I'm old

I can tell this through a number of signs.

1) When I squeeze my boobs together, my cleavage wrinkles slightly, despite the repeated and frantic application of approximately 17 buckets of intensive moisturising cream. I've decided to blame this entirely on Him for making me move out to the tropics in the first place, instead of staying in nice cold rainy totally unsunny London, and he has been made aware that he will be bearing the full cost of breast implants, intensive cosmetic treatments and, if and when it becomes available, full skin replacement with the hide of a sixteen year old virgin.

2) I can't run as fast as I used to. When I go uphill (there's a very steep hill on this island. It's about the only thing that's actually on the island. In fact, it basically is the island) I pant. If anyone is considering suggesting that this might be due to my lack of physical fitness and absence of self-discipline instead of encroaching age, don't bother, because I'll just put my hands over my ears and hum loudly.

3) I dislike children even more than I did when I was myself a child, which is impressive as I was an unfriendly little beast even then. Now I find myself wanting to kick babies as they play in the sand, and when the adorable sugar-smeared little bastards stagger up with their thumbs in their mouths to play with my dogs, or ask to watch cartoons on TV, or just say something irritatingly cute, I glare at them from beneath eyebrows that sadly are not yet bushy enough for the task - maybe I'll start growing them. I'm hoping I can get to the point where sparks actually shoot from my eyes, so I don't need to bother opening my mouth to tell them to f*** off. I seem to have skipped the Maternal stage and gone straight through to Curmudgeon.

4) This is the really important point; all the others were just par for the course. Last night (Saturday) I Did Not Join In The Party. Let me explain. The island is a beautiful, quiet haven of peace and tranquillity amid white sands and sparkling blue waters. Except on Saturday nights, when it turns into a den of vice and iniquity with enough vodka to raise the Titanic, a sound system that can actually reach Mars when turned up loud enough, and a multitide of happy drunken fools dancing on the tables, having sex on the beach, or throwing up under the palm trees. We don't even let people with children or boring sounding names stay at the weekends, we pretend that we're full. If we could cull people at the port based on looks and personality, we would. Pointless discrimination combined with large quantities of alcohol? Awesome. This weekend was preparing to be particularly good - we had a large contingent of friends down from KL who always bring bevies of Russian models with them - vacuous, incomprehensible, but nice to look at and hilarious when drunk. We had a group of pleasantly good-looking Australian boys who are always good value for money - and they drink whisky, which means more vodka for the rest of us. We had a bunch of guys and girls who were an unknown quantity, but being both English and not unattractive meant they'd probably provide plenty of entertainment, first as all the Aussies tried to sleep with the English girls and all the English boys tried to sleep with the Russian models (neither would succeed), and secondly as all the English totally underestimated their capacity for alcohol and passed out underneath the table at half past ten in a pool of their own vomit. So all in all, it was looking promising. I had to work, but I reckoned I could blitz it on Friday and Saturday and be done in time for Saturday night. As always I rather over-estimated my efficiency, and I didn't finish working until about 8pm. This wouldn't normally have been a problem but on this occasion...I just wasn't up for it. I don't know, I don't understand either. I went downstairs, and everyone was doing shots in the bar and working up to a big night and I knew that if I joined in and had a few I'd probably get in the mood - but I just couldn't be bothered. I'd been running the last few days and I felt nice and healthy and I didn't want to screw it up. I didn't want a hangover the next day because I had to work. I didn't want a fight with my boyfriend, which almost invariably happens when we're both drunk (we usually start one for the sake of it, because we enjoy it). I just...wasn't in the mood.

So what happened? Well, I'd like to say that I went to bed at 9.30, slept like a baby, and woke refreshed and dewy at 7am the next morning to go for a run before I started work. Instead, I watched TV for hours whilst eating crisps to compensate for the lack of booze, and went to bed at midnight only to spend the next four hours lying wide awake chuntering furiously to myself at the selfishness of people who don't turn the music down when other people are trying to sleep. I woke up today as tired and headachey as I would have done if I'd got pissed as a newt, with wrinkles all down my aged face from where the pillow dug into my cheek.

Needless to say, I'm furious. I'm going to go and kick a baby.