Midlife lately – pockets of October joy

Another month gone and October always feels like the most transitional month of the year – for me it began on the beach in hot sunshine and ended in full throttle Christmas prep! We’ll start thinking about that soon but first let’s have a catch-up with a Midlife lately – pockets of October joy. When I came back from holiday I was full of energy so until my back went I did a good job of taking the everyday outfit photos that so many of you ask for. So, let’s start when a few days on from unpacking my holiday suitcase I was on the move again, this time to London for a meeting followed by a very special event.

For the last two years I’ve stuck to my plan of turning down invitations to influencer events. One of the strengths of being a midlife woman in my opinion is knowing what to say ‘no’ to based on an understanding of what kind of thing boosts your energy and what drains it. With travel, hotel accommodation and billing hours away from my desk, branded events come at quite a cost and although they’re often very glitzy, I don’t particularly enjoy them. There’s an unspoken expectation that you’ll review whatever you see in a positive light (whether you like it or not). Plus although it all appears to be ‘such fun’ when you see it on social, it’s hard work spending an evening with people you often find you don’t have much in common with.

However this invitation felt different, primarily because it included an author I love – and I was the only person in the midlife style arena to be invited so I knew I’d be able to share something that felt like ‘news’ rather than a regurgitation of what my Instagram people were seeing elsewhere (sorry but I just can’t use the word ‘followers’, I’m not a prophet). It was the Gala Premiere of the Disney Plus adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s Rivals. I love Jilly Cooper on so many levels that I could talk about her for hours and her writing is so much more than it’s often given credit for. I’ve relished her since my teenage years when I first found ‘Imogen’ in my Christmas stocking. I’ve since chatted to a few of you on Instagram about our love of all of the ‘name’ books and the way that they opened our teenage eyes to a bigger world. As you can imagine I particularly enjoyed the ones that had provincial northern girls as their lead characters – I was just on the brink of going to university and they suggested that adventure was out there for the taking, that all you needed was integrity and imagination. It wasn’t a bad message to start out with.

Then came the Rutshire Chronicles with Rivals and Riders and Polo etc. They encapsulated the social mores of the time with such acuity, Jilly depicts the nuances of how 1980s life felt so well. At the time I focused on the challenges the younger women were facing but reading Rivals all over again and watching the series has opened my eyes to her insight into the midlife woman – her craving for visibility, for fun, her reawakening sensuality and vigour for fulfilment after so many years of putting herself last. Jilly makes you feel every character she writes, regardless of sex or age she gives you such an implicit understanding that you can empathise with each one, even the scoundrels – but the key is that those who retain their authenticity triumph in the end. People are now calling her a modern day Dickens or Jane Austen which she is in terms of her depiction of society but for characterisation I’d also compare her to Thomas Hardy.

Anyway you can see why I couldn’t resist  when the invitation to the Gala screening arrived – I wasn’t going to miss it for the world.

Boden dress AW20; Boots (gifted AW24)

And I know some of you were with me live on Instagram on the night but here’s what happened for those of you who aren’t on social.

Disney had taken over Regent Street Cinema for the evening. If you don’t know it, it’s the birthplace of British cinema. Back in 1896 the aptly named Lumiere brothers launched their Cinematographe machine there for the first time. It was restored to its original grandeur in 2015 and is now run independently by a team of film lovers who curate their programming with passion so you find a real mix of films on the programme. It has the most beautiful art deco interior and you can imagine the excitement building as we took our seats amongst the cast.

Along with the actors the guests were mostly the people who’d worked on the series – the directing and production teams, the sound, lighting, music and tech experts as well as the creative team from Disney so there was a mood of joy, camaraderie and celebration… and a whooping cheer as the lights dimmed and the screen lit up.

And so we sat enthralled as we watched the first episode. Who was I with? Disney Plus have a team of lovely young ambassadors who work on various platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Instagram creating all kinds of crazy videos for the younger Disney audience. They were outgoing, offbeat and really good fun to be with. However I had a particularly hot date for the evening – my very own Disney prince, a precious night with my eldest son. We were both left spellbound by the first episode, I was delighted to see Jilly’s magic cross the generations. And then we went on to the afterparty for some real fun.

It was held at a rather incredible mansion in Mayfair, one of only four remaining Palladian grand houses that haven’t been split down into offices or flats in London. As you can see from the photos that follow it’s been stripped back to the bones – I suspect it will be refurbished but at the moment it’s hired out for events and photoshoots in its pared back Georgian glory. Here we were as we arrived – being directed into action! The dress code as you’d expect was ‘Rivals’ hence the eldest in his Barbour jacket and me in my shoulder pads!

