What new horrors face me this week, in this world where I cannot quite see everything? What new joys does menopause bring, along with a powerful urge to tell the entire world to Fuck Off or eat my body weight in Malted Milk biscuits?

This week, it seems, we need to talk about hair. I’ve spoken before about the shift in hormones and my ability to grow a beard overnight,- a mix of short dark stubbly hairs and covert white wispy ones. I have more to share!

Quite literally I have more hair to share. I have hair sprouting in places and hair thinning in others – the lack of hormonal coordination is baffling. Today I found a dark hair on my cheek about 3cm long. It is increasingly not unusual to find stray hairs growing on my cheek but it is unusual for them to get this long.

Is this just the natural progression of things? Sick of being plucked from my chin, have they simply migrated to my cheeks in an act of self-preservation?

Remember how I mentioned a few weeks back that I needed glasses? Well, I need them in front of the mirror as well! 

I regularly ‘feel’ the hair on my chin before I see it. Not that I feel it growing, that would be weird, especially as they seem to grow at night! (though that could explain the insomnia?) But as any woman of a certain age will confirm, you can feel the stubbly little buggers on your chin. 

The ones growing on my cheek, however, are softer, less stubbly, and more flowing. And I can’t see them.

I mean who the hell takes their reading glasses into the bathroom with them? Well, it seems I will have to, as that’s the only way to see my face in the mirror. Of course, this is just going to be another place for me to lose them, wandering the house for weeks, blind and unable to read. (I still haven’t found the bank cards.)

It’s not as if my husband is any help – with finding things or the facial hair. Not only does he need glasses but even with them on he can’t see a bloody thing. I was reading next to him on the sofa and looking up (wearing my reading glasses) realised he had a stray eyelash about 3 inches long, flapping away in the breeze every time he blinked. He wasn’t even grateful when I gave it a sharp tug so I could show him.

I am now literally walking around blind, with hairs spiking out of my face.

At the same time, my eyebrows are thinning. You know when your gran told you to stop plucking your eyebrows when you were a teen? Well, guess what, she was right. They don’t grow back in, and not only that but they get thinner, not growing at all.

I love makeup, but even I know that drawing two little bushy caterpillar eyebrows across my face is not a look I could carry off. (I kept Hawthorne caterpillars as a kid, weird I know. They are green with red spots and lots of hairs and the sudden image of these on my face, was too good not to share.)

What is the evolutionary benefit of having no eyebrows and sprouting cheeks? How does this help humanity? Especially when your eyesight begins to wane. Or is that the point – unable to control the weird hair growth, evolution just dims your vision so you can’t see?

And what the hell is wrong with women’s body hair, anyway? Why have I bought into this rediculous standardized beauty? I dont worry about hair in other places. I might shave my legs in the summer but only if I have to. My bikini line is defiantly untrimmed – its not as if I’m going to be sporting a bikini anytime soon. Not that I can see much down there anyway as I need my distance glasses for that and god knows where they are.

Why does this affect me so?

I need a younger pair of eyes to tell me if I have a beard. I would pay for this service. (no bikini lines would be involved in this transaction!)

Do you need a job? I could employ a full YTS scheme at this rate.

As ever answers on a postcard and if you see a stray hair go ahead and give it a tug.