Our buttocks have the consistency of unrisen dough

plastic surgery as Madonna appears to have had, an equally large vat of filler squished into my cheeks because the pads of fat that used to lurk there have migrated to my knees.

But while our faces might still look freakishly young, it’s our bodies that betray us, no matter how many hours we’ve spent flat on our backs in a Pilates studio.

I might be the same dress size I was aged 32, but that’s about all that has remained the same. My ankles are now riddled with blue veins. My earlobes are heading rather worryingly towards my shoulders.

Note how Madge always wears those fingerless gloves: I’d wager she’s developing liver spots, or at least the skin on the back of her hands is now so thin she could read her reviews through it.

I’m not saying women over 50 should stick to embroidered salmon twin sets and the M&S classics range, hiding behind great big bauble necklaces and shoulder pads.

I still wear outfits I’ve owned since 1990: hipster trousers with mannish tailored jackets, baggy combat trousers, microscopic Prada T-shirts. Toe rings worn with Havaiana flip flops. My Gucci embellished boot-cut jeans.

But there is an increasingly large pile of clothes destined for Oxfam, not the Oscars. Even though we children of the Fifties are so much better preserved than our mothers (and my mum didn’t have one single natural tooth in her head aged 49), there are still some garments that have a definite sell-by date.

Ultra skinny jeans: just too gynaecologically explicit and thrombosis threatening. Anything pink, or with a bow. Sleeveless vests. I’m also thinking of giving up wearing platforms, as I’ve become increasingly worried about breaking my ankle and ending up on a mixed-sex geriatric ward.

Shorts are a distant memory, along with 20-20 eyesight and getting out of a chair without a groan. In fact, I can no longer wear anything above the knee, as I now have Demi Moore-like knee wrinkles.

Revealing my decolletage is tricky, too, as the jutting bones reveal me as not old, but long dead. And I’m one of the lucky ones. It’s far