Saturday recommendations are about the things I use and think work or help me in some way. Sometimes, I use things that I don’t like because I have to, for example, my hoover. It’s not a terrible hoover, it does the job but it’s also not something I’d recommend if someone I knew was in the market for a new hoover.

This is a very long winded way of explaining why these are on recommended list and also why we are about to talk about periods, so look away now if you’re squeamish about these things.

I’m (much to my dismay) still having periods, I was talking to a group of friends all in their forties about this and we are all of us, just done with it. While we know that the menopause is no walk in the park, we are all ready to stop having periods. Which is ironic if you consider how desperate we were to start having them as teenagers. More than 30 years in, I’m ready to stop. However, while perimenopause is kicking my arse with PMT, hormones and a slightly more irregular cycle, periods are still happening and I’m probably looking at another 10 years of this nonsense from my body.

I would love to be someone that could use a mooncup or tampons. I am not for a host of reasons but mostly to do with my insides, I have a retroverted uterus (it tilts the wrong way) and a problem cervix (being a woman is such fun!). I have tried, it’s never really worked and so mostly I use sanitary towels.

This is where we all need to take a minute and reflect on how far we’ve come in terms of sanitary protection. When I was a kid, they were really thick, like nappies and sanitary belts were still a thing (I never used one but they were an option). We talk about period poverty now, I’m lucky that it was never something I ever had to consider as a teenager but I like to think about the story of ‘Nuffield’s Nifties’. During the Second World War, Lord Nuffield supplied, at his own cost, sanitary towels to women in the Services, because they were new and therefore expensive, and women couldn’t afford them and the war effort couldn’t afford to have women at home when they could be working. It’s a great story about a kind thing, Lord Nuffield did but it reminds me that women, especially poor ones, were mostly still using rags. That’s my grandmother’s generation and it’s probably still the case in the Third World, so although being a woman sucks and periods are expensive to have, I am very lucky to live where and when I do, even in this!

So let’s get to the point. Always infinity are the best ones I have ever used because they (mostly) don’t leak and they aren’t scented. They are more expensive than the regular ones but I buy them in Savers where they are £2 a packet.

They don’t make me want to roller skate or fill me with joy but they make an awkward, messy week a bit less awkward and messy, which is all you really want them to do