Picture the scene:  Yours Truly crawled through the kitchen door this evening, fresh (not!) from 90 minutes of intensive hockey training. HunterGatherer must have taken pity on me, for he surveyed my beetroot face and wandered over and gave me a kindly hug. "Sorry, I'm probably smelling pretty sweaty. I've been running about all night," I said apologetically, whilst treasuring this rare moment of semi-intimacy. Luckily, there was no child in the vicinity at this point - if they are, they generally immediately start making vomiting noises at the first hint of any parental affection (how they think they actually made it into this world remains a mystery). Evidently unperturbed by the threat of sweat, HunterGatherer hugged me even closer in his cosy fleece top and whispered in my ear, "Oh, don't worry, I've been castrating calves all day." "Wow, the art of romance really is dead, isn't it?" I joked, extracting myself just ever-so-slightly from his hug. "Well, it certainly is for those calves anyway!" he retorted.

So I'm too late...  Just when I thought it was about time that the mandatory mid-life mayhem should be kicking in, I read in the press today that modern mid-life crises start in your mid-thirties and run till about your mid-forties.  Tarnation!  At the grand old age of 47, evidently I've missed my chance.  When I share this tragic news with HunterGatherer, he mutters something that sounds very like "You should be flippin' grateful - every day is a crisis in my world," and wanders off to his polytunnel in the garden, no doubt to commune with his dying courgette plants.  Hmm, so much for sympathy.

I half think of ringing Daughter No. 1 to proclaim my sadness at this lost phase of my life, but there would be little point. This evening - if I remember correctly -she is attending a champagne and chocolates reception with the Law Society.  Not that D.No.1 is actually studying law, of course - she just figured out pretty quickly where the main action (especially action involving expensive fizzy alcohol and copious quantities of cocoa bean derivatives) takes place at Oxford and made sure she signed on the dotted line fast. Ah, to be young again... (or even to be in my mid-thirties - with a good few years left for a crisis!).

F