50 and fabulous

It's my birthday this weekend. So I am going to be a bit reflective and a lot self indulgent!

How cute I was...

It’s my birthday tomorrow. I turn 50 which is obviously a time for introspection. So I hope you will forgive a rather self-indulgent post. Here’s a lot of what I would have said in a video from a year ago. So thankfully for you, this post is shorter than it might have been!

If you want to buy me a birthday present — look I used to work in telesales as I talk about in this video about my life and career - so of course I am trying to upsell you.The best thing you could do to wish me a happy birthday is upgrade to a paid subscription. Given the theme of this weekend is 50 and fabulous I am offering a special 50 per cent discount on annual subscriptions!

However, I am also collecting funds for a trip to see the Northern Lights if you can’t bear the thought of doubling your access to my writing!

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So, 50 years. And - at least for the last decade or so, years so a life much richer, so much more interesting, so much more fun than I ever thought it would be.

The track I was on was OK. Not exceptional. Then it was derailed and the result has been so much weirder, so much sweeter, so much more unexpected and unusual than I every could have expected.

As a teenager, I read The Road Less Travelled. I remember almost nothing of the self-help book du jour but thinking about the title, I am pretty sure I must have inadvertently followed some of its advice.

If you had told me ten years ago that I would be a playwright I would not have believed you. But tickets are now on sale for my fourth play Four Weigh Ins and a Funeral a celebration of found community and my SlimmingWorld family.

I love working in theatre and I think doing so strengthens all my other work. Learning to think and write completely differently allows me to challenge all my preconceptions. Coming to each new play and character with a different mindset allows me to write and say things in voices that are not my own - and that can only be good for having a wider understanding of the world.

I’ve done things on a whim I wouldn’t have dreamed of – travelling to Egypt, Rome, Athens and New York, New York, New York.

I used to want to live in New York. Then I examined that thought and realised what I actually wanted was to live a life scripted by Nora Ephron.

Well, I’m not Nora Ephron. But I have scripted myself a pretty great life.

In 2018 I got myself a Masters Degree in Journalism. Not the brightest career choice as the industry collapses around me. But having worked in think tanks for over a decade at that point, I had started to feel seriously intellectually insecure. So I wanted to prove that I could do better than the 2:II I left Kent with in the 1990s. I did. I got a distinction. BOOM.

The truth that I almost never express (even in job interviews) is that I have an exceptional political and journalistic mind. And if I don’t say that today I never will, but it’s true. I can think about political issues in ways that are perceptive, informed and unique. My experiences enable me to do so.

Sometimes I focus a bit too much on what I don’t have.

Why don’t I have a boyfriend? (I’m not averse to the concept, but equally, I am incredibly happy as I am)

Why don’t I have a column? (Well thanks to Substack - and lovely readers like you - I have the next best thing!)

Why aren’t I General Secretary of the Labour Party? (God can you imagine?).

Why aren’t I Baroness Burnell of Baker’s Arms? (There’s still time!)

Tomorrow I will be going to a party that my brilliant sister has organised for me. When I describe Cath to other people I often say “She’s just like me only taller, thinner, prettier, blonder, louder and more confident”. They don’t generally believe me about the loud until they meet her. Golly!

So let’s unpack all of that:

Well, I am never going to get taller.

Thinner… I have lost over half my body weight. I’m a size 14 - something unthinkable for me just a few years ago. I am thinner!

Tomorrow I will be wearing a beautiful dress. Have my hair and make up done professionally. And - I am just going to say it - I will look very pretty. Sure - not Instragram model pretty. But I will look and feel prettier than I ever thought possible. And that’s enough for me.

I have NO desire to be blonde.

I think any of you who have met me would agree I am probably more than loud enough.

But I think what I want to do for the next decade of my life is be more Cath. Be confident in and happy with what I do have to offer and make the absolute most of it.

So, if I can achieve all that I have in the last ten years, I think I can take the next ten learning to be confident about it. Learning to make the absolute most of it. Learning to be more Cath.

Me and Cath: Fashion icons.