Mirror, mirror on the wall...

I have long been labouring under the misapprehension that I still look exactly the same as I did when I was 25. Mentally, I feel the same so obviously I must look the same, mustn't I? People tell me I don't look my age, and in my vanity, I believe them.

In most recent photographs, I am wearing a riding hat. The peak cleverly casts a flattering shadow that erases wrinkles better than botox. In my ignorance, I have assumed that's what I look like all the time.

But this week, I have been unable to escape from the frightening truth. I have had three photographs taken because of my new job. Each of of them has made me think: "Oh my God, who is that wrinkly woman?" In one, I look in pain so I felt compelled to ask to have another one taken. In the replacement shot - which I am now stuck with - I have bags beneath my eyes you could carry your shopping home in.

I wonder if eye bag surgery is available on the NHS?

Of wrinkles, rabbits and roadshows

'Watch the mirror, count the lines,
The battle scars of all the good times'

So sang Soft Cell. It’s Marc Almond’s birthday today, too; I wonder if he feels old? I certainly do after a weekend of carousing: out for a meal on Friday, out to make the repeated acquaintance of Mr Gordon’s and Mr Bombay Sapphire on Saturday, then rounded off with a barbeque (of course it rained) on Sunday.

I need a weekend off to get over my weekend. I just can’t take the pace anymore. I don’t know how I ever did. At one point, going out three nights in a row would have signified a good time; now it signifies that a week of early nights is in order if I want to catch up on my beauty sleep and forestall any more on those insidious wrinkles.

The most bizarre thing about my weekend, however, was the taxi ride home on Saturday night. We climbed into a car with an avowed killer: our driver’s day job was in vermin control. He claimed to own more than 35 ferrets. Apparently they don’t smell if you clean them out every morning.

I spend much of my time avoiding rabbits when I’m driving. The taxi driver, however, spent most of the time trying not to avoid them. I postulated that knocking them down on purpose wasn’t really very fair. On the contrary, he responded, he was doing them a favour: the ones he knocked down had myxomatosis. How he could tell in the dark, while driving, I don’t know. I certainly couldn’t: maybe I should eat more carrots instead of giving them all to the Grey Mare, or it could be that my age is beginning to tell on my eyesight.

The Antiques Roadshow is in Alnwick tomorrow. Perhaps I should take myself along …