It’s official, it’s been confirmed!

I’m a Grumpy Old Woman. I guess this comes as no surprise to anyone, least of all me. It’s just nice to know I’m not certifiable and that I have plenty of company for this part of my life’s journey.

The book ‘Grumpy Old Women (but still feeling eighteen inside) The Official Handbook’ written by Judith Holder, just about says it all, at least for me.

This book came out of the BBC TV series of the same name, which in turn was spawned by the highly successful BBC TV series ‘Grumpy Old Men’.

OK so what is it with Grumpy Old Women, what makes us grumpy and what are we about?

Here’s most of the introduction from the book.

Introduction

Disclaimer
For the purposes of my Auntie Dorothy, I would like to stress that any references of a sexual or crude nature in this book are as a result of extensive research on my part into other people’s lives and experience, and not my own.

Grumpy old women are a little bit older than they were, they’re a little bit fed up – quite a lot fed up, actually – and this book is dedicated to this hitherto silent majority of women of a certain age who find the whole business of being a grown-up infinitely harder than they had imagined. Age itself is irrelevant. They may look a teeny bit middle-aged on the outside but on the inside they are the young, fragile and entirely irresistible women they were in their 20s. They may not wear thongs or sex-kitten bikinis any more, but it doesn’t mean that deep down they aren’t every bit as gorgeous and irresistible as they were all those yeas ago. This book is for those wonderful women – they might be 30, or 40 or 50 or much older – who share a special serenity and wisdom that means that they are nearly always right. The nearly always know best … and I am proud to be with self-appointed form captain.

This book is also for the people who are lucky enough to live with women like us. It can be their guide map to understanding the true depths and beauty of our (sometimes not apparent to the naked eye) charm, intuition, affection and sheer bloody wonderfulness.

So how does it feel to be a Grumpy Old Woman? Well, for a start, it seems like only yesterday that you were raving it up to 10cc and the Bay City Rollers, only five minutes since you were scrutinising the problem page in Jackie magazine to try to glean more information about the docking procedure of sexual intercourse, and no time
at all since you were doing your hair in flick-backs like Charlie’s Angels. But then look what happened – you got older and a little bit fatter, and suddenly you got grumpy. Boy, you got grumpy. And now just about everything gets you in a bad mood. Some days you are so mad that you walk past a pigeon and feel like giving it a good boot up the backside for no reason at all; it you see someone up a ladder, the idea of kicking it away from under them appeals for no reason other than that it would make you feel momentarily better; and if you were on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, you’d agree in rehearsal to wave when they introduced you, but them sit on your hands when it came to doing it for real. Just out of spite.

You thought that you were supposed to mellow as you got older, to become mature, serene and all-knowing, but the truth is that these days you are boiling mad, and if you could find the rolling pin, you’d brandish it in traffic, and clip people round the ear with when they annoyed you, Which is all the time. Everyone. And everything.

Just in case you’re not sure whether you, or the woman you are buying this book for, is a Grumpy Old Woman – here are some of the things to look out for.

Signs of being a Grumpy Old Woman

- Your bra size is practically a telephone number, and you now shop in the underwear department from hell.

- If you sat on a beanbag, you might need to call the emergency services to get you out.

- You say to people, ‘That shows my age,’ and they no longer contradict you.

- You are the litter police.

- Shop assistants cower in fear as you storm up to their counter to return shoddy goods.

- Market researchers in the street with stupid clipboards ignore you – you’ve been ignoring them for years, anyway.

- Little bits of you face start to sag and give you that really grumpy look often seen on the sort of women who push their way in at jumble sales and get all the bargains.

- You have to put your reading glasses on the end of your nose, and glare over them like the headmistress in Please Sir.

- You remember Please Sir.

- You are plucking your facial hair on an hourly basis. It’s all right for men – they’re MEANT to have a moustache.

- You complain a lot.

- You like a nice fountain pen.

- You become a morning person.

- You start to enjoy pottering.

- You develop a double chin.

- You start collecting used margarine tubs and used plastic bags.

- Young men are afraid to be left alone with you lest you pounce.

- You like a slip-on shoe – saves all that bending.

- You are secretly rather pleased that your daughter has an orthodontic brace that looks like part of the waste disposal unit because – let’s be honest – it makes you look a bit better.

- If you wore a thong, you might look like a Sumo wrestler.

- Easy-care fabrics start to appeal.

- Your pubes start to go a bit straggly, a bit gray, a bit sparce.

- In the (very) unlikely event that you went pony trekking, everyone else would be given normal ponies and then they’d bring out a carthourse beg enough to tow a juggernaut for you. That’s code for ‘you now have a fat arse’.

Things that bug Grumpy Old Women

These things are just the tip of the iceberg you understand – a full list obviously wouldn’t fit into a book, dur ...

- Grumpy Old Men. Women have every reason to be grumpy. Men do not. Deciding whether to comb over, whether to tuck the shirt under or over the beer belly, or experiencing some frustration with superglue is about as bad as it gets for men. (Mind you, superglue IS annoying.)

- People who say ‘bear with me two seconds’ when you know they are going to be 15 minutes.

- Things that claim to be ‘home-made’ or ‘farm fresh’ when you know they are the entire opposite, as in they have come from the freezer in the cash and carry.

- Needless and pointless signs that are supposed to be helpful, such as ‘Warning – deep water’ situated right next to the sea, or ‘May contain nuts’ on a whole nut bar
of chocolate, but which are really only there to protect someone from litigation.

- Child-proof aspirin bottle tops that you need a child to help you to open.

- Pointless stickers on backs of cars. I saw one today that said ‘Twins on Board’. Good job you told me, otherwise I’d have slammed into the back of you.

Grumpy Old Women tend to say

- Is it me or is it hot in here?

- I shan’t be coming here again.

- I can remember those flared trousers first time around.

- How much?

- What a rip off.

- It’s a disgrace.

- What’s for lunch?

- I want to talk to the manager.

- You’re too young to be the manager.

- I’m ‘popping’ out (Only middle-aged people say ‘pop’).

- Let’s have a sit down.

- Cheers.

- Struth.

- Hasn’t it been cool for the time of year?

- The hit parade.

- Sending a penny.

- Naughty but nice.

- We can’t go on meeting like this.

- Right you are.

Grumpy Old Women spend little time

- Sicking up in the street.

- Asking the doctor for the morning-after pill – but it might be a laugh to show up at the surgery one busy morning and ask.

- Three-in-a-bed sessions.

- Snogging in public.

- Lighting farts (in public).

- Putting bollards on the tops of statues – although, interestingly, Grumpy Old Women would be the last people the police would suspect – neat.

- Wearing T-shirts that say ‘Fancy a shag’ or ‘All I want is a blow job’.

Now it’s all said and done, how many of you are nodding your heads and chuckling in agreement? I bet there are a few! Isn't great to finally find that release, to discover that you're 'normal'?

Welcome to the Grumpy Old Women Club, I'm pleased to see you. Step right in. Membership is free.