I thought I looked quite nice last night…until the mirror was brought out. You see, Chris and I were at my niece’s house and, after a lovely chicken dinner and apple crumble for pudding, Katie’s boyfriend, Javi, produced a handful of transfers, or “lip tattoos”, as he called them (thank goodness they weren’t tattoos!).

“Do you think these would sell in England?” he asked, handing them around.

Some were a sparkling green colour, some a sparkling red; there was an American flag design and a Union Jack; one was blue with white spots, another had stripes; one was mint green with “Merry Christmas written on it; but I was attracted to the set of hot pink lip transfers with “tease me” printed on the bottom lip. I held the pink one up to my lips.

“They are a bit big, ” I laughed.

“That’s only because your lips are thin. Anyway, you’re meant to trim them to size,” explained Javi.

“My lips aren’t thin – it’s just that yours are so thick,” I explained back.

To much merriment around the table, I trimmed the enormous lip transfers; Katie held the shaving mirror in front of me while I held the lower lip transfer to my bottom lip with a damp flannel.

“Would you like the other side of the mirror?” asked Katie thoughtfully, because she noticed I had put on my reading glasses.

“No thank you,” I told her hastily before she had time to turn it over to the magnified side, “It’s quite bad enough with my glasses on!”

A couple of minutes later I was half-way towards looking like Bette Davis in “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” The top lip transfer was another matter. I held the damp flannel in place for several minutes but the transfer would not stick to my lip. The backing paper started to come off and Katie noticed that the bright pink transfer seemed to have a life of its own – it stuck out in the air independently, like the smile of “The Joker” in Batman, on an invisible face.

“Hold on,” said Kate in a knowing tone, “I think the plastic is still on.”

It was. After several more minutes of crafting, the upper lip was in place, or almost in place – the ends had curled and, unable to adhere, hung down at the sides of my mouth like a catfish’s whiskers.

“Here, I’ll cut them off,” offered Katie as she brandished a huge pair of kitchen scissors, which at close range, looked like garden shears.

“No, I’ll do do it,” I took dangerous looking cutting implements from her and carefully undertook the tricky operation myself.

At last the cosmetic surgery (of a sort) was done and I inspected it in the mirror. I burst out laughing again and Katie was howling and rocking back in her chair.

“I look like Baby Jane,” I pronounced, “or….”

“Aunty Win!” Kate and I exclaimed together.

Now I’ll have you know that there was nothing wrong with our Aunty Win – she was the dearest, kindest little lady – but in later life her sight wasn’t the best, or perhaps she thought her lips had become too thin, for her red lipstick used to go well over her natural lip-line. Needless to say, she was an exceedingly attractive lady and I wouldn’t mind looking like her… in time.

Heartened by the success of my lip transfers, my niece opted for a jaunty Union Jack pattern and we took a photo together. You will note that the first photograph is not of Katie and me but two pumpkin heads that the boys carved out for Halloween fun.