The body beautiful

I STAND IN front of the mirror and look at myself in it, naked. Through some mad quirk of fate, I am a middle-aged woman with a non-perfect body who still, nonetheless, likes her own body. My initial instinct, on seeing my naked reflection, is to wave at myself, whilst smiling. ‘Hiya!’ I say, still waving. ‘How you doing?’ I wobble everything around, to amuse myself. ‘Hurrah!’ I say, to no one.

I can see all the parts of me that belong only in ‘before’ pictures on articles on plastic surgery – the Womble-nose breasts that point downwards, one larger than the other; my C-Section-scarred belly; the Malvern Hills of my hips and thighs – and I’m with them. I’ve got some outfits it all looks good in, and I’m reasonably certain I’ll never be stopped in the street by a swimwear company, forced into a bikini, and then judged out