Out and About: Turning 50, midlife reflections, flu and friendship

This week's Out & About doesn't open on a muddy path or a pub garden. Lise is propped up in bed, tissue box within reach, Berocca on the side, having just turned 50 and promptly gone down with flu.

In the fortnight before her birthday she crammed in more than most people manage in a year: a long, heart-wrenching drive to drop her daughter at university in Scotland, a slightly mad Instagram follower goal, an accidental burpee challenge, a night swim lit up with fireworks, and a guest slot on a radio station. Then, on her actual birthday, a long walk and a Sunday lunch, the last hurrah before flu flattened her completely.

From her sickbed, Lise reflects on what turning 50 has stirred up: gratitude for simply waking up, the loss of a close friend a year ago, and why midlife friendships, old and new, matter more than ever. There's also the small matter of a possible netball team.

Join Lise and discover...

• What actually happened in the whirlwind fortnight before her 50th birthday
• Why a Sunday lunch was the calm before the storm
• The reflection that losing a close friend has prompted about gratitude and impermanence
• Why cultivating new, intergenerational friendships matters as much as keeping the old ones
• The (possibly ill-advised) plan to start a netball team

Quote of the episode
"If we get to wake up and take a breath, we should be grateful."

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Produced by The Good Studio - thegoodstudio.co.uk

Creators and Guests

Host

Lise Thorne

Host of Walking This Way and champion of midlife women

Producer

Tim Beynon

Podcast producer and Founder of The Good Studio

What is Walking This Way?

Welcome to Walking This Way - the upfront, no-nonsense podcast about midlife for women who are done with pretending it’s all fine.

Join Lise Thorne for honest conversations, unfiltered stories and a good dose of humour as she explores what it really means to be a woman in midlife - from shifting priorities and changing bodies to rediscovering joy, purpose and self.

Real talk. Real women. Real midlife.

Because this isn’t about surviving midlife - it’s about walking it your way.

Walking This Way is produced by The Good Studio.

Lise (00:14)

Last Out and About I did a recap of my last 10 years just before I was about to turn 50, and today's episode is about turning 50 and what happened next. So welcome to Walking This Way podcast, Out and About, season 2, episode 2.

So the run-up to my 50th birthday was full of joy and laughter, and I was a little bit busy, as we get. I had my big buzzy badge on and I was living my best life. Really excited, turning 50, had a bit of a party planned, nice day for my birthday, and yeah, it's been a full-on couple of weeks. I went up to Scotland to drop my daughter off at university, so of course that came with a bit of heartache — it was quite a long drive, and having to actually leave her there and that realisation that one of three has now flown the nest.

I set myself the stupid goal on Instagram of getting 100,000 followers. It's just an ego metric — I know it's an ego metric, but sometimes you just have to do it. You just have to go for it. I didn't hit it, by the way, just in case you're wondering.

I started an accidental burpee challenge, which the burpees themselves weren't the challenge — although I was much slower than I was when I did the same burpee challenge 10 years ago, so much slower — but that isn't the point. The point is just giving something a go. But turning up on Instagram Live at 8am every morning was a bit of a challenge.

I took part in a night swim at Sheffield Open Water, which was glorious. There were fireworks. It was a sort of spectacle of colour in the water — it was really beautiful, almost otherworldly. And I also went on a radio show, [Brooklands Radio? — flagging, sounded like "Brooklyn's Radio"] with Samantha Carr, which was an absolute joy. But the run-up — this was all sort of in the two weeks before my 50th birthday.

And at the end of last week, my youngest was off school with a sore throat. And on Saturday morning, I woke up for my party with just a little, you know, a little tickle in my throat. And I thought, no, no, I can do this. And I had a Pimm's and sort of drank through it a little bit, but I knew something was brewing — I knew it was brewing. And on my actual birthday, I had the best fun ever. This is my complete joy, this is why I'm a midlife woman through and through: if I'm not pottering in the garden for the most amount of joy, it's a long walk in the countryside with a pub lunch. And this time we went to Hampshire.

We had an amazing Sunday lunch at a pub in a place called Crondall, called the Plume of Feathers. I highly recommend it. We were amazed at the prices, but it was just such a lovely day, and I knew my body was fighting something. I knew it was coming on. So the next thing I knew, on Monday, was a complete wipeout, complete crash. I was supposed to be recording a podcast with Lizzie Bean — sorry, we'll get there, the beautiful F** It's arranged by Lizzie Bean — and I just couldn't, I was on the floor. So this episode of Out and About is brought to you not out and about, but from my bed, because I have not been able to get out of bed since.

Flu, cough, and now I've heard lots of people have got it, but I think it's a September thing — I think it's a children-back-to-school germ fest that they bring home. And then of course we've probably been running on our busy badges all through the summer holidays: most people working, childcare, housework, the show on the road. Anyway, so that's it.

So the excitement and the joy, and I'm staring at the moment at a gold five and zero balloon, celebrating my 50th, but actually I'm in bed with flu. But that's okay. It's given me some more reflecting time — reflecting on turning 50. And I think one of the reasons I went through my decade was that realisation of what I had done between the ages of 40 and 50. And I think too often we don't look back and celebrate what we've done. We're so busy ticking off that to-do list and looking forward at what's got to happen, and it was a delight to have that space and time. And actually, having this space and time since I turned 50 has also allowed me a little bit of space to contemplate what comes next — contemplate the next 10 years, 50 to 60.

