I recently had an incident with Max, our Portuguese mastiff. I discovered the hard way that his head is like a brick wall when we clashed heads in a play game of ‘rip-up-the-old-towel’ or ‘who-can-hang-on-the-longest’, where I lost. Said dog ran off triumphantly with the shredded towel, while I nursed my eyebrow where we had clashed heads and checked my glasses weren’t broken.

Seeing or not?

As I mentioned above, I wear glasses, and while not exactly blind as a bat, I have fallen into the old person trap of needing them for everything these days. I wanted to inspect my ‘brow’ damage, but I couldn’t see with the glasses on as they were in front of the bruised bit, so I thought, ah ha, cunning plan, take a selfie, I don’t need the glasses for that, and I will get a good look.

Well, I did get a picture after a few blurred attempts, and sure enough, a bruise is coming along, not exactly a black eye, but more like badly applied makeup, and in fact once I had made up the other side to match, you couldn’t really tell.

Wrinkles

However, the close-up revealed more than I wanted. Who was that woman looking at me? I recoiled in horror at what I could see of the other bits of my face that hadn’t had a good inspection so close for some time – broken veins, wrinkles – wrinkles for heaven's sake! And the odd hair where I definitely didn’t have any last time I looked. Good grief, I need to wear a paper bag on my head so nobody sees these incursions on my face.

Credits: PA;

Comparison

My eyes flicked to the last school photo I ever had taken; I was maybe 16. Unblemished skin, clear dark eyes (rather than these rheumy old things I have left that don’t work properly), dark lustrous hair with not a white hair to be seen. At the time, the younger me probably didn’t think she looked perfect, and I know she spent a lot of time primping and preening at both hair and face before leaving the bedroom, let alone through the front door, and even more time was wasted before a date.

Yes, I say wasted, because in the long run time came along and took what it wanted. The hormones that had stood me in good service over the years suddenly washed their hands and said, ‘OK then, job done’, and left, probably leaving their empty bags behind on my face.

Shrinking

I gave all this some serious thought and came to a conclusion. When you get older you shrink in height don’t you? That’s why I had wrinkles! I had shrunk, so there was more skin left that didn’t fit anymore! What a brilliant revelation! I have lost a good bit of height now, so the skin doesn’t have so much to hold together. Phew – all I need now is a way to get my height back and all will be restored. I am inadvertently working on putting some flesh (or should I say ‘fat’) so in due course, I shall look perfect again.

Hair

That dark head of hair has made way for some grey stuff, that I romantically say has ‘a sprinkle of silver’, but it has a weird life of its own, being a bit thinner and kind of curly, but not in a good way. The Husband has a full head of ‘silver’ hair, and I envy it, while mine has taken on the commonly known ‘pepper and salt’ colour, though I have promising strands of ‘silver’ coming along nicely at the sides. In the meantime, it’s back to the hairdresser to let her work her magic. I am in fear that she will suggest shortening the fringe, as that cunningly hides the wrinkles on my forehead that could be smoothed out with Botox, but can I be bothered? Who wants to look like a bank robber with his head inside a pair of tights?

No, thank you, I will try the ageing gracefully look. If the magnificent Dame Judy Dench can do it, so can I.

Author

Marilyn writes regularly for The Portugal News, and has lived in the Algarve for some years. A dog-lover, she has lived in Ireland, UK, Bermuda and the Isle of Man. 

Marilyn Sheridan