Everything sounds better in French

Even "about forty". In French to be about forty is avoir la quarantaine (pronounced kah - rrrron - ten). It sounds attractive and accomplished and elegantly non-specific. We fail to come up with anything so languid in English - 'forty-ish' and 'late-thirties' is about all we can manage and neither of those expressions can be worked cleverly into the name of a blog about turning forty, so la quarantaine it is.

Technically, I should have started this acccount of my fortieth year of life back in August 2011. I am some months behind. Blogging about the last gasp of my 30s wasn't as high a priority as buying a house. And moving into it. And surviving one of the tougher years of my working life. But it's 2012 now and already this year is shaping up very nicely (notwithstanding a possible Mayan calendar/end of the world-type scenario wherein neither I, nor anyone I know and love, makes it into those giant ark things).

So far, being an ever-shrinking number of days away from turning forty is surprisingly pain-free. Infact, I think it's kind of liberating. While I don't want to get all falsely jolly and upbeat about all this and write posts where I trill happily about feeling empowered and loving myself as I am and being thrilled to be forty etc. and like that, I do want to talk about what's going on in my life as this 'milestone' birthday approaches with honesty and good humour. The truth is I'm not terrified of being forty/in my forties/over forty. I am a little anxious about it. Not completely sanguine. Maybe even a little sad. I'm also glad to be here, I'm anticipating the next decade and I've got plenty of reasons to believe my forties will be my best decade yet.

The above are a couple of reasons. Being able to stand on the back step of my own* beautiful little house in the suburbs and take in a stunning sunset is pretty freakin' awesome. And something your average twenty-year old can only dream of. Ha! That's one for the old bird.


A la prochaine (which is a pretty way of saying 'till next time')

F x




*When I say 'my own' what I mean is mine and my darling partner's. And the bank's. The key thing here is that it's not the landlord's.