I never used to consider myself as a vain person.

Prior to my knee operation, I would go days on end without putting on make-up, especially when I was at work.

It never bothered me at all.

However, whenever I post a new blog or on Instagram, especially if it is showcasing a new outfit, I take extra special care and attention to make those photographs look as “professional” an appealing as I possibly can.

Don’t get me wrong; I know that people can clearly see I am making that effort as I rarely post photographs with no make-up.

One thing I NEVER do, however, is filter my photographs or use technical trickery to photoshop myself into looking slimmer, better, less lined and more attractive.

Whilst many would consider make-up a kind of filter, I am not good enough at it to transform myself like some people can. You know the ones, that can change from being a ‘plain jane’ to a ravishing stunner, removing lines and wrinkles, bad skin, and even change the shape of their facial features.

For me, a layer of light foundation, eyeliner, mascara, blusher and a bit of lippy does the trick. That is about as technical as I can get.

If I really want to push the boat out, I may add a bit of eyeshadow, however I am not that great at doing it, so more often than not, I don’t bother.

Now, here in lies the crux.

As I am currently at home recuperating from a complete knee replacement, including ligament restructuring and a brand new knee cap, I have my hands full dealing with exercises and walking further every day.

I go for a walk each day, increasing the distance. I can currently go 1 mile in one hit, which is more that I have walked in about 3 years.

Having Theodore along makes it more enjoyable and certainly encourages me to do the walking.

What I don’t have the energy for is taking lots of photographs for my blog, even though I have lots of new looks to showcase.

Now, some may think that it is not much of a hardship to take a few photographs of a few outfits.

After all, it doesn’t take that long to take a picture, right?

But that is where you would be wrong.

Firstly you need to get the clothing ready; steamed so it is not creased.

Then you choose your accessories.

Jewellery, hair accessories or hats. Gloves, bags, shoes and more. Locate them and put them aside for each outfit you plan to shoot.

Of course, then you have the personal grooming. Hair, washed and styled. Make-up comes next and of course, either nails have to be painted or fake nails glued on,

All of that takes time. At least a couple of hours.

Then comes the photographs themselves.

Once a whole look has been put together, then the place to take the photographs has to be decided.

Inside or outside?

Fair weather or foul?

Natural lighting?

Day outfit or a classy night time look?

All of these things have to be taken into account and decided.

See where I am going with this?

It is a time consuming process, and that is before you even take a single shot.

Of course, it could be a whole lot simpler.

Put the outfit on, take a couple of candid shots and put them on the gram or write the blog to discuss what the items are, or the adventure is.

I mean, when I go on a foreign holiday, I post pictures with a bare face, wearing any old thing I choose, with no thought to posing and primping. Most of the time, the holiday shots are showing some wonderful panorama or site.

The fact that I am in the shot is incidental, in many ways.

So, why do I find it so difficult to post a simple, true, plain photo without all the embellishments?

And this leads us back to my initial statement.

Vanity.

Yes, I am a fifty year old, fat, white woman, with non-remarkable features. But for some reason, I want to show my followers the best photos I can manage without going to a professional studio level.

This means taking time over the basics, and standing and posing for however long it takes to get some shots that are good enough to be shown.

But why?

Would it really matter if I showed my bare, naked, face in a dress, without the added accessories and all that palaver?

Would I lose hundreds or thousands of followers who were disgusted by my visage?

Would it matter if I did?

And this is where I realise that I am not that vain at all.

Surely, keeping up with the content, posting frequently with adventures, looks, thoughts and even this kind of rambling is better than just an infrequent post every six or eight weeks?

This is what happened to my blog between September and the end of 2024.

I was dealing with a lot of medical issues, work and personal issues which left me little time to slap on the make up and take the photographs.

So I stopped writing my blogs.

I had no photographs so writing about how great or terrible an outfit was, seemed pretty pointless if there were no images to attach to it.

And a week passed.

Then two, then three.

Before I knew it, I had not posted for over a month which has been very, very rare in the last 9 years of my blogging.

I convinced myself that it didn’t matter, because nobody really was that bothered in seeing my musings or my looks.

Rarely, did I look at the reader statistics. I wrote because I love the actual process of letting my thoughts out onto a page, and I love the idea that those writings are out there “forever”, once put onto the internet.

But when I looked at the reader stats over those ‘missing’ four months, I was quite shocked.

Even on the worst day, I had over 100 views per day.

In fact in the month of December I had over 14,ooo page views, which is more than I have ever seen (as I said, I don’t track my stats)

So, the fact that I hadn’t shown my make-up laden face in a fancy Christmas outfit didn’t really matter at all, did it?

Going forward, I think a mini New Years Resolution will be to post more articles and photographs with the “real” me showing.

And by that, I just mean, the plain face, the simple outfit and the ramblings of this fifty year old Goddess.

Till next time,

SPSG xxx