Ruby Grimshaw can’t hide the ravages of time

I have tried over the last few years – which seem to gallop past with ever increasing speed – to ignore the depressing effect that time is having on me and my body. This is helped by looking in the bathroom mirror as little as possible (especially when naked), not chasing buses any longer (using the excuse that it is very undignified), and not puffing along beside the pony when teaching a child to ride.

So it was with a sinking heart that I learned that for my trip to Indonesian Borneo I would need a copy of my passport and two passport photographs. This meant a visit to that place that holds no pity: the instant photo booth. I had a look at my passport to see how bad the last photograph had been, to assess what minimum standard I had to attain. Each time I have to get a passport photo done I am appalled at how old I look. Then when the next 10 years have whizzed by and I have to get another one taken, the new one is so ghastly it makes the previous one seem quite passable, and I can’t understand what I had been so upset about.

“This meant a visit to that place that holds no pity: the instant photo booth”

I was glad last week that no-one was outside the photograph booth at Asda (a glamorous young girl waiting to collect her beautiful image is not an uplifting start to this exercise) and I duly put in my £5 in coins – I’m sure it was only £3 the last time I came – and followed the instructions. I found myself facing a horrible image with an uneven mouth line. Surely this was not me! On my second attempt I tried to level out my lips but pulled up the wrong side of my mouth and the subsequent picture was much worse. The machine now told me in scornful tones I had only one attempt left and I had better take care. It might just as well have said “Get real! You are old. What on earth do you expect?” So I opened my eyes wide like I once read in a beauty magazine and the third photograph made me look as though I had been up all night watching old episodes of The Walking Dead. So I reluctantly chose the first image. If I held it at arms’ length it looked almost normal. My friend L, who is going with me to Indonesia, glanced at it and sniffed: “Yes, it’s pretty awful. But I don’t expect the orangutans will mind.” Who needs photo booths to face up to reality?