If my body was a car then I would have been born as one of those flash new Mini cars. At just over five foot tall, I've always been considered short by my peers and 'mini me' is a phrase that I am so bored of hearing! My usual retort is that all good things come in small packages. That only works while you're still young and sleek and while the body work hasn't been patched up or repaired.



If my body were a car in my late teens and early twenties then I would consider it to be a Lexus. Up there with the best of them but not quite making the Rolls Royce standard. But, I have to say, I'd be happy with a Lexus body now! Not to be sniffed at, the Lexus body comes with all the higher class trimmings of still streamlined body, great aerodynamics, power and unstoppable energy. It also comes with grown up attitude which is a god send for the next phase.

In your thirties you get traded in for something more like a people carrier. This still holds a degree of respectability but has now become more of a useful tool than something to be admired. Admiring the many storage compartments on a people carrier is akin to admiring the coping mechanisms on a human body. They do the job very well but do you want to display them?

I'm just coming up for forty now and if my body was a car, I would like to picture it as a Rolls Royce Phantom. I would be described as lustrous and glamorous with classic appeal, perfect for the gentleman with impeccable taste. In reality, it's probably more likely to be verging on a Ford Fiesta. Nothing wrong with being a Ford Fiesta, they are functional and respectable little cars. In fact, there is even a sporty version.

However, have you seen the human equivalent of the sporty Fiesta? It is tantamount to that woman you see propping up bars normally reserved for the younger model. Too much dated make up, too much hair dye, too short a skirt and flashing a newly bare wedding finger. That little tinge of sadness you feel when you see her is the same tinge of sadness you get when you realise you've reached the Ford Fiesta stage of your life.

Not that I am that woman, you understand. I understand where my hem lines should stop and have never been a fan of mutton, or Ford Fiestas. I'm afraid, although I have my standards, I am in the class of Ford Mondeo for body work. Or should I call it a Ford Gaffa? This car is bigger than I would like it, as is my body. It may be patched up with gaffa tape but it is comfortable and still goes like a rocket. My secret yearnings for my Lexus days are being stifled by the constant refuelling of chocolate.

It's a little different for men. They can get away with most standards of body work on the vehicle or in person. They don't become old and battered, they become classical and distinguished (or Cherished, as some car manufacturers like to call them now). So, you see girls, it is definitely still a mans world.