My baby, unfortunately, has been cursed with the eczema gene.

She gets it from her dad. To make matters worse he’s from Whitehaven so she was always going to have a 50-50 chance of ending up with something unsightly!

Old women continually approach me and ask what’s wrong with her red, raw cheeks.

They look at me in such a way as if they expect me to break down in tears and confess to testing the new Maybelline blusher range on my baby’s sensitive skin.

Upon hearing she has eczema they always respond with the same thing: “Oooohhh, I bet you wish it was you instead?” Well no, actually.

Call me selfish or call Social Services, but I don’t think babies are as self-conscious about their unsightly blemishes as us adults are.

I could wheel my baby around dressed in orange corduroy trousers and a Journey tour T-shirt and I don’t think she’d care. Just for the record though, if she ends up wearing anything made from corduroy then I will have no choice but to disown her.

For all of you thinking that I’m the type of mother that would put Joan Crawford to shame, you will be happy to know I got my comeuppance.

Last week I was suddenly hit by the realisation that Christmas party season had arrived.

Two of my neighbours had erected their Christmas decorations mid-November so I knew that soon it would be time to head out on the work do.

Ahhhh, Christmas party time with everyone from work! I’ve spent all year waiting for the chance to squeeze into my Spanx, swear at my manager and tell fellow employees what I really think of them.

Our little social event was going to be in a well known Workington pub, complete with a posh buffet and a free bar. I was dreading the small talk and the fact that I was going to have to wear pants to avoid the old skirt-tucked-in-tights routine that I have spent years perfecting.

I got ready for my brief visit to Hades while consuming two bottles of McGuigan’s Shiraz.

Sure, one of my eyebrows was a centimetre higher than the other but my beer goggles were showing me perfectly positioned Wukintun brows (lines drawn on with a one quid eyeliner).

I don’t know if it was the booze or the cosmetics I’d purchased at a discount store but my skin suddenly erupted.

I looked like that red-faced thing off Insidious , with worse brows.

I caked on more and more of the Miss Sporty foundation and, inebriated to the point that would make Oliver Reed wince, I headed down to the party.

“Are you okay?” my soon-to-be-ex-colleagues asked me.

I brushed it off and carried on drinking, hellbent on landing my manager with a five hundred squid bill.

The concerns grew but, unable to free myself from my Spanx, I avoided the bathroom mirror and continued with my camel impression.

At the taxi rank afterwards a cabbie helped me into his car and started driving.

His telepathy skills were second to none because he didn’t even ask for my address.

I was puzzled to find myself outside A&E.

“My wife had bad flushing,” he told me. “See if the doctors can do out for your menopause, pet.”