Joined in 2023 
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My guest today is Trixi Symonds, an author and softie designer who has been teaching sewing to children for over 30 years. She is the founder of Sew Your Own Softie on Etsy Australia, and the Global Kids Sewing Party every year in March to inspire adults around the world to sew with kids in their lives. A funny, frank and informative blend of personal writing, research and conversations with friends... [Watson's] descriptions of her failing body are vivid and unflinching... Passages are moving, humbling and written with beautiful detail Marianne Power, The Times
An] insightful and outspoken exploration of middle age and the perimenopause Kate Kellaway, Observer The first couple of chapters I found to be honest, grey, fearful and a little depressing. There was much discussion about how women change, how nobody talks it, and how nobody told the author about it. Or at least she wasn’t listening if they did.I’d always assumed menopause was about hot flashes and rage but, for me, these were not the most extreme symptoms. I had the terrifying feeling I’d lost my mind completely. I didn’t know what was happening, I felt I was having a catastrophic breakdown. Not only could I not remember details, I couldn’t remember who I was. It felt like I’d left my body and skin and gone somewhere else. I absolutely did not believe for a second that this could be anything to do with hormones. But as soon as I started HRT, I felt so much better. It worked within 24 hours – I was amazed.
Unsettling and life-affirming, funny and sad, unflinchingly honest and incredibly moving, this is a bloody marvellous book, fired with the realisation that love is the only thing that matters, in the end John Sutherland, author of BLUE I heard Watson speak at the Cambridge Literary Festival and I have a dreadful weakness for buying author’s books at literary events. I think that some women (probably ones who are 40-47) will find this book useful - just as a good, open talk with a friend is useful - but I’m past the stage where I felt like it had anything to offer me. I personally didn’t find it funny, although I’m sure that other women will do. It was far too anecdotal and not nearly factual enough although she does make an attempt to intersperse her MANY personal anecdotes with some psychological and occasionally medical information about this volatile period in a women’s life. Acceptance – a soft word but hard fought for. It’s the ultimate goal – the path to contentment and to being happy in your own skin.
The more interesting parts of the book: nursing, death and facts about the menopause are scattered through the chapters, but they are almost lost in the oversharing of the author’s life (way too much detail about her sex life and the drunken escapades of her friends). Along with frequent and unnecessarily use of the ‘f’ word, there is an irreverency about her writing which made me feel really sad. Such as, “It was all going so well until he took his top off. He had Jesus Loves Me tattooed on his chest”, and, “Bible Ben, as the mean kids called him”, but the author carries on calling him that throughout the book, even though she doesn’t consider herself one of the mean kids; as if we the reader won’t remember his name without its prefix. Rather than a celebration of womanhood, this book was for me a huge disappointment, and not the uplifting encouragement I’d hoped for. A laugh-out-loud, haunting and beautifully crafted manual' Dreda Say Mitchell, author of Say Her Name A frank, funny and inspiring new memoir from the bestselling author of The Language of Kindness about the search for meaning in midlife
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