September is my favourite month. It's when my thoughts and feelings are sharpest and fresh starts and hard work beckon alluringly. It's the season for reappraisals, new stationery, changes of heart, velvet and lightweight herringbone tweed, plimsoll whitening, blackberry and apple, the therapist's refreshed return and all of this with the spectacle of Christmas, brash and dazzling, at the end of the term.
At this time of year I wish I had a course to go on; it wouldn't matter what - sugarcraft, Spinoza, first aid. I am a hive of industry: cleaning, sorting, containerising. My cupboards and drawers will be so spick and span you could eat your dinner out of them and it will all be colour-coded too, like a well-run Oxfam shop. September for me is also the time of new resolutions: this year I will get to know the poetry of Dryden - I always think you're not well-read unless you know Dryden; I will introduce more pearl barley into my cooking; I will mend the flaws in my character, which at present is a little unforgiving of human weakness.
This autumn it also occurs to me that I am older than I was last year. (How did that happen?) I have an awful feeling that I require more maintenance. I seem to spend a lot of time discussing things like eye cream and not much time talking about pop music and sweets. Some years ago a girl I knew who was a fashion model told me that 95 per cent of eye-lifting surgical procedures are carried out because of a build up of eye cream in the under-eye area. Eye gel is particularly bad, she told me - a plastic surgeon had told her - because it just doesn't disperse on skin that is so thin. Well, you can imagine the level of loathing I held for this pernicious product thereafter. I avoided it entirely until pretty recently when it dawned on me that my eyes do have an air of neglect to them, when compared with the rest of my face. That day I panicked and caved in wholeheartedly, buying a small pot of La Prairie cellular eye cream, some Doctor Hauschca eye day cream and a vial of Espa 24-hour eye complex, which was rather aptly named. From each skin care consultant I heard the same thing: it was not eye cream itself that was the culprit in these ophthalmic horror stories I was hoarding, but incorrectly applied formulations. My current advisers told me to tap the eye cream gently onto the top of the cheek bone and at the very edges of the face, round the orbital bone, and leave the eye to suck up the moisture it needs, as and when, like a hungry plant. I like the sound of this practice; it feels awesomely respectful to the highly delicate skin in this area, and also mildly exciting, as though the thrill of a chase is involved. I pictured the optic nerve - a pretty impressive apparatus you'll agree - deliberating about this matter, issuing orders to its cellular henchman to feed the diva-ish eye skin with more cream on some days and on others to abstain, like a master dietician.
Perhaps all beauty products should be applied in this oblique way, with suspicion and high respect, as though they are more powerful than we could ever imagine. If I wear perfume, I sometimes like to spray a little into the air in front of me and then step forward. This is because when I was about 17 my father greeted me warmly in a restaurant one night and then said in a slightly lowering tone, "Oh, scent." Well, I'm treating my whole person in this way from now on. Besides, if you are an ultra thin-skinned person as I am, prone to taking things to heart terribly instead of shrugging them off, perhaps you need to take extra care. I'm not as bad as the woman I once heard of who cried when she was putting the rubbish out because she was never going to see it again, but you get the picture.
So I am handling my face with the utmost caution from now on. It's at a point of transition. The things that were occasional treats, crazy once-a- month rigmaroles administered in drink such as the Eve Lom hot and cold muslin cleansing extravaganza, may now become regular requirements. But it must all be done with precision. I might even take a course this autumn to learn more about it.
