Once upon a time nothing excited me more than the idea of putting on my gladrags and hitting the town. Sky high heels, sequins, lashings of lipgloss and a the dress I’d bought for no reason other than to wear to whatever trivial social occasion had cropped up that weekend – a birthday, an assignment completed, the end of term, Tuesday, the fact that I saw said dress and now had to essentially make up a reason to wear it…. any excuse was viable. Hell, this comes from a girl who wore glitter dust and teeny tiny stars stuck on with eyelash glue just to mooch around the Miss Selfridge make up counter and test out nail polish with her BFFs on a random Saturday afternoon during her pre-teens. There was no such thing as over dressed. These days the heels, the frocks and the lippy still get me all giddy, only problem is, the hitting the town bit. See, these days I’m not so much a fan of Other People. I still love the wine (though admittedly in my party days you were more likely to catch me with a blue WKD than a nice, chilled glass of Sauv Blanc), I LOVE having a good old dance, but then Other People just have to go spoil all the fun.
Firstly, WHEN DID WE GET SO OLD?? Everyone else is too young to remember that song that just came on and got you bopsing onto the dancefloor with your hands in the air. And I don’t mean in a ‘I was about 6 when this song came out’ kinda way. I mean in a ‘My mum used to play this on long car journeys’ kinda way. Or, even worse, a ‘What’s a Fleetwood Mac?’ kinda way. The Spice Girls are basically retro now. They don’t even know what a cassette is for crying out loud, they will never appreciate the tinny sound of Bananarama coming from plug in Walkman speakers. So not only are those songs you enjoy few and far between, they clear the dance floor. All the more room for me to throw some shapes of course, but still manages to make me feel ancient.
Also, looking at those hot young things makes me feel cold. I can’t remember what age it was when I realised wearing a coat was a good idea, but trendy bars don’t really accommodate this and more often than not, your treasured new leather jacket (that you actually give a crap about now because you saved up for three months for it rather than buying the cheaper version that looked almost as nice but not quite) ends up stashed under a table gathering beer stains. And don’t get me started on the lack of respect for shoes. Back in the days when you had that one pair of ‘going out’ shoes that you bought in the sale at Faith, you weren’t particularly bothered when someone sloshed their pint over your feet (because, lets face it, they were plastic, and would be fine) but now that you’ve spent the time and effort tracking down the last pair of size 5 suede Kurt Geigers in the colour way that sold out before you had a chance to buy them, you’d rather not spend the next day trying to sponge the dirty scuff marks off them.
So what do you do? I’m certainly not ready to hang up my dancing shoes just yet! I’m in my 30’s, hardly geriatric! I still want to put on my sequins and stillettos, I just want to do it somewhere that looks nice, where I can sit down if I want, not queue for an hour to use the loo and drink something that isn’t served in plastic. So what did I do for my recent Birthday outing? Go out for dinner at a smart bistro? Head to a swanky bar for cocktails? Um, no. I went to a pub. A dark, Victorian pub that sells real ale and has a juke box. In a 50’s style frock and pink satin peep toes. And all those hot young things thought we looked a bit odd. AND I DID NOT CARE. Because the best part of getting older? You stop caring what the cool kids think. 
You know what? We rocked that Juke Box! Cheers!
In this post – Dress – H&M, Shoes – Carvela ‘Gin’ (similar), Handbag – Primark (similar), Lipstick – YSL Rouge Volupte Shine No 05, Viktor & Rolf ‘Flowerbomb’ Eau de Parfum
Picking the Day 