I have just painted my nails a ‘Cool Jade’.  Yep, green.  However I fear that I am perhaps a little old for green nails.  If I was about to appear as the lead in ‘Wicked’ it might be a look I could get away with.  But I’m not.  I’m a 39 year old mother of two, living in a beautiful corner of the Mendip Hills.

However, painting my nails has taken me back to my student days, when I would sit at my desk trying to find inspiration in the therapeutic brush strokes from a Max Factor bottle for an essay on Mrs Dalloway or the Great Potato Famine (I studied Irish Studies and English Literature at Uni hence the interesting mix of subject matter).  Maybe it wasn’t the brush strokes but actually the fumes from the bottles’ content that gave me my inspiration to get through an academic all-nighter.  (Not that I am condoning substance abuse in any shape or form).

I have never been a girl for lots of make up, I can go out the door without any lipstick, but nail varnish has been the one thing that I have always been a fan of.  The flash of colour as you hand over your card to the check out person or bend down to tie your shoe lace.  I have a collection of varnishes in almost every colour of the rainbow from custard yellows and rose pinks to Chanel’s coveted, and simply perfect, ‘Rouge Noir’ (yes, the one that Uma Thurman wore in Pulp Fiction).  Bizarrely though I am not a fan of long talons, fearing the damage they would do if an elbow was jogged whilst hovering near an orifice(!).  I hardly ever have my nails professionally done (open to offers, people) so I always end up with the odd splodge on the surrounding skin which looks as though my daughter has painted them for me.

So whilst today I will be a ‘Cool Jade’ (yep, definitely too old to get away with this), tomorrow I might change to a ‘Peach Smoothie’ or a ‘Candy Rose’ or even a ‘Hot Cocoa’.  Although if I was to create my own Life of Ryrie nail varnish collection there would have to be a ‘Gin Fizz’ because let’s face it Gin is the answer to most questions, a ‘Ruby Shout’ to match those ‘grrr’ days, and perhaps even a ‘Misty Mauve’ to tone with the dark circles under my eyes.  What would your nail colour be?