And so it went on with recreations of various Rivals sets in different rooms and lots of 80s props to play with (and fittingly the bedroom was the heart of the event!).

The cast just mixed in with everybody else, you could tell that they all get on really well which was nice to see, there was no whiff of celebrity about them at all. It was great chatting with them but, for me, the highlight was always going to be meeting…

…Dame Jilly herself. It was really good to be able to sit down with her and remind her of a day we spent together back in 1993.

Back then you see I’d only just started working in the marketing department at Selfridges and in our Tuesday morning meetings, the responsibilities for looking after visiting celebrities were assigned for the week. It sounds glamorous but actually it was often really hard work. The less pleasant ones came with very demanding rider clauses and your day was very much dictated by their personality. There are so many juicy stories I could tell about the divas, both male and female, because of course they had no fear of their behaviour being exposed on social in those days… but I won’t. Anyway on this particular week Jilly Cooper was coming in to sign her new book, it was a Saturday and nobody wanted to come back into store at the weekend. So I shot my hand up and my new boss was a bit hesitant because it would be my first solo hosting event but she figured that Jilly would be low key and unproblematic so she agreed.

As you can imagine I was over the moon at the thought of spending time with the author whose books I’d devoured but (and I’m telling this story with Jilly’s permission) as I approached Surbiton station that Saturday morning her face was on the covers of all of the newspapers. The exposé? The revelation of her husband’s six-year affair. Of course in those days we didn’t have mobiles so I couldn’t phone anyone for advice, I just had to head on into London and trust my instincts. As soon as I emerged from Bond Street tube I could see that the press were outside – reporters and cameras everywhere. I got security to do a sweep of the third floor where everything was set up for the signing. They evicted the more obvious ones who were lurking in the queue that was starting to build – but there was no way of rerouting Jilly’s driver. So of course they swept up outside the main doors as planned but her agent was held up in traffic behind – all we could do was flank her through the store but she was in no state to go straight to her table of books on the shopfloor. Seeing that she was just full of tears I diverted her into the closed exhibition hall and we sat there together in the dark as she opened her heart.

I remember her saying, “I’m over halfway through my life my dear whereas you’re just starting out in yours so you must make your decisions so very carefully” (and there’s a rather nice circularity just there because I was 27 and she was 57… exactly the same age as I am now). I won’t disclose everything she told me but a lot of the conversation was about how, when you’re young, you hugely underestimate the impact that the person you choose to marry will have on the course that your life takes and your future happiness, day after day, year after year. She lamented over just how easy it is to get married… but how hard it is to stay married. I was in my first marriage then and she quizzed me about how happy I was and you know what I told her – that I was rapidly realising that my husband was an alcoholic. She suggested that I think long and hard, that I should only settle with somebody who was steadfast and true – and who would always, always make me laugh. It turned out to be one of those unexpected conversations that goes on to impact the way that your whole life unfurls – you know what happened over the years that followed.

I wasn’t sure whether she would be able to go through with the booksigning but with true grit she dusted herself off and went to face the queue. I stayed with her and everybody was lovely – as you can imagine she had everybody there on her side.

You can imagine how special it was to chat to her again, especially as we’d reached a fulcrum of age. I didn’t think she’d remember the day but she did immediately. She hasn’t changed, she’s still the same warm, down to earth, gentlewoman that she was then. The thing that struck me as we carried on chatting though is that she has no idea of how much she means to our generation. Her books have been dismissed as bonkbusters for so long that she doesn’t know that there are thousands of bright women who saw the intelligence in her writing. So I’ve been collecting tributes on Instagram and Mal’s going to put them together in a little book to send to her because she isn’t on social. If you’d like to add anything please put it in the comments and I’ll include it. She’s 87 now and I think she deserves to know what a national treasure she is.

So it was a wonderful evening, absolutely well worth breaking my ‘no events’ rule for. I felt incredibly honoured to be invited but if there’s one audience that’s exactly right for Rivals it’s Midlifechic readers. I think most of us were exactly the bookish girls who were savouring every word of Jilly’s books back in the 80s – as so many people have said on Instagram she was our refuge from exam revision as she filled our heads with dreams of the lives we might lead. If you haven’t watched it then do, you’re in for a treat – Jilly was very involved in the production so they’ve got it exactly right. You’ll find it on Disney Plus here.

