The mirror in the lift was big and highly magnified and brightly lit and, unwisely, I leaned in.

Immediately I learned something I’d have been far better off not knowing – what a happy thing it was that I’d never gotten around to buying one of those vanity mirrors with 5X power.

The mirror in the lift showed an unexpected abundance of wrinkles in my forehead and fine (and not so fine) lines around my eyes.

I slumped home and put the phone to selfie mode.

The news was no better.

“Tell me the truth,” I said to my husband, “have I gone all wrinkly?”

“Not at all,” he said loyally.

Did I or did I not have wrinkles in my forehead?

“Maybe a few,” he said cautiously.

“More than a few?” I demanded.

“Well, yeah,” he muttered.

“What about around my eyes, like in the corners?” I asked anxiously.

You look great, he said.

“In the name of God, would you just stop,” I said impatiently. “Tell me the truth?”

He paused, then pretended to lean in.

“Maybe a few,” he said cautiously.

Loads of lines. Crow’s feet. Whole maps of wrinkles. Forehead, eyes.

“My skin is ageing,” I mewled.

He said, quite unsympathetically, I felt, that he hadn’t seen me complaining when we went to see The Odyssey and got the reduced priced tickets for the........

© Evening Echo