"OI, Bealing," started one of my Argus colleagues at an awards ceremony we both found ourselves at last week, "which column did you enter for this? Was it the one about your husband forgetting to buy nappies at Sainsbury's?"

He meant it sarcastically. I knew this because a) he was smirking and b) my husband has never made this particular shopping error and you would have read about it here by now if he had.

"No," I replied, smiling sweetly. "I think it was the one about installing a new lavatory."

"Christ!", he said, snorting his red wine. "What's happened to you? I remember when you used to get rip-roaring drunk and....."

For the next five minutes he raked over my distant past, making it sound much racier than I ever remember it being. Had I really done that? In a tractor? With a sculptor? For a bet? Oh, don't remind me. Please!

It's true my life has changed considerably since getting married and having a baby. I would say for the better (although my husband is sorry that I no longer dance on tables after one too many). I'm far more focused and much less angst-ridden than I was as a girl about town. Naturally, I still have worries. But they're about important things now, such as running out of soap powder.

My colleague, however, was finding it hard to believe that I'm no longer the woman he thought he knew and was looking for clues.

Now, it so happened that I'd had a spot of bother on my journey to the ceremony at a hotel at Gatwick Airport and had arrived flushed and breathless, with mud stains on my boots and a small rip to the hem of my skirt.

"Ah ha," he said, pointing to the suspicious-looking evidence. "You've been out the back with a waiter, haven't you? Come on, Bealing. You can't deny it. That's why you're all red in the face."

At this point another Argus person joined in with the teasing and it all got so out of hand in a good-humoured way that I half imagined something illicit really had happened...

In my fantasy, a tall, dark Frenchman had enticed me with his hors d'oeuvres before promising me the best coq au vin I'd ever had. He'd then lead me to his secret hideaway at the back of the car park and we'd made wild, passionate love as Boeing 747s roared overhead. In the after glow, he'd