One thing I am appalling at is dressing up for a smart occasion. My annual dread is Ascot – and this year we are going twice. Unfortunately, I’m no Audrey when it comes to looking stylish. Some women can open their wardrobe door, fish out an elegantly simple dress and a pair of kitten heels and look absolutely stunning. Sadly, this skill has passed me by. I squeeze into the said simple dress and force my size eights into the heels and stand back to view the effect. It is terrible. Unless you like the plump, frump with unfortunately sturdy calves look. Let’s face it, there are many ghastly thing about middle age – for me it’s wrinkles, the odd ache, my spare tyre(s). Long gone are the days when I could wear a sleeveless dress without panicking.  And, as Annabel says, a flattering hairstyle becomes more and more essential to women as we age, and I couldn’t agree more. Which is why I find myself washing and blowdrying mine every morning into a tried and tested style that is designed to hide as much of my sagging face as possible. This is one of the reasons it takes me longer each day to make myself look halfway decent, and couple that with having to cover up more and more of my body as each year passes to hide lumps, bumps, crepey bits and bingo wings, I may well be burkha shopping very soon. So, I have made a decision. Instead of worrying about what is imperfect about my body, I am going to enjoy our day at the races by concentrating on the horses, rather than how I look. And, on that note, I had better hurry up and get ready – we are leaving in less than two hours!