You know you're middle aged when...

[PollyCreo]

You go out in the morning at the same time you used to come home at 😲

The sun rises very early where I live (not UK) so after the clocks changed I decided to embrace this and go for a brisk 4 mile walk every morning before work 🌞 It is truly lovely, it's warm and I enjoy seeing the sun come up. However it was only 12 years ago I used to be stumbling out of a nightclub at 5.45am and looking for a taxi to get me home 🧐 What has happened to me?

How many times have I re-wound a bloody film!

You buy the biggest knickers in the shop. I did that this week and was delighted to find that after 2 babies and 2 c-sections I now love my body enough to just want it to be comfortable.

You watch Antiques Roadshow or The Repair Shop and remember some of the things being used when you were a child

When you realise it's not just your face and boobs that will sag.

You spend more on shoes than you've ever done before, but they're all bloody ugly as fuck. Because bollocks to pretty when you can't stand up for more than 30 seconds in them without pain in your feet, your hips and your lower back.

And coats. You buy coats - coats to keep you warm, coats to keep you dry, coats to look smart, coats that are light enough to take off if it suddenly gets a bit hot.

You start looking at how to increase the standard font size on your phone.

And the biggest thing - when there's a tech issue, the invariably younger bloke who has come in to fix it starts talking at you in that sing-song voice as though you're a particularly dim six year old. The older ones don't have a death wish know not to do that to you.

Your (magnified, illuminated) face mirror sees more of your fanjo than it does of your face due to vaginal atrophy - gets more spent on it too!

The pharmacist calls you 'madam'. Ffs.

Oh so much all of this...

I increased my font size ages ago. I'm only fifty fucking two.

This is like a dagger 😂

Middle age Is having your pj's on before your 7pm programme starts.

Nobody has to tell you to wrap up warm - you’ve already done it.

Beginning to give zero fucks about what anybody else thinks - believe me, this aspect only improves with age!

You hear yourself saying (and meaning), "Ooh, I like a good tea towel."

What are you referring to?

You keep a smart black coat and hat in reserve.

You shout out the telly because people on quiz shows have no general knowledge.

You expect people to say 'excuse me please' not 'scuse me'.

And in the words of the late great Victoria Wood 'those orthopaedic sandals look comfy'.

I prefer to think of it has getting older not old.

I hear you OP. Sometimes when I’m in bed I look at my phone and I see it’s only 9pm! I’m not sleeping, I’m reading or watching tv or on my phone but I’ll be thinking Crikey there was a time I’d be getting ready to go out at 9pm not going to bed.

One thing I’ve noticed is I find female singers voices I used to like (Mariah Carey, Celina Dion type singers) just sound unbearable to my ears now, just noise.

In a similar vein, spending my payday "pocket money" on a ridiculously expensive duvet set from John Lewis instead of shoes like I would most months - and being thrilled with it.

I find the men my age and older - (in fact down to about ten years younger) much more patronising. Anyone under 25 I view initially at least indulgently as a contemporary of my kids..

I wonder whether being unphased by groups of young men because they're just kids really makes me definitely middle aged! I think so, because I only worry mildly or feel on edge around groups of young men if I have DD (late teens) with me - I feel as though on my own they'll view me as a mum/ old lady and ignore me or be polite and respectful, and this is so far exactly what happens.

Perhaps the younger ones are patronising me and I don't notice because they do it in a different way to the middle aged ones, and anyway it's impossible to take seriously from a kid...

Madam or Madame? 😅

I used to have men falling over themselves in the street to chat me up, these days it's only the 'mature' gentlemen old perve who looks my way 😕

Op what age are you roughly?

🤣

When you are older than the Prime Minister.

WHAT?!!!!!!

Yes. Consultant surgeons, eminent Professors, the BBC's Political and Business Editors and above all, Cabinet Ministers and even the Prime Minister all look like sixth formers.

When you feel tired after one glass of wine.

You fantasise about the new hot water bottle you’re hoping to get for Christmas.

when asked what you would like for Christmas you say, year after year, I like chocolates, smellies and candles 😊