What have you been up to? It’s a question to which I usually have some sort of answer, however dull or unsatisfactory, but on the last few occasions I’ve been asked, all I’ve been able to do is shrug my shoulders and mumble, ‘Nothing much.’

I don’t like nothing much; I like something. I like substance and interest. I like to be doing, to be active and interested, engaged and engaging. I’m in neutral at the moment, rolling slowly down the drive of life, on a collision course with a rheumatic cat and a recumbent Action Man belonging to the annoying little boy next door. I’m supposed to be able to produce a diary several times a month about all the interesting things that happen to me, and frankly, I’m at a loss today. My dance card is as empty as Jordan’s sudoko puzzle and there’s no sight of a relief column of exciting diary dates marching across the vast, empty expanse of my kitchen calendar. I’m fucked – and not in a nice way.

What’s to be done? I did momentarily consider giving a date with Derek a go, but then this morning, I imagined the scenario of our first meeting, and quickly changed my mind. We arrived at the bistro and he spent the evening talking about his enormous mast and how he loved being a radio ham. I tried to self-harm with the butter knife. When Derek noticed me sawing at my wrist, I had to lie, and told him that I was having an attack of eczema and that butter afforded me a brief respite from the discomfort. He then asked if I’d like to see his love chariot, which turned out to be a Stannah stair lift with a go-faster stripe. He couldn’t get it up - but then he couldn’t get it down either because part of his nightwear had become wrapped around the gearing mechanism. I ended the evening frantically pulling on his pyjama cord, and then, after he’d achieved release I sent him on his way, up the metal rail to Bedfordshire.

We didn’t keep in touch…

Everyone else seems to have things to do, but sadly, one of the problems with losing your partner is that you lose your future. There are no secret dates in the diary, no social calendar to consult, no impromptu parties or last-minute outings. There are no surprises in the life of a widow, just reasons to be grateful. You hold out a begging bowl and hope that kindly people will provide you with a social life. You live hand to mouth when you used to have riches beyond compare. It’s a very bitter pill to swallow.

But as I’m not in the business of being bitter, I’m going to think of ways to ease myself out of my current fallow period. Last year I decided to move house. It was, it has to be said, a fairly radical solution, but I figured that removing myself from all that makes me feel safe might initiate a change in my life. I was right, of course, in that removing myself from my support network and putting myself in a strange town in a different county would almost certainly have initiated a complete mental breakdown. I feel lost when my best friend goes on holiday for a couple of weeks, so what would I have done if there had been an emergency, or if I’d wanted cappuccino and an excuse for a shopping trip? It was a stupid idea, but it was necessary to explore it. A much more radical solution would have been to emigrate. I liked the idea of New Zealand because of its rugged beauty, and because I knew it was possibly the only country where I wouldn’t feel ashamed of my pathetic collection of pointy shoes. Apparently, all the people who live there have huge, hairy feet, which don’t fit into Manolos, how ever hard you go at them with a shoe horn. So I’d be like a lovely fairy princess, and would be the envy of all my friends.

But my down-under daydream was dashed this week when I read that you have as much chance of meeting a man in New Zealand as an 81 year-old woman. Who this woman is, and why she’s such a hot babe is anyone’s guess, but according to my newspaper, all the eligible men get the hell out of New Zealand as soon as the pimples appear on their backs, leaving lots of love-lorn Kiwi ladies kicking their hairy heels with frustration.

It’s a magnificent country, but nice views and rivers teeming with trophy trout are not much good without male company. Where’s Legoverlass when you need him?

It’s no good; I have to instigate a change in my life. I want to be able to startle people when they next ask what I’ve been up to. I want to render them speechless; make them think, ‘Blimey, my life is really dull in comparison to hers.’

It’s got to be good and it’s got to be big; bigger than having a blind date with a Derek, badder than getting a lame tattoo of a butterfly on my shoulder, bolder than anything I’ve done before. There is so much I want to do; so much I want to see. I want to make things, mend things, marvel at and meditate on life’s rich bounty.

But for now, I have to get dressed and take my girls swimming. I can’t change the world in my dressing gown, so I must rouse myself and get cracking. We’re off to our local pool. It’s privately-owned, heated and housed in a huge shed. We used to just turn up, put £2.00 in a box and swim for as long as we liked. It's always empty and my girls love it. But news reached me last week that our little oasis of tranquillity had been blighted by youths who had broken in, stolen the money from the honesty box and vandalised the pool. We now have to ring up and get the key in order to have a swim. You cannot trust the untrustworthy; such a shame that something so wonderful has been ruined for the sake of a few quid. But this is Britain, and we do have to think of the vandals’ human rights. It’s certainly what I’ll be thinking about if I ever find out who was responsible….


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