There were three of them . . . small, innocuous, white dots about the size of pinheads, so tiny they were barely discernible on the X-ray.

Yet those minute dots were responsible for a most unsettling weekend, 48 hours in which I started making lists of things I had always wanted to do - and made a note to update my will.

Admittedly, I'm one of those people who tend to think the worst in any given situation (it does not make for an easy life) but when a letter from the local health authority arrived telling me I needed further tests following a routine mammogram, my imagination spun into overdrive.

What had been found? Where had they found it? Lying in the bath I had a good grope around but could find nothing, no lumps, bumps, not even a goosepimple.

"Try to look on the bright side," said The Mother. "If you hadn't gone for the mammogram in the first place, you would never have known something might be wrong.

"If the doctors find anything - and I'm sure they won't - it will still be small and treatable at this stage. But they won't find anything. I know they won't."

She seemed remarkably certain of that fact and kept repeating it every time she caught me staring morosely into my empty coffee cup.

It was The Mother who'd originally insisted I go for the mammogram when I was summoned for a breast scan earlier this month.

"I wouldn't have thought you had that many invitations to pose topless at your age," she sniggered.

And so I went along to the unlikely surroundings of an ASDA car park, temporary home to a mobile screening unit, and had my breasts stretched and pressed between two special X-ray plates.

I'd been so complacent about the experience that after doing some shopping in the store, I'd caught the bus home and promptly forgotten all about it.

Then, just over a week later, the return summons arrived. "Gosh, that was quick," I thought. "Too quick maybe . . ."

"Would you like me to go with you?" The Mother asked.

I told her No, an answer I also gave to friends who offered to accompany me.

I spent that weekend considering my future, or lack of it. Suddenly I realised there was so much I still wanted to do, apart from losing weight and drinking more water.

What had happened to the book(s) I'd always intended to write? To the countries I'd always intended to visit? To the expensive wallpaper I'd always intended to hang on my bedroom walls?

When the day of my visit to the hospital arrived, my gallows humour had returned.

The Mother was told I wanted my ashes scattering in Yorkshire and reminded of which people I definitely didn't want invited to my funeral.

I spent two hours at the hospital having my breasts again sandwiched like pieces of meat between various X-ray plates.

Woman after woman kept going into the consulting rooms but my name wasn't called. "They've either forgotten me . . . or else they're saving the worst for last," I thought.

Neither was true. When I did see the doctor she showed me my X-rays and on them some tiny white dots they had revealed - deposits of calcium, not dangerous in themselves but worth monitoring.

"We'll obviously need to see you again," she said, adding as she saw me reaching reluctantly for my diary," . . . in about three years time!"

Phew, I'm glad I've got all that off my chest.