No really. It's beyond a joke now. I was leaning inches away from the mirror in the bathroom when I saw it and I swear I could have sat down and weeped. Yes Readers I am now the proud owner of a GREY chin hair and clearly, at the tail end of my thirty sixth year, more than halfway to the kind of decreptitude that will find me sporting a salt and pepper beard before 2009 is out. So what else is new? Well Finley has been off yet again with another bout of feeling rubbishness that the school insists is Scarletina and the Doctor insists is no such thing, so I have gone about my business of the past few days with a five year old clinging to my neck, severely hampering my efforts to be a Domestic Goddess of the kind who can offer a visiting friend a teaspoon with which to stir the tea they have had to make themselves. It is, you see, becoming more apparent by the day that my hostessing skills leave a lot to be desired, while my skirting boards are so clean you could lick them and live to tell the tale. (But obviously I would prefer it if you didn't). While I have crawled about on my hands and knees shifting stubborn stains, Finley has crawled around behind me debating the dangers of members of the armed forces wearing spectacles and wondering out loud whether it was my "giant bum" that caused the collapse of the springs in my favorite armchair. Which brings me rather nicely to the fact that I am dating a rocket scientist (I know! First a Formula One driver, then an Elvis Impersonator and now a Rocket Scientist: clearly I am working my way through the Ladybird book of aspirational careers for eternal little boys! And yes indeed, even I suspect these men are making their job titles up). A rocket scientist who recently joined a Facebook group called Real Women Have A Bottom and Thighs and a Tummy and Wobbly Bits, leaving me undecided whether to feel absolutely outraged by mere implication that bits of me wobble or indeed gloriously liberated that he doesn't care?? Hmmm. Anything else I feel obliged to share? Well there was a truly bad sink to the bottom of your tummy and live there type chocolate cake made by my own fake tanned hands (recipe not forthcoming, but let it be known that I blame this months issue of Good Housekeeping) and forced upon my darling yummies mummies at Dianes house, followed by half an hour spent racing Kath on the Wii Fit and losing in spectacular fashion, a delicious lunch of Lancashire Cheese and Leek tart at Cedar Farm I intend to recreate the next day, and another at a lovely little country pub with my Mum and Dad the day after, then a quick scoot around every Supermarket in the land in search of the tahini I can't get anywhere at the moment. There has been a walnut pesto with pasta obsession that will be the death of me, the antiseptic scent of white lilies on the dining room table, a new internet venture with one of the Dad's from the school playground, and the evening perusal of Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton of "William" fame... And finally in other news, last week I made the fatal decision to hoover the wall. Yes you read that right. In a fit of domestic madness I hardly dare to explain because it involves a village of spiders and their cobwebby residences, for the second time in my silly life I vacuumed the living room wall and woe is me, didn't I just go and hoover off a crumbling section of yellow paint leaving the cream paint that went before exposed for all to see? This is getting serious now, and clearly it is time to get busy with a paintbrush, but a quick flick through the Sunday papers revealed a new direction in interiors entitled "Shabbilism", which is the delectable meeting point of Shabby Chic and Minimalism, a look defined by distressed paintwork and interiors that look credit crunched (or bailiffed!) with a spoonful of gilded glamour thrown in for the sake of getting away with decorative murder. And thus I feel entitled to leave exactly as they are and consider myself the height of fashion. So start cultivating your chin hair, wibbling your wobbly bits and hoovering your walls as soon as heavenly possible... Decreptitude is all the rage in these parts, don't you know?