Midlife lately – pockets of October joy – Newcastle life

And so it was back down to earth with a bit of a bump a couple of days later when we headed over to Newcastle. It’s always lovely to be there though and this time we wanted to see MIL as soon as we arrived because we’ve been sensing a bit of a downturn. She’s been particularly tired and the hallucinations that come with Lewy Body dementia have fired up again. As I’ve said before she often finds them comforting because she tends to believe that either Mal’s dad or her mum have come to see her. The trouble is that it’s usually in the middle of the night and we worry about her wandering around when she isn’t quite awake. She has a batch of tests and more results ahead so hopefully we might get to the bottom of it but there comes a point when there are so many things wrong that it’s hard to know where the problem lies isn’t it?

Wednesday

Anyway we were arriving at our flat after spending the afternoon with her here – probably the last time we’ll do it in daylight for a while.

Me+Em leather jacket AW20; Mango jumper AW23; Me+Em jeans SS21; Boden shoes AW22; Boden bag SS22

Thursday

Thursday was a day of work – as usual we popped across to the Baltic Gallery for our lunch break to see what was new there. Just a word about trainers because I’m getting quite a few questions about wearing them in winter. The great thing is that now that white is no longer the dominant shade they can take you way past summer. Look for good strong colours in the same way that you would if you were buying boots and you’ll give your wardrobe an instant update as well as having comfortable feet all through the season. The way to wear them is with warm, ribbed cotton socks or sports socks so your ankles won’t be cold either. The ones I’m wearing here are the perfect shade of brown but they sold out within half an hour of dropping last month. There was a restock on Monday but they sold out again because they’re hot property however there might be some returns. They’re true to size but note that they have inbuilt arch support which I absolutely love and need but not everybody does.

Me+Em leather jacket AW20; Shirt; Me+Em jeans SS21; Belt; Trainers; Boden bag SS22

Friday

This was after work on Friday and we were wandering up to town for my Fenwick’s fix. The Fenwick family are investing the profits from the sale of the London Bond Street store into their original Newcastle flagship. It gets better every single time we visit and we go every three weeks at least! There isn’t a department store in the UK that can beat it.

Hobbs suede jacket SS14; sweatshirt; jeans; trainers (more stock here)

This time we were surprised to find a new cocktail bar in the womenswear department – very clever retailing because happy hour had everybody shopping with a smile. The waiter had taken a shine to Mal as you can see!

Sweatshirt

While we’re on the subject of Newcastle and fun, here’s a quick picture from our previous visit there in September when our Scottish friends Gillian and Stephen came to stay. You’ll remember that we met through Midlifechic a long time ago now and we try to get together at least once a year for a weekend of joy. I think you always know you’ve had a truly good time when you’ve been so absorbed in it that you don’t have any photos. This is all we ended up with – a single happy moment captured during a day and night of dancing.

Saturday

Back to October and I woke up on Saturday feeling grim – I’d been fighting a cold all week but now it was winning. However we’d promised to meet up with some friends and then go to Jo Whiley’s 90s anthems, tickets we’d had booked for a year. I’m the worst person for FOMO when it comes to something like this so even though I felt increasingly worse during the afternoon, I carried on.

Satin top; jeans; trainers (more stock here)

I couldn’t face anything other than water but I really wanted to see Jo Whiley. Anyway we got there, the warm-up DJ was good, we had a bit of a boogie but… there was a trio of midlife women who just kept bumping into me. If I’d had a glass of wine I might not have noticed but it was getting annoying so I pointed them out to Mal and he instantly looked a bit alarmed.

It feels important to tell you about this because they were three midlifers who looked just like you and me – one was wearing a shift dress with ballet flats, the other two jeans and a nice top, they all had wedding rings and looked as though they’d met up for a nice evening out together. I thought perhaps they were old university friends having a 90s anthem reunion – who knows? However, what I’m going to tell you feels cautionary. When we looked more closely we realised that they were completely zombified and when I say they looked like zombies I really mean it – they were in a circle with their heads hanging, shuffling and banging into people because they had no sense of space. Obviously I was initially concerned for them with spiking in mind but after a while we concluded that it wasn’t that, it looked as if they’d perhaps taken ketamine and they didn’t appear to be used to drugs.

After a while, the one with the ballet flats came over to the edge of the dancefloor where we were standing and started vomiting profusely. She couldn’t tell us what she’d taken and she could barely stand so Mal held her hair out of the way while I tried to get her friends to come and help her. But it was like a scene from The Walking Dead, I couldn’t get through to them, they just stared at me blankly. In the end the St John’s ambulance staff had to come and help her because she was unconscious. We suggested that the other two might be heading for similar difficulty but they couldn’t manage them as well. Within five minutes one started to be sick all over the booth we’d been sitting in (huge regrets for not putting my coat in the cloakroom) so we had to flag security down. They agreed that it looked like they were in a ‘K-hole’, I hadn’t seen it before but they said it’s the fastest rising drug problem across the UK at the moment and a lot of the problems lie with people in our age group trying it for the first time.

