discussion about the burning issues addressed above, talk about her new novel, Three Things About Me, or simply to say hi.
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