Turning 50.............

In a few months' time I will be 50. A lot of my friends have been or are about to notch up their half centuries too.

Those of us who are yet to celebrate the big 5-0 have begun to notice something worrying, something that's scaring the be-jesus out of us and it's this, the increasing propensity of family and friends to feel they have to come up with something 'special' as a present, something wacky, something 'to make you feel you're alive', something to prove 40 or 50 isn't old, something different, out of the ordinary, an 'experience'.

This concept raised its head in our family when my sister turned 40. Fully expecting a garden centre voucher or a nice new woolly jumper from her loved ones, she was somewhat startled to discover she'd been 'treated' to a flight in a very small plane to do aerobatics.

Now, my sister has never shown any interest in aircraft apart from when she books her twice yearly flight from Heathrow to Nice, so why on earth her nearest and dearest thought she'd fancy looping the loop heaven only knows?

For one heart stopping moment we actually thought her husband (whose life had never been in such danger before) had completely lost the plot and bought her one of those wing walking flights where you're in a jumpsuit strapped to the top of a bi-plane (remember those Utterly Butterly adverts?) but, thankfully, she'd be sitting a la Biggles in a seat when the pilot turned a small, flimsy plane upside down. Small mercies.

For a long time she went around looking decidedly pale and muttering 'what on earth were they thinking? I'd have been happy with a Kindle.'

See what I mean? Suddenly it's de rigeur to mark the passing of another decade by being 'treated' to white water rafting, a bungee jump, waterskiing, paragliding, diving with sharks.....

Undoubtedly there will be some people who'd enjoy any one of those pastimes - but I am most definitely not one of them. I'm a wuss. I don't like heights, my knees creak going up the stairs, I panic in deep water, I'm blind without my contact lenses, I'm rubbish at skiing, I got seasick on the Staten Island ferry.

So I'm laying down a marker. I don't want an 'experience', thank you very much. I really, really don't want to cuddle a snake or abseil down Ben Nevis. I can't think of anything I would like less than swooping around the skyscrapers of Manhattan in a helicopter. I have no inclination to pot-hole, to ride a killer whale, drive a speed boat or go camel racing in the desert.

That's not to say I'm hoping for National Trust membership or a tea cosy and I do admit I wouldn't mind a session in a fast car around a racing track but that's about as lively and wild as I'll ever get.

So please, please, all those of you who think fondly of me, please let my 50th pass elegantly, with lots of laughter, pink bubbles and fairy cakes but most definitely at ground level and on dry land, without any hot air ballooning, stunt driving, canoeing, wing walking, fire eating......

A cuppa in bed, something 18ct white gold and sparkly and maybe a new book. That'll do me nicely.

The battle of the on switch.

Every autumn it's the same, the battle over when to switch on the central heating. We circle each other, me looking for the opportunity to make a dash for the on switch, him keeping an eye on me to stop me doing so.

If he had his way we'd all go around in so many layers that we'd resemble a family of Michelin Men and the only way to get on and off any piece of furniture would be to roll. The heating would go on when there was snow on the ground and the bird bath was frozen solid. I, on the other hand, will have been itching to light the log fire since the August Bank Holiday weekend.

He grew up in a big oldish house that looked lovely from the outside but was so badly built if you knocked a picture hook into a wall, a brick would fall out outside. The heating system was woefully inadequate and that's putting it mildly. It is the only house I've ever known where, if you took a glass of water to bed with you in the colder months, it would be frozen solid in the morning. Visiting any time between September and April necessitated layers of clothing, preferably cashmere, and I once was so cold I kept my coat on throughout dinner. Having a bath there was like one of those gruelling treatments at an Austrian boot camp spa, the water never got above tepid in the huge cast iron bath.

I grew up in a relatively modern house which had underfloor heating when we first moved in. Great idea except in reality it meant roasting feet but every part of you from the knees up was cold. My parents liked to walk around in short sleeves all year round so that was soon switched off and a whizzy proper heating system went in. Oh we were snug. Actually I spent most of my teenage years virtually comatose because not only would they have the heating pumping out at a constant 25 degrees but my mother had an aversion to open windows so it was like being sealed in a very hot, airless bubble.

I'm somewhere in the middle, I like to think heatwise I'm your average person. I don't expect to swan around in a camisole top indoors in December but neither do I want to have to wear 16 layers to be warm. I like fresh air but I also like to be cosy and warm as the temperature drops.

This morning I saw my chance. He was distracted by the Match of the Day he'd recorded so I made a break for it. Success. The heating is on.

The 11-year-old has just walked past the conservatory radiator and put his hand on it.

'It's warm! Yay, the heating is on. Finally'. See, it's not just me.