Kate Garraway - The Joy of Big Knickers: (or learning to love the rest of your life)

The Joy
of Big
Knickers

KATE
GARRAWAY

(OR LEARNING TO LOVE
THE REST OF YOUR LIFE)

Published by Blink Publishing
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535 Kings Road,
Chelsea Harbour,
London, SW10 0SZ

www.blinkpublishing.co.uk

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Hardback 978-1-911274-48-3
Trade Paperback 978-1-911274-49-0
Ebook 978-1-911274-50-6

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

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Printed and bound by Clays Ltd, St. Ives Plc

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Copyright Kate Garraway, 2017

Image on Shutterstock

Papers used by Blink Publishing are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

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Blink Publishing is an imprint of the Bonnier Publishing Group
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For my amazing family and friends
thank you you are the best of my world.

Thank you to my wonderfully supportive husband for putting up with me banging on about this book for the last few months, and for living and loving my midlife moments with me you are the love of my life. Thank you to Darcy and Billy for letting me dominate the computer when you wanted to be on YouTube and for the extraordinary joy you bring every day. I am so proud of you. Thank you to my mum, dad and brother, Matthew, for everything over the last 49 years, and to the rest of my family for being a constant source of inspiration and comfort. Thank you to Chrina and Ken and all the Drapers for their constant love and support.

To my friends who tolerated me calling them at all hours of the day and night, and to everyone at Roar Global, particularly Grant, Rebecca, Kate and Jonathan you made this book happen. Thank you to the clever Dundas Communications team; Max, Cal and Amy, for helping me spread The Joy of Big Knickers. To the fabulous Helen Warner and Rebecca Cripps you are the best sounding boards ever, even though I may have driven you doolally in the process thanks for helping me find the right words when I struggled. Thanks to all the gang at GMB. To my editor, Neil Thompson, for your amazing support and advice, and Emma Gormley, for two decades of fun and guidance. Ben for your wit and wisdom, Susanna for your nurturing support. Charlotte for helping me research stuff when you should have been focusing on reading the news (shh, no one will ever know!). And to Ranvir, Richard, Piers, Laura and Sean and all the rest on and off screen for being a total joy and blessing every day.

Thanks to the team at Smooth Radio and, particularly, to the brilliant and saintly Dave Brierley-Jones, who has to put up with me for three hours everyday I cant imagine how annoying it was hearing all about my midlife at 25! Thank you Martin Lewis for your advice and friendship, and Annie Penny for your life-changing talents. Huge thanks to the legions who hit midlife before me and whose written testimonies and insights have helped me to make my way through my own maelstrom. And huge thanks to the whole Blink Publishing team a nicer, cleverer bunch of people you couldnt hope to meet.

Hello and welcome to The Joy of Big Knickers!

Once a TV presenter, always a TV presenter.

You may doubt me now, but I am hoping that by the end of this book you will also share my joy in big knickers (occasionally seen in full view on breakfast TV and pretty much worn every day). What can I say? Theyre one of my staples! And, like many other things I reveal in this book, are one of my secrets to feeling great about myself every day. They are just for me, and not to prove myself to anyone else. But now I want to share all my secrets with you! As I turn fifty I have been trying to make sense of what I now truly believe is an astonishing and wonderful era of life.

I would love you to join me as I embrace midlife madness and discover the genuine magic I have found it holds: fighting and beating the scourge of sagging skin (well, sagging everything really!), skipping along the trail of real romance, and locating those hidden gems embedded within the ups and downs of later life.

Did I mention death? Well, that also.

So, yes, Im hoping you will keep me company as we learn to love the rest of our lives in a wonderful and magical way as I know we can. TRUST ME.

I know what youre thinking of course that Kate Garraway can learn to love the rest of HER life. Whats not to love? Shes got an amazing job that has taken her to exciting and exclusive places all over the world, rubbing shoulder pads with the most glamorous of A-listers. She has a strong marriage, two gorgeous kids, seems in good health and if ever she is having a fat day, a bad hair day or a whats that looking back at me in the mirror? day, her job in television means that there is always a team of experts on hand to bring out her slick and shiny self.

Well, I cant deny it behind the smoke and mirrors are some really talented folk keeping up my TV appearance, even if its taking a lot longer nowadays. Keep reading because these fabulous trade secrets will be yours to help you shine!

These days, though, I am realising that despite the daily transformation in the make-up room, the passage of time is lurching forward faster than I can even speak (and lets be honest, thats really fast the word chatterbox was invented for me!).

Its also true that everyone, however fortunate, has a moment when they realise that this so-called passage of time is changing them, and perhaps not in a good way.

This moment of realisation for me began as a heart-thumping thought that developed into a stream of consciousness that became a conversation because, as I say, Im an eternal chatterbox and it was a conversation I began to share with numerous people: some of whom were experts, who gave me brilliant advice; some, inspirational famous faces, who I have met along the way in twenty-five years of TV; and others, friends, who were dealing with their own midlife moments, in their own way.

By the way, I am resisting the urge to call it a midlife crisis, because that conjures up all sorts of clichs of men with overly trendy hairdos, driving cars they cant afford and dating women young enough to be their daughters. Or women sporting too-short skirts, taking up pole dancing and having wild affairs with younger men. Not that the latter isnt appealing! But I have found that midlife moments come in all manner of strange and confusing forms.

You might, for instance, find yourself almost catatonic with exhaustion running around like mad, working too hard trying to make ends meet, looking after your family, caring for older relatives and barely noticing your partner, other than to remind each other of the jobs you have failed to do as you fall into bed at the end of the day, too tired even to wonder where the fun in your life has gone.