Middle Age?

I've been feeling old for a while now. Maybe it's the whole becoming a mam thing, 16 months of early mornings and late nights. Or maybe it's just nature's way of saying slow down before you burn out...

Let me just rewind the clock by a decade or so. It's Sunday morning and I'm feeling fine, already up and getting ready for an afternoon of pub grub and booze, despite a heavy night previous and the sniff of a hangover.

I'd have been out wearing next-to-nothing, yet wouldn't have felt the cold. I'd have made twenty quid last all night, and probably came home with a few coppers (not the uniformed type). I would have skipped from pub to bar to club to kebab house in high heels that never hurt my feet. If I had wanted a male chaperone, there would have been a decent offering of fine young gentlemen.

I would have danced all night and walked home rather than fork out for taxi's, but my legs wouldn't ache. The furious hangover that should await me would be fenced in by a hearty breakfast following a full nights kip.

Now look at the picture. This is me after a relatively small night out that didn't contain many of the above, and yet I'm totally goosed. I threw up more than a newborn and ache like a gent with severe man-flu.

I'm sure I only had a few drinks, and I'm even more sure that I had the chance to 'pull' a denim-clad OAP. I dressed for winter, and my fairly modest clothes hid the Bridget Jones pants that keep it all in and make you feel like you are being slowly suffocated.

Last night, surrounded by the skimpy girls that reminded me of my own youth, I realised that I'm either in middle age, or I'm hurtling towards it at meteor speed.

Help.