I spent Halloween as I usually do, in hiding

So I’ve spent most of this Halloween weekend as I normally do, which is to say “in hiding”. I don’t know which is scarier: the teens in their Scream masks who are happy to take cash (or credit cards, these days, now that you can do that on your phone) or the Instagram-ready Nappy Valley tots, driven from street to street by their equally Insta-perfect parents, who will sweep your treat stash for dietary no-nos such as, er, sugar, before letting their precious offspring menace you for sweets. It’s altogether easier to retreat to the back of the house, turn the lights down and pretend I’m not in if anyone rings the doorbell.

My strategy did not keep me from experiencing a particular kind of Halloween horror this year, though. It’s now just a matter of days until I turn 50. My school classmates, who are of the same vintage, have been hitting their big birthdays, too. On the morning of the 31st, before I even got out of bed, I opened Instagram to find a photograph of one of my old school friends – let’s call her Mary – at the top of my feed. It was a picture of Mary, with her back to the camera, wearing a bikini, a pair of silver platforms and a witch’s hat. The caption said: “This is fifty.” The hashtags were myriad, but they included #realwomen and #empowered.

While I was still reading the hashtags, my best mate Liz sent a WhatsApp message revealing that she too had seen the “outtake” from our old friend’s celebratory birthday lingerie shoot, which was a gift from her adoring husband. A flurry of WhatsApp messages followed. While there was no doubt that our old mucker looked magnificent – clearly she was one of the rare few who took up exercise during lockdown rather than binge drinking – the implications of her post were awful.

“I saw you liked it but are you going to comment as well?” Liz asked me.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“We’ve got to say something or we’ll look, I dunno, jealous.”

“I am jealous,” I had to admit.

But Liz was right that Mary would expect us to do something more than click on the little Instagram heart in response to her picture. She would expect a proper reaction. Not least because we’re both invited to Mary’s birthday party, which is taking place next weekend.

It’s taking place at a swanky London members’ club and it’s going to be fancy dress. I always think fancy dress parties are a bit unkind, requiring as they do that the guests hire something expensive, shell out for an outfit they’ll never wear again, or cobble together something that looks s**t in all the photos.

The theme for Mary’s party is Cabaret. As she loaded more pictures of her lingerie shoot on to Instagram, it became clear that – as all fancy dress fans do – she had chosen a costume theme that would play firmly to her strengths. She was gearing up to go the full “Sally Bowles”. I had already settled on wearing three cardigans at once and going as Fraulein Schneider, Cabaret’s dowdy boarding house landlady.

As more of Mary’s lingerie pictures popped into the Insta feed – where oh where are the Insta purity police when you need them? – I asked Liz what she was planning to wear to the party.

“I’m planning on getting a call from track and trace,” she responded, obviously having made the same calculations I had. “I need at least three years’ notice before I can be expected to do burlesque.”

I told her about the cardigans.

“Can we both go as Fraulein Schneider?” she asked.

“Yes!” I said. “If it means you’ll be there.”

“If I ever throw a fancy dress party,” Liz concluded. “The theme will be ‘animals that hibernate’. That way we won’t even need to shave our legs.”

Meanwhile, the comments on Mary’s first bikini post were gathering in number. She was soon up to 99 likes. I added my carefully considered comment: “Happy birthday, looking great.” Then I decided it was time to get out of bed. Every morning I tell myself that I will not venture on to the internet before I’m up and dressed. Every morning I spend at least an hour scrolling mindlessly before I am forced to get up by a desperate need to go to the loo.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, imagining a hashtag superimposed over my reflection. #thisisreallyfifty

I wondered how many of the mutual friends Mary and I shared were feeling similarly disappointed in themselves, having seen her resplendent in her birthday bikini. #Empowered, my arse. But I did once again feel grateful that I am turning 50 and not 15.

It seems almost quaint now that we used to worry about the impossible standards set by models in glossy magazines. At least we understood that the supermodels who strutted their stuff in those Nineties George Michael videos were to the average woman what Usain Bolt is to the average jogger. Seeing your actual peers looking amazing is far more depressing, coming as it does with the added sense that you could be doing just as well if only you made more effort.

Wary of my new gas tariff – another 50 pounds a month and your first-born – I gave my Fraulein Schneider costume a trial run. Wearing three cardigans at once is certainly warm but it was also quite difficult to move my arms.

Stepping out to the bin, I saw my neighbour Brenda washing down her front door.

“I’ve been egged,” she said. “Bloody Halloween.”

Turning to look at my own door, I discovered that my house had been egged, too.

“It takes ages to get this stuff off the paintwork.” Brenda complained. She wasn’t wrong. So that’s how I spent Halloween morning. Dressed in three cardigans, scrubbing my doorstep. Not so much #thisisfifty as #thisis1950. Sigh.