This isn’t moral judgement, I’m all for midlife women having a good time, whatever their interpretation of it is, although from the outside it really didn’t look as if these three had achieved the high they were seeking. I keep thinking about them and wondering how they were the next day, how things panned out for them as friends as well as individuals because they just weren’t able to follow the first rule of girl squads by having each other’s backs. In that nightclub each of them was utterly vulnerable and anything could have happened. I would never have expected to be writing about this here but they looked just like us and they’d got themselves into a real pickle so this is just a reminder that midlife bodies generally don’t metabolise the way they did 30 years ago

Anyway I should add that Jo was on magnificent form this year, much, much better than last time when she just seemed tired. By the time we’d finished helping with the three unwell women though I’d lost my last bit of groove and so we left at 9.30pm, glad of the fresh air outside!

Sunday

On to Sunday, still fighting the lurgy, still determined to rescue the weekend. There was a special afternoon disco event on at one of the places we love and so we popped in for a while… until the Northern Soul came on – Mal’s brother loved it but it isn’t our bag. I wonder how many of you shopped the M&S Bella Freud collab. And wasn’t it interesting to see John Lewis go out on the same day with their A.W.A.K.E. Mode? Both retailers are chasing the headlines but you can see by the sell-through that one has its finger on its customers’ pulses more than the other!

Anyway it reminded me that I have a Bella Freud – mine’s from the lower key Fred Perry collab back in about 2018 and it makes me think of my dad who was Fred and played the drums in his teens in a band called The Bluebells. Quite a few of you have been waiting for these great value jeans to come back and there’s been a restock here if you’re quick. These super dark ones are called indigo mix which is a bit confusing (they’re my favourites – utterly perfect for wearing with navy). I also have the dark indigo which strangely is a lot paler. True to size. And of the many pairs of trainers I own these are the most comfortable, the leather is just so, so soft they’re like slippers.

Jacket; Bella Freud X Fred Perry jumper AW18; jeans; trainers

I’ll always make the most of being able to sit outside while we still can, it won’t be long before we’re all huddled indoors.

Jacket; Bella Freud X Fred Perry jumper AW18; jeans; trainers

Monday

Monday and we were back on duty with MIL and work. I mentioned that I’d ordered these culottes to try a while ago, here they are and I love them. They make such a nice change from the jeans which make up the majority of my everyday outfits. You need a good pair of boots to wear them with though, I have my old snake ones on here and I’m looking forward to trying them with the leopard ones I mentioned last week.

Cashmere all-in-one vest and wrap; culottes; Finery snake boots (AW17)

I don’t really need to add much to my winter wardrobe but a chocolate brown jumper is something I’ve been looking for. This was a bit of a splurge but I’m trying only to buy things that I know I’ll wear and keep for years. The racer vest and wrap cardigan are all one and so it’s easy to wear and very flattering on the clavicles. It’s so difficult to find knitwear that’s a bit sexier than just ‘cosy’ but this does the trick.

Cashmere all-in-one vest and wrap

Tuesday

And here’s Tuesday, a blast of crisp, fresh air before the drive home. Back into cosy country mode for working at my desk.

Jumper; Me+Em jeans SS21; Trainers

A TV moment next week

Just to say that I’m continuing to help with the fight to get the government to change the laws around spiking so that it has its own crime code and is recognised as a standalone (and prosecutable) offence. I did an article with Good Housekeeping earlier this year to raise awareness and I mentioned in the summer that I’d been working with ITV on a programme about it. It was delayed by the election to give the new government an opportunity to settle in but it airs next week and I’m one of the stories – the others are harder to hear but hopefully together they show just how many different people are being hit by it. If you have a little bit of time next Thursday it would be great if you could watch it – viewing figures all help to prove public concern. I should add that I haven’t seen it but we filmed the whole thing in one take when I’d just come back from Thailand and was very jetlagged so I might be rubbish. However, it’s the Tonight show on ITV at 8.30pm, Thursday 7th November.

And that’s it for today. We had a wonderful time at the Midlifechic + Claudia Bradby event yesterday – a huge thank you to everyone who took the time to come along. I’ll tell you more about it in another post but right now I’m typing on the train home and the Avanti wi-fi is like dial-up! I’ll be back next Friday and then I’ll be heading into two posts a week as we head towards Christmas. I’m suggesting that we all use dull and dark November for the prep so that we can just enjoy December when it arrives. Have a great weekend and see you next week.

Disclosure: ‘Midlife lately – pockets of October joy’ is not a sponsored post

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