The weather this week has been rather curious - cold and blustery one day, hot and humid the next. On Monday, when the sun bathed my garden in unseasonably oppressive heat, I began to long for a shady place to sit and swing. There’s nothing I love more than to doze and dream away the afternoon - there are a million things to do inside, but when there’s the promise of a crafty snoozle, the ironing pile can wait.

Putting up the garden swing seat is a job for two people; there are heavy wooden struts to manoeuvre and a bench seat to be brought down from a high shelf in the barn, but I couldn’t be bothered to wait for assistance and so I manhandled all the pieces out into the garden and put it together myself. Getting out the garden swing heralds the beginning of summer, and each time I do it, I think to myself, ‘This is the last time I’ll have to do this alone.’ I have the same thought when I light up the woodburner to keep away the first misty breaths of autumn, and when I take down the Christmas tree and fill the sitting room with pine-scented Hoover food. But so far I’ve just had to manage on my own, and for the most part it’s really not so bad.

When people come to my house and see what I’ve managed to single-handedly achieve, they invariably make the same comment, which goes something like this: ‘You’re so competent and practical – I don’t know how you’re ever going to find a man whose strong enough to take you on.’ And I smile and shrug, and mutter, ‘Oh, I know there’s somebody out there for me.’ But all the while I want to take the well-meaning person firmly by the shoulders and shake them, whilst yelling in their ear; ‘Don’t tell me that! Don’t you know you’re mentally condemning me to a life alone? Don’t you realise that I don’t want to be this competent, practical person; that I want to be cared-for and cosseted. Don’t you know I have a hundred recipes that I would love to cook, a dozen dresses that I’d love to wear, perfume and jewellery on my dressing table that I’ve had to buy for myself; and I don’t want to buy it for myself, just as I don’t want to chop logs or put up the cockadoodie swing seat, but that’s my life, and until a man comes along to help me I’m just going to have to make the best of it.’ (You can see now why I don’t get too many visitors…)

But my point is this: When people tell me that I’ll never find a man who is strong enough to take me on, what they are saying is that all English men are saps and wimps and sarong-wearing nancy boys, and I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that this country is peopled by emasculated men who are too brow beaten and confused to be true to their sex. I have to believe that there are still a few men out there who are not frightened by a competent woman who knows her own mind. Where are the balls? Where is the grit? I know men are unsure of their role in society - they don’t know whether to be hard of soft. Well, I know which I prefer, and I will not write off the entire male population of this country until I’ve been out with each and every one of them. Which leaves me with a slight problem – finding a man to take me out…

It seems that there may be a solution to my predicament. I’m considered to be a forthright woman, so maybe I ought to re-examine my approach to dating, and also address my wardrobe. Maybe I would be a little more successful if I employed a couple of old-fashioned principles, namely, wearing a skirt and not speaking. If I wear a skirt then hopefully the man I’m with will be rendered helpless with desire, and, if I refrain from speaking and let the man do all the talking then he’ll feel really good about himself, and think that my enthusiastic nods and nervous giggles are due entirely to his charm and wit, rather than the fact that I’ve just had my jaw wired together.

But what would if the date were a roaring success. Would I have to live a lie, and pretend to be a meek, monosyllabic little mouse? Or could I use the second date to introduce some ribald humour and perhaps some light, political discussion? Personally speaking, I think if you start out trying to hide whom you really are, then you are basing your future relationship on a lie, and as honesty and integrity are fundamental to me, I think I’ll have to reject the skirt/mute idea in favour of being myself.

Being myself can be problematic at times, and one horribly memorable dinner party actually ended up like a scene from a Bateman cartoon. It was a formal dinner, given by a Rear Admiral - the details are unimportant, but suffice to say that Charlie was a long way down the table and therefore unable to keep me in check. I was seated next to Major General, and we had begun an enthusiastic discussion about Sir Winston Churchill. I was keen to show that I knew my history, and gave my opinion of Churchill, which ended with the line, ‘He was a pretty amazing man, but he seriously cocked up at Gallipoli.’ I was referring to the First World War battle at which the Turkish army inflicted horrendous casualties on British and Anzac troops; I thought I had made a simple, yet pertinent point, and I couldn’t understand why the Major General was choking on his beef and the Naval Captain to his right was trying to hide under the table. And then I looked to the end of the table and remembered that the guest of honour was none other than the Turkish Naval Attaché. Luckily for me he was seated out of earshot - his wife heard what I’d said, but she seemed to be following advice by wearing a skirt and saying nothing.

I don’t think I delighted the Turks that evening with my horrendous faux pas, but the Major General soon forgave me, and I ended the evening sitting in the drawing room, drinking coffee, whilst the charming Naval Captain and the Rear Admiral sat at my feet. Not many chairs in the Royal Navy, but lots of lovely men.

So, you can see why my score of dinner dates lies at zero, but at least I’ve been taken out to lunch recently. It wasn’t a date, but a chance to catch up with my friend and wine merchant, Simon. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he was the first man in six years to have been brave enough to entertain me to lunch, but if I had done, I don’t think he would have minded – after all, he’s a real Englishman, and women like me don’t scare him a bit.


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