I'll give it to you straight like the Doc gave it to me when he warned me my cholesterol levels, high a couple of years ago, were now hurtling towards double figures.

I take notice of what my Doc says. He's an optimistic sort, not given to gloomy diagnoses or dwelling on the dark side of life, so when he flicks on the warning lights it's serious business.

Keep on like this, I was told, after he'd fed my vital statistics - age (middle), height (short), weight (too heavy), cholesterol levels (wow!) - into his computer and you have a one in six chance of having a heart attack or stroke in the next ten years.

Now ten years down the line may seem like forever when you're still at school but at my age ten years seems to go by like two. It's one of the downsides of passing 50.

True, I'd had an inkling all was not well healthwise when I started getting out of breath climbing stairs - and when my clothes stopped being merely tight and actually started to hurt me.

That alone called for drastic action. After all, when your feet hurt you go to a chiropodist, when your teeth ache you go to a dentist and when your clothes cause you pain you go on a diet.

I walked home, resolutely passing the inviting open door of the baker's shop and the tempting displays in the window.

From now on, I'd been advised, I should stick to fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, wholemeal pasta, porridge made with skimmed milk. Fat was out - and cream and cheese and chocolate. Everything, in fact, that made life worth living.

Back in the kitchen I looked in the freezer. "That's out ... and that ... and so's this," I muttered, dropping frozen pork chops, bacon, cheesecakes and ice cream into a waste bin.

"What's going on?" said The Mother, hearing the commotion.

"If I eat any more of this sort of stuff I'll be gone in ten years," I told her.

"If you don't put all that food back in the freezer immediately you'll be gone in the next five minutes," she snapped.

I told her what the Doc had said.

"But none of that applies to me," she said. "I don't need to go on a special diet. Anyway, as I pay for half the food in this house, you have no right to throw it out."

She was right, of course, but so much for sympathy.

The next day I bought a book on managing cholesterol. According to the book my cholesterol levels were dangerously high.

The Mother was unimpressed. "I may not be a doctor but I can tell you exactly how I think you'll leave this world and it has nothing to do with cholesterol," she said.

"I didn't know you were clairvoyant," I said. "Please, give me your forecast."

The Mother adopted one of her I'll-have-the-last-word expressions.

"If you don't worry yourself to death first, you'll probably be run over by a bus," she said. "The way you cross the road I'm amazed you're still here and in one piece."

I was taken aback. "A bus?" I said. "Never! Someone with my impressive level of cholesterol is obviously used to the good life. Better make it a Rolls."