Is It Just Me? (15 page)

Numero duo: I find that as time goes by, being a bit bigger has made me
less
self-conscious. As I know I’m never going to look absolutely inarguably fab in a bikini, I can allow myself to be the first one to jump into the swimming pool in my underwear at a friend’s party. Or the first one to crayon an hilarious jelly on my stomach for the amusement of an assembled crowd of intimates. Or the first one to sign up for the ‘Trouserless Three-Legged Red Nose Day Race’ at my little cousin’s school. And the one who can unashamedly embrace what every woman secretly longs to wear: I give you the elasticated M&S trouser.

And numero trois (Italian
and
French, if you please): there’s no need for flirting – someone will either like me, or they won’t. I can be a friend to the world, male and female.

That sounds sort of all right. I am SO happy not to flirt – it’s really trick-some. Bella’s been studying Kelly McGillis in
Top Gun
and gave us a lesson in it the other day. I got a crick in my neck doing one of the more advanced flirty poses while Podge twisted her ankle trying to do the sexy, cross-your-legs-over-each-other walk.

Do lots of boys come up to us then? Do we get asked out loads?

Umm . . . Well . . . There was . . . Look, can we talk about this another time?

You always say that when I ask about relationships.

We will talk about them soon, I promise. Let’s go on to number quatre, which rather aptly is: it’s good for things not to go perfectly in life.

Surely the opposite?

Non, Mademoiselle (I am practically fluent). You see, difficulties lead to perseverance, compassion and empathy. We develop character. But wait until you hear the very best thing of all about getting bigger.

Numero – uh – five: YOU CAN GO REALLY,
REALLY
FAST DOWNHILL ON A BICYCLE! The extra couple of stone makes all the difference there. Admittedly, it’s not so much fun going up, but the downward swoop makes it all worth it. And an hour on the bike is, basically, a licence to eat a Wham bar (even though eating a Wham bar now would result in a Wham bar-shaped piece of cellulite on my poor old thigh: our metabolism really isn’t what it once was, I’m afraid).

It sounds like there’s been a bit of scoffing going on.

Not my fault. The world I’m in does make it a tad tricky not to scoff. Don’t blame me for the invention of microwaveable meals.

Podge’s mum has got a microwave. They seem pretty scary: she says you can’t stand in front of it as you can be radiated to death.

I had forgotten the fear of the microwave . . .

Also, on the scoffing front, is it just me, or does anyone else feel like they’re being made to run a gauntlet of sugary gorgeousness each time they approach the supermarket checkout? I join the queue with a bag of spinach and a smoothie, and find myself paying for a bag of spinach, a smoothie, eight packets of Doritos, two family-size Galaxy Bars (because they’re on a deal for a pound), and a flapjack coated in yoghurt so it could very well be healthy but certainly isn’t. Nightmare.

That said, I am making efforts to trim myself down a little bit: I think the weight has served its purpose, both comedically and in terms of building my fine and noble character (say nothing). I’m pootling about the park again, and I’m hoping that by forty, I’ll be about the weight I’m biologically supposed to be (well, that’s the aim: let’s see how I feel once I’ve dispensed with these Pop Tarts – yes, they are still available if you look hard enough).

It’ll be interesting to see how life looks when I’m a slimmer thing again. But for now, Little Miranda, know this: we all have our worries about our bodies and our looks. We just need to make the best of our lovely, wonky selves. The key is never to compare and try to be something you’re not. I mean, MDRC, imagine how ridiculous I would look if I attempted Cheryl Cole hair, wore a ‘soap actress’ dress or went for what I call the five-sets-of-false-eyelashes-
The-Only-Way-is-Essex
look (transvestite alert).

We are all unique, which makes us beautiful; so never despair, and just chill the hell out about it all.

Cool. That sounds really mature and wise.

I know. I won’t lie: I’m rather pleased with myself for making another point-ette. Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friend Sarah Hadland is coming over, and we’re going to learn one of the
Strictly Come Dancing
routines.

