Oh, how I loved my ankles…

But now I have ‘cankles’. I used to have these legs and other bits that I took for granted;  As they say in the song, you only miss it when it’s gone. I had long legs; I used to have ballet lessons and am sure that helped.  Summer holidays I threw on the shorts and flashed my legs when I wore my bathers. All through the late sixties and seventies I wore minis, and hot pants, and split skirts. Never taking much notice; after all the legs were just part of me, I wore whatever I wanted and had no shame. Oh, what a hussy that girl with the legs was!

I envy that girl, that woman, and she is no longer the person I see reflected back at me.  No there is this rather podgy woman, with legs twice the thickness they once were.  The ankles are lost, gone forever. I thought that if I lie back on the bed and put my legs up on the wall, it would help, I would have better slimmer legs. Instead, my husband wanted to know what I had been reading.  Was it Karma Sutra? Anyway no change happened, no effect whatever.  What about those ‘support stockings’? I mused…. Well, I tried to put some on, took me a while to get them out of the package even. Then I tried to do the contortions needed to get them on.  I almost gave myself a hernia trying to get both feet in the tight elastic. Then as I wriggled and squirmed I, at last, got them on. I had almost gone headlong across the bedroom floor but had success. I dressed in some rather flash new trousers, ready to go out I walked down the path, only to feel that awful sensation of the pantyhose rolling down to my thighs. They had decided not to help my cause; instead, I now had a funny walk and a bulge of flesh above my legs.  Failed again.

The only small success I have had is to use some men’s airline socks; trouble is they are black. They were fine under trousers and in boots in the winter, but now they don’t do much for my white summer look.  So guess I am stuck with cankles, I would have been better in Victorian times, when a flash of ankle drove a man insane, so you kept them covered. Mine would not do that now; they would bring on nausea instead.  I could go on about losing my slender arms too, but when you look at the whole none of it matters, I am still here lumpy bits and all. I shall just have to buy a large kaftan and float about like a galleon in full sail.

Which bit of your body was your pride and joy once?