Life begins at 40

Posted by Katy Regan at 23:38 on 6 Jul 2009

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It’s a shame this picture isn’t in colour because then you could see those anoraks in their full 70s glory: Mine (I am the little one on the left), a mustard and olive green combo and my sister, Joanna’s, a far more acceptable navy and royal blue.

Anyway, that cute ten-year-old girl in the navy and royal blue anorak  - I was five at the time that photo was taken -  celebrated her 40th birthday last week and is a very glamorous, stylish and youthful 40 to boot, proving that the fashion horrors that your parents inflict on you at a young age, don’t, thankfully, leave long-term damage. So that’s a relief!  

Anyway, I was back in Morecambe – my hometown – for my sister’s 40th birthday bash at the weekend and it gave me hope, it really did, that possibly life really does begin in one’s fifth decade.

Even as recently as twenty-five  – as is standard amongst twenty-five year olds, I should think - I was convinced that forty was indeed ancient; that you would never have any fun again, certainly never look or feel foxy (I was not fooled by those “fabulous at forty” articles featuring Sharon Stone and Andie MacDowell. In fact I am NEVER fooled by any article about Andie MacDowell since her fate as one of the most irritating women on screen was sealed with THAT scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral in the rain...)  and that really, by that time, ‘fashion’ would mean a beige slack from one of those little catalogues that fall out of the Sunday Telegraph and sell Tupperware and egg-slicers or, at best, a bias-cut skirt from Principles.

I exaggerate for comic effect, of course, but the point I’m making is that I didn’t think that being forty would be so… well… cool… and that one could look so fabulous and, well, basically about a decade younger than their forty years. AND – most importantly - put it away so impressively!

There was a lot of drinking done on Saturday night by all concerned, that's for sure. The birthday girl was still at it at 4.30am. I made it till 2.30am. So she is officially hardcore.

However, I think I drank more and stayed out later on this 40th birthday BBQ-turned-pub-crawl and danced to more actual current music (rather than bloody 70s disco tracks that seem to accompany all birthday bashes post about twenty-years-old…) than I have for months, possibly years. 40th birthday parties rock!

I can safely say, too, that there was not a bias-cut skirt to be found amongst my sister and her guests - my sister was wearing, as well as a great tan and size ten figure - a cute little short monochrome frock. Plus, she got tickets to see The Jam for her birthday and a Wii -  no Wedgewood plate in sight - so, she’s pretty cool in my book.

Her eighteen-year-old daughter was out with us, and in terms of behaviour – dancing unembarrassingly, knowing the words to La Roux, that sort of thing (!) - you couldn’t tell the difference.

Maybe it's just my family who know how to rock it at 40, I don't know. When I was looking at old photos to put with this blog, I also came across one of my mum on her 40th birthday, twenty years ago now. She was frolicking about at her house party in a pair of those comedy glasses with pictures of eyes stuck on them. Approximately three hours after that photo was taken, she was also barfing in a drain in the garden whilst my friend (we were sixteen at the time, half-cut on peach flavour 20/20) held her hair back, going, “That’s right, Mrs Regan, you get it all out.”

Turned out my mum thought my sister’s homemade port was red wine.

That was her excuse anyway…

Either way, roll on 40, that’s what I say! Clearly the best is yet to come.

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