What?

Oh – er – I mean we’re going to recite some poetry to each other and discuss Jung.

Phew. I thought you were serious. A thirty-eight-year-old fat woman learning a dance routine from the telly – dweeb-tastic. Right, I’m off to play lacrosse while I still can.

Good plan. Exercise with abandon, lean and youthful Me.
^*
whispers
^*
Because one day it’ll be the
last thing on earth
you ever want to do.

What?

Nothing. Off you trot.

Thank goodness she’s gone
^*
finishes Pop Tarts, puts on salsa clothing, sings wild and free to the
Strictly
theme tune
^*
‘De de de de de de der, de de de de de!’

R
ight, MDRC, while Little Miranda’s off playing lacrosse, let us embrace and explore another life-nub together: exercise.

I think it’s best if we keep this one just between you and me, as I wouldn’t want to give poor, darling Little M any more terrible shocks about her future. Right now she’s whistling up and down the lacrosse pitch like a gazelle, nay, cheetah, with those annoyingly youthful legs, blissfully unaware that when you turn approximately twenty-eight-and-three-quarters, exercise suddenly trebles in difficulty, and once you hit thirty-three, it suddenly becomes what I refer to as – and I believe it’s a technical term – Unimaginably Grim and just Totally and Completely Rubbish.

When I was eighteen, I assumed that I’d be playing lacrosse well into my twenties and thirties, playing for England and then moving on to become a coach. (Obviously in between darting from Paris and Milan with the catwalk model career.) But I now know that only a certain type of heterosexual woman can pull the lacrosse coach off, as it were; most likely a wiry blonde posh lady in white denim shorts called Veronica, who runs marathons at the weekend, has eight children, six terriers, a dinghy, a Hedge Fund Husband called Hugo, and who’s so damned confident in her femininity that she’s not remotely thrown by spending her days with a scrum of angry, hirsute, stick-wielding gals. I am not that woman. I should also add she is the type of lady who is regularly sponsored in Fun Runs. And may I just make my position very clear on this – there is no such thing as a FUN RUN as, even if you are dressed as an elephant, you still have to RUN. ‘Fun’ and ‘run’ are two words which, when the wonderful laws of Miranda-Land come into play, will be illegal to put together. I thank you. And relax.

As a child, the need to take exercise simply wasn’t a concept. You were always skipping, bouncing, hopping, or running. And running WAS fun. You loved to run. As a youngster, if you wanted to get from A to B, you’d choose to make it all the more exciting by getting there as fast as humanly possible. You were so fond of running, in fact, you even often got told off for it, particularly if you did it on grass or in any kind of municipal corridor. It was a naughty treat of the highest order, to the extent that still I can’t pass a well-manicured lawn without feeling a terrible urge to mince nimbly across it without being seen. Just me?

In addition to running, there is now the toddler craze that is scooting. If I may briefly sound like my mother, I do worry about their hips and backs. No – hear me out. Surely if you’re spending the majority of your waking hours propelling yourself forward on a scooter, you’re going to favour one leg over the other as your ‘pushing’ leg? I’m not a doctor, but logic follows that one leg will end up considerably shorter than the other, given the fragile developmental stage of most scooter users. I hereby predict that by the year 2035, we will be faced with a generation of lop-sided adults, who will have to buy one half of their trousers at Big and Long, and the other half at Weak and Stumpy. I feel strongly that toddlers should scoot less, and run more. Don’t say I didn’t warn you all.

I have made another big old literary digression. Soz buckets. My point is this – as children, we were always playing, always exercising, in ways that would be unthinkable as adults. So, why not suggest a bit of playtime activity in the office this lunchtime? Here’s how that would probably go:

‘Hopscotch, anyone?’

‘Well, no. Firstly I’m forty-five so that might look a tad odd. But also, not with my knees. Not unless you’ve got an orthopaedic surgeon on speed-dial.’

‘Sheila, do you fancy it, spot of hopscotch?’