Isn't it funny, as women, that we can only ever clear our diaries guilt-free if we're sick. We'd never do it guilt-free if we weren't sick. And I think we need to introduce that into our lives a bit more — I mean, preferably block out the time in the first place. You know, give yourself one week in eight or something where you put nothing in, and you just call it "my sick week." So then we don't even have to let people down, we don't even have to defer things or postpone things — we could just have that week ahead of time. But ironic that we have to be sick in order to clear our diary for a week.

But as I said, that has allowed me this window of opportunity to appreciate where I am — look at where I am now, and where I want to go, and what's important to me for the next decade. And adventure was definitely, definitely important to me in the last 10 years.

And that brings to mind the fact that this time last year — sorry for anyone who's recently experienced bereavement — but this time last year, a good friend of mine, a school friend who I've known most of my life since I was about 14, died from a brain tumour, having not made 50. Yeah, 49. He was so young, and Chris was so full of life, and it was almost a year ago to the day that we were at his funeral, and I was with friends of mine that I knew when I was 14, and that connection never dies, never dies.

And so some of the theme for today is, number one: if we get to wake up and take a breath, we should be grateful, because some people did not wake up today. Some people were living their lives yesterday and did not wake up this morning. And so my first thing is definitely gratitude — that I get to be here, I get to experience this life, with or without flu, with or without the difficult grind. And I know for midlife women and menopause — I know the suicide stats for men and women around this age are terrible, because of the grind, because of the weight, because of the heaviness. But we get to wake up, we get to enjoy this life. It is very impermanent, and we get to be here.

And thinking about Chris today has reminded me — he really lived life to the full. He really did not care what other people thought, and just went about with a big heart. Pain in the arse, but with a big heart, and lived his life to the full. And that's a reminder, a year on, that I'm turning 50 — I get to turn 50, with my aching knees, with my nervous system up the spout a bit at the moment, with flu, with whatever. I mean, it seems so insignificant, doesn't it? But I know that it feels heavy for so many of us. But if we can just reframe it that we get to be here, and whatever we can do — however little we feel it is — celebrate every single part of it. So that was the first thing that came to mind.

And the second thing was about friendships. [note: original had a stray "Always taste." here — likely a mis-transcribed aside; cut as it doesn't connect to surrounding text. Flag for Lise to confirm nothing's missing.]

Honestly, I'm talking into my phone and it's like I'm having a session with a therapist, but I'm so grateful for the people in our lives and the friends that support us. And I think as we grow older, we are more aware of what those true friendships mean to us — those deep, true, impenetrable friendships — and also making new ones. I don't think, at 50, that those friendships are over, or that new friendships are over. I think we need to welcome friendships into our lives. Not everybody will be a friend forever, and I understand that, but opening ourselves up to meeting new people, and cherishing and nourishing the friendships we already have — for me, that is a really important part of the next 10 years of my life. A really important part.

It's quite a trendy thing at the moment to talk about intergenerational friendships, but one of the reasons is so you don't get to 80 and all your friends are dead. So we need to cultivate some younger friendships too, as an aside note.

But the joy and the sparkle — actually, my 50th birthday party, I had a very small birthday party with only a few people here, but you really know when you feel at ease, when anything can go wrong, when your husband goes to bed at 7pm — it doesn't matter, because those people know you so well. Those friendships. And I think Lorraine Candy said, on one of our episodes, that she realised cultivating and making friendships was so important. And I think there was a joy and a sparkle in life about turning up with new friends.

And in fact, Adrienne — some of you will know her from the money conversation — yesterday, or the day before, of course, was sick in bed. She's like, "Do you like netball? Did you ever play netball?" I was like, "Yes, I did." And then she's like, "And—" And then I went on, I was netball captain, of course. And this WhatsApp chat went, "Let's start playing netball." I mean, Jesus. Running across the netball pitch for 40 minutes is very, very hard work. I know, because I tried it about 10 years ago. It's like the burpee challenge — if I thought it was hard then, it sure as hell is going to be harder now.

But it's a new adventure, to meet new people. And then she ended up saying that I would start a team and she would start a team, and I hope that will be the beginning of new friendships. Adrienne and I — we kind of met over Instagram, which is a ridiculous thing to say, we're real-life friends and we do adventures together all the time, but we both have this ability to just show up on Instagram and not really care what stupidity it is. And it started with Welcome Home, it went onto the Money Conversation, and God only knows what we do now.

But yeah, so Adrienne and I will be — she wants to call it the Dreadful Netball Team or something like that — to prove that it's not about being better or being anything other than we are right now. Which is showing up with — is it seven people on a team? — fourteen of us showing up to have a laugh. This is how my brain works — I just thought, I'd better wear my Nixies. Better wear my leak-proof knickers. Having a laugh, and obviously laughing — people might tell me that's not normal, but there's definitely always a little bit of that when we laugh, or run across the netball pitch. Sorry, Tim, let's keep him happy, he'll be listening to this thing — really, do I need to know so much about midlife? His wife will be happy that he knows it all, because this is life, this is true life.

So yeah, that's me today. Out and About, from bed. I feel pretty rubbish at the moment, I've got to kind of climb my way out of it — one snotty tissue and Berocca at a time. Lots of ginger, lots of lemon, lots of honey, lots of bone broth.

And, you know, I hope I string an extra day on the end just for me when I feel well, because it's great to have this time to think about what's important and what's coming ahead. And there'll be adventures, there'll be new adventures. I'm realising I'm a little bit slower than I was 10 years ago — not that I have to be, but at the moment I am. And I look forward to the joy and the laughter, celebrating each day of the next decade.

And as always — I bloody love you, rock stars — because let's face it, somehow or bloody other, I managed to get myself 95,000 friends in a community on Instagram. And how blessed am I? And I hope this is your reminder about how blessed you are.