It’s been absolutely ages since I last posted here. ‘Jane,’ I hear you asking, ‘what have you been up too? We’ve missed you?’ Well, I turned 50, had a fabulous party, then promptly came down with some mutant virus doing the rounds of Adelaide and was sick for three weeks. After that, I had my parents in town, my besties came to visit, and I embarked on assembling my birthday gift from my muse. A miniature dollhouse apartment block.

Make no mistake, this has been harder than putting together anything EVA from IKEA. Bloody hell, nothing fitted, everything broke, and there were times I could have put it out on the kerb for kindling. But, with a bit of persistence, a few martinis, some help from the hubby (muse), and my sister’s drill, it’s nearly assembled… Let me show you what I mean.

From this… (yes, that is a ferret in the photo) to this!

About a month after my birthday, this arrived in the post too… Now, I’m just going to say it as I see it. When you turn 50, as a woman, you are staring down the barrel of a few things, which are quite confronting. Menopause, being considered an old chook by society, the realisation that you will never be a super model, and ads on TV saying if companies employ someone 50 and over, they will be given $10,000 because apparently we are now unemployable old chooks. Not to mention aging parents looking to you to solve all their problems. Great.

And I’m not even going to talk about those ‘light bladder leakage ads’. Jesus. So, given all that, wouldn’t you think the Government could be a bit more sensitive to 50 year olds? I mean come on, no one wants to get a kit, where they have to poke around in their own poo with a brush (then store it in the fridge) as a present. Yes, we have to be careful about cancer, but, seriously it’s so traumatizing turning 50 anyway, most people I know have thrown these kits out. You know what would have worked for the masses? Sending out a bottle of gin or wine, if you actually do the test and mail it back. Easy.

So that’s my update on turning 50. On the plus side, I’m not so worried about waxing my legs anymore, and I can blame my grumpy days on menopause. So, no recipes today, just a recipe for dealing with turning 50. Take that poo test, but also look around you, decide what it is you love to do and bloody well do it. Because you don’t need to put everyone else first anymore. You’re officially a middle-aged chook, and that gives you the right to enjoy your life without giving a flying toss what others think of you. Enjoy. x