‘Hopscotch? I’m fifty-two! Is it legal? Doesn’t it involve bending down to pick up a pebble? Not with this back dear, oh no.’

‘Anyone up for a bit of leapfrog down the corridor?’

‘Ooh, not if you’ve asked big Bessie from Accounts. Don’t much fancy my chances of getting out of that one upright.’

‘I’m going to have a wrap for lunch, then. But after, does anyone want to do that skipping that involves someone going in the middle of two people turning the rope?’

‘Gosh, no, I’d break my ankle!’

‘I was scared enough attempting to jump in to the moving rope when I was eleven; it’s a terrifying business!’

‘What about a gymnastics routine at the end of the day? We could do one to
The South Bank Show
theme tune?’

‘Oh, no thanks, dear; I’m too scared to do a forward roll.’

‘Sheila?’

‘No thanks, love, I simply don’t have the pelvic floor for a star jump. Bless you for asking, though.’

It’s rather depressing when you think about it. All those games, all that childish joy, lost on aching, fearful adults, when it would probably rather perk up their day. I for one would be heartened to see a group of suited professionals marking up a hopscotch grid on the pavement during their lunch break and hopping with gay abandon once they’d finally remembered how on earth the game was played. And there would be no point in even suggesting the see-saw: an absolute minefield once you hit the twelve-stone mark. (Although it is always tempting to suggest playing with a smaller, lighter opponent and accidentally-on-purpose sliding off whilst they’re in the upper position, just to see them crashing down. Come on!)

The fact is, I went from mandatory school sport where, three times a week, we whacked on our gym knickers, jumped over something called a horse and shimmed up a rope, no questions asked; to university, an exercise wilderness. There, Pot Noodles are waiting to be inhaled, litres of cider are drunk and weeks frittered away sitting around watching
Supermarket Sweep
as we try to get a grip on the meaning of life.

Then, at around twenty-eight, after a few sedentary years at the desk job, things start to go a bit wonky. You pause for a moment after climbing more than fifteen stairs; you realise you’d rather miss the bus than sprint to catch it; and you’ve been keeping your trainers in a box in the attic, where they still bear the mud of a country walk you went on in 1994.

By thirty-three, you may find that you’ve officially ‘let yourself go’. You’ll know you’ve reached this point when you start to make long, impassioned speeches about how elastic is the new denim; you find yourself having to do a little warm up (deep breath, flex feet, tense thighs) before you get up out of a chair; and you cross the street when you see an old school friend as you fear sly rumblings becoming the footnote to an email: ‘PS. Saw Miranda H outside Greggs yesterday.
Seriously
let herself go. Honestly, she’s blown up like a dinghy.
Flab
iola. LOL! xxx’

No, MDRC, this absolutely must be avoided. So I’m afraid that if you want to stay relatively physically respectable – and I’m not talking beach bodies here, just an attempt to remain vaguely person-shaped – you’re going to have to incorporate some sort of exercise into your life. Here’s how you’ll probably proceed:

First up, you’ll be very excited indeed about your decision to take a bit more exercise. You’ll go to some form of sporting clothes emporium and splash out on all the gear (trainers, Lycra, double-industrial sports bra, completely mystifying and creepy ‘moisture-wicking’ trousers, adorable little sock-lets which look truly lovely under your trainers and make you feel a little bit like that Veronica running woman described earlier, wrist bands, armband for your iPod, crampons, jodhpurs, climbing shorts, golf clubs, tap shoes and tankini). You’ll then catch the bus home exhausted, dump your bags delightedly on the floor, and craft yourself a delicious stew to say well done.

Three weeks and no moving about later, you’ll decide that an easy way into this whole exercise malarkey would be jogging. Anyone can jog. Just a quick thirty minutes round the common – piece of cake (you’ll certainly deserve one when you’re done). You’ll hoist yourself into your new Lycra (an exercise in itself because you’ve bought the size down in hope), download ‘Eye of the Tiger’ onto your iPod, and blunder out of the door.