Mini skirts and margaritas

QVC shopping channel. It is a total mystery to me. QVC is what I turn to when I am in my bedroom putting on make up or applying polish to my toenails and want something random to watch. The format is generally the same - it always includes a presenter so full of enthusiasm for the product she comes over a bit like a TV evangelist, and the patter is just incredible. It is, like, literally non stop chatter about the must have cardigan, lawnmower, blusher or weight reducing vibratone. Today as I flicked it on while wandering around my bedroom wondering what to wear for my evening out, I hear Trinny Woodall on the TV publicising her Trinny and Susannah clothes like mad. She's doing a pretty good job at it too. The most awesome feature is the way every time the camera goes back to her, she has managed a quick change into another of the outfits she wants to sell. Respect. Trinny's focus is on older women who worry about the size of their boobs or their tummy, which basically, is pretty much everybody over the age of 12.  She tells us that older women with big boobs want to try and draw the attention away from them a bit. I have generally noticeable boobs so I start to pay attention. Then she says, that one of the many evil consequences of menopause, is the loss of your waist. Then she goes on to share that she will not wear a dress that stops above the knee because her knees "talk to each other". I am now horrified. I am not yet approaching fifty, but menopause is in the ball park so I strip and do a quick, paranoid self evaluation. My knees are reassuringly round. I definitely have a waist. And yes my boobs are, well, boob shaped, and it's true that I would like to wear garments that they are not going to fall out of during conversation, but otherwise I am not in any mood to swathe them in triple poly lycra ("poly", for the uninitiated, appears to be the modern, posh term for "polyester". Don't Be Fooled). I turn back to my wardrobe. Well. I was going to wear my black Levis with a bright colour block t shirt and a black and white cotton biker jacket my niece conned me into buying at River Island last year during a girlie shopping trip. But I am so horrified by the impending downward spiral of my post menopause body, that I decide extreme measures are needed. I fish out from the back of the wardrobe, a lacy black miniskirt. I am fully aware that black lace is now Very Last Season but I do not care. I put it on, throw a black loose knit sweater on top, sheer black tights and knee high black suede boots, ropes of purple necklaces and I am good to go. Husband gulps slightly and asks whether he is a bit underdressed for our evening out. I reassure him, then steer him towards a cocktail bar, where we order margaritas, knock them back, listen to the relentlessly 80s music, and congratulate ourselves on having  challenged the inevitability of our impending middle age. Later on I sit in the Almeida Theatre watching King Charles III thinking, I'll bet nobody else staggered out of a cocktail bar minutes before hauling themselves up to the Circle with a plastic jug of tap water and an ice pack. I may be approaching menopause but one thing has not changed in me: tell me how things ought to be, and I will produce a stick of dynamite and put it right under the backside of Conventional Wisdom. Next stop: what happened to my leather bra top?