Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019 Page 43{
HOUSEHOLD HINTS
FROM HISTORY
IF A candle has burnt low, lay a penny
over the hole in the candlestick. Place
the small end on it, warmed so it will
stick. Your candle will burn to the end.
ORIGINS: Daily Mail, January 3, 1922Delightful lost tips from
the Daily Mail archives}
BEST
BOOKS
ON...
THE SEA
I WRITE with a view of the sea. It is
both a restful and restless sight, with
yachts, speedboats and paddle-
boards traversing it and the move-
ment of the water discernible.
Sitting hazily on the horizon are
the cliffs of the Isle of Wight. When I
finish, I hope to go for a long swim.
Ahead of our holiday, I had been
feeling a bit forlorn to not be board-
ing an ocean-going vessel myself to
visit foreign parts. But for a keen
swimmer and completist, like me,
there are compensatory delights to
a staycationing summer in the UK:
by the end of August, I should have
swum in the Atlantic and North Sea,
as well as the English Channel.
In The Sea, The Sea by Iris Mur-
doch, it is a romantic idea of the sea
— and himself — that has drawn
celebrity actor Charles Arrowby to
Shruff End, a damp, unattractive-
sounding solitary house with
Martello Tower, to write an autobi-
ography of sorts. Vain, self-regard-ing, prissy and dangerously self-
deluding, Arrowby has moved there
to pursue what quickly seems a false
vision of himself as some sort of
monastic aesthete.
Arriving in May, he swims regularly,
but cuts himself trying to clamber
out onto the rocks. He makes lavish,
but eccentric meals for one,
washed down with the better part
of a^ bottle of wine. Gazing at the
seascape, he writes: ‘How huge it is,
how empty, this great space for
which I have been longing all my
life. Still no letters.’
Fresh bereavement, but also the
churning haunting of a past trauma,
draws art historian Max Morden
back to the scene of his childhood
Irish holidays in John Banville’s
Booker-winning The Sea.
‘I would not swim again, after that
day,’ the reader learns almost
immediately of the widower rent-
ing a room in a house where, many
years ago, the glamorous Grace
family spent an ill-fated summer.
Few seaside settings are drawn as
alluringly as the Italian Riviera
scenes of Patricia Highsmith’s The
Talented Mr Ripley. But here, for rich
American Dickie Greenleaf, the
glittering sea proves less fickle and
treacherous than the company he
keeps. Swim safely this summer.Patricia Nicol
Her patients wanted to give their
partners ‘spontaneous’ pleasure,
even if they had to be medicated
to do so.
This wasn’t for me. I wanted to
bring my authentic self to my
intimate life, not some chemically
propped-up version.
I started treating my menopau-
sal symptoms as like a graduate
school for life. ‘OK, this is the
phase I’m in now. What am I
learning about my life and my
body?’ It took a while of re-orien-
tating myself as a sexual body tofigure out what felt good for me.
The young woman I used to be
in thigh-high boots and a push-
up bra had given me a lot of
pleasure, but I was not that
person any more. Could I be loved
and also be myself?
Jonathan Huber, a Canadian
doctor and researcher I talked to,
believed I could. He told me that
‘unlearning’ was the most impor-
tant part of remaining sexually
vital in later life, not hormones.
What might someone unlearn?
‘Basically everything societyand culture tells you about sex,’
Huber said. ‘Much of the infor-
mation we pick up along the way
is contradictory, negative or
downright incorrect. Examples
might be that the only good sex
is spontaneous, or that sex has to
result in orgasm for both parties
at the same time.’
Finally, I was ready for a sex life
based on who I really was, not
clichés. I let go of the sexual
script that I’d used all through
my fertile years and tried to figure
out what I actually wanted. I toldmy husband I might not want to
go all the way, and he was cool
with that. We began, like teenag-
ers, rolling around on our bed
with our clothes on and kissing.
Things developed from there.
Our urgency was based not on
youthful desire, but on the knowl-
edge that our time together is
limited.
Today I have sex less, but I
enjoy it more. It’s still exciting
and sensual and I feel like there’s
been no loss of pleasure, but it’s
not the thing that drives me.
The interesting thing is my hus-
band has always been less fixated
on ‘the act’ than me. He loves
those roll-around-the-bed ses-
sions, where you talk and drink
wine and eventually see where it
goes. At first I was confused. Was
there something wrong with me?
‘I love it, but I love other things
just as much,’ he told me.
For a long time, I felt frustrated
and even a little bitter about this.
But as more time passed and I
entered menopause, with its
sexual changes, I realised how
lucky I was.O
nE friend told me
that in the nineties,
she and her husband,
both then in their
60s, had not had intercourse for
years. Their sex life had grown
so much better, she felt, ‘tender
and adventurous’.
I don’t believe that older women
don’t like sex, I think it’s that sex
becomes a different thing.
My husband and I needed to
have a lot of honest discussions,
of course, but it’s brought us
way closer than I was with my
partners in my 20s. Mike had to
have his knee replaced, I’ve had
some back problems. We have to
discuss what’s happening to our
bodies, and gently, tenderly, help
each other through these things.
We definitely want to keep our
physical life going.
And a lot of women I spoke to
said that when they finally did
have the courage to talk
about it with their
husbands, and tell them
they did still like them and
want to be close but that
the sex might have to be
different, their husbands
were very open about what
they needed to do to make
sex better.
I sometimes miss the
ferocity of desire. And some
spontaneity gets lost. But
in its place, you have spon-
taneous intimacy — real
moments of closeness. It’s
less about physical release
and more about being really
intimate. Good sex is about
authenticity; bringing your
whole self to the other person.
Several sex therapists I inter-
viewed for the book talked about
how amazing erotic touching is,
how it can bring back people who
don’t think they are interested in
sex, if you don’t put too much
pressure on doing the actual act.
We tried it, and now it’s one of
my husband’s favourite things.
He’s like: ‘OK, let’s get out the
massage oil.’ He’s really game.
I like being my authentic self.
There’s an emotional, even spir-
itual component to menopause.
I feel much less competitive
with other women. The only
person I want to still find me
attractive is my husband.
I want to look nice and I will
definitely wear a dress at times,
but am I interested in super-high
heels and purple eyeshadow?
Absolutely not.
I feel like I’ve been on a journey.
I’m 57 now and moving through
the end of my menopause. I feel
great, I’ve not had many hot
flushes lately and my sex life is
better than ever.
O As tolD to liz Hoggard.
Flash Count Diary: A New story
About the Menopause, by Darcey
steinke, (Canongate £16.99)menopause –
r best sex yet!
50, but refused to let her love life die.
book that shows how YOU can...
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