I did try, I honestly did but I couldn’t cope with the hot flushes and sweaty episodes and so I’m back on Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

Husband breathes a sigh of relief. Soon he will no longer have to attempt to sleep next to a throbbing, sighing, human radiator... one that waits until he’s in deep slumber and then asks: “Are you awake?”

I have come to the conclusion – and it’s taken me a mere 62 years – that it’s complicated being a woman. All the time we seem to have to weigh up the pros and cons of attending to our exclusive lady parts. While the contraceptive pill and HRT are brilliant and have changed the world and made life better for many women (pro), one side-effect can be weight gain (con).

And even then the simple fact of being female can make you miserable. For example, there is a time of the month when younger women might experience mood swings. I have heard of men that have made an ill-advised comment on this and found themselves consigned to a metaphorical or actual dog house. (NB It is not good enough for the man to apologise without knowing what he has done.)

About a decade ago (Those of a delicate disposition may wish to look away now), I had the lining of my womb removed. A year ago, I went for a scan and was told it had grown back. Typical. The stuff you don’t want grows back (hairs on chin, big toe etc) and the stuff you do want (nice new teeth, curls) doesn’t.

I am also reminded of sex (dictionary under S). How complicated is that palaver? I have been watching the great tits recceing the bird box as part of their courtship. She preens herself, smooths a feather or two and gets in the box. He does a bit of swanning (can tits swan?) about: “Look at me, I’m so handsome”. Then he collects a few tasty morsels from the bird feeders, and flies to the box. He sits outside and taps with his beak until the object of his desire peeks out, whereupon, he feeds her.

Wouldn’t it be great and so much easier to manage if human courtship involved the male turning up on the female’s doorstep with food? And I excuse pizza delivery men. If they were regarded as potential mates, the pizza parlours would need a great many more delivery guys.

Imagine the scene: knock knock. She preens herself and opens the door to a helmeted young man with a 50cc motorcycle who stands nervously on the door step clutching a large bag

“Was that you knocking?”

“Er, yes. Pizza”

“I like the way you knock.”

“Um, I’ve got your quattro stagioni, chicken wings, dip and coleslaw.”

“I love it when a man speaks fluent Italian... come in.”

“No thank you. That’s £17, please”

If there’s a risk, best avoid takeaway deliveries.

Meanwhile, I should clear up a misunderstanding. A few people at work have been looking at me a bit funny since overhearing a conversation I had with a colleague recently. He was off to New Zealand and was telling me about the almost magical properties of Number 8 Wire which is apocryphally used to fix everything in the antipodean nation. I had never heard of it but it has a Wikipedia entry, as follows: “Number 8 wire was the preferred wire gauge for sheep fencing, so remote farms often had rolls of it on hand, and the wire would often be used inventively to solve mechanical or structural problems. Accordingly, the term “number 8 wire” came to represent the ingenuity and resourcefulness of New Zealanders.”

Hearing of its properties, I countered with a eulogy to gaffer tape (currently securing the inner wheel arch of my car). It also has a Wikipedia presence but without any iconic status.

And so it came to pass that there were those who thought we were talking about the sorts of practices referred to in the publishing sensation that is the allegedly erotic Fifty Shades of Grey. First, I must point out that our conversation was entirely innocent of subtext and second that gaffer tape is usually black not grey, although I do have a reel of yellow, which makes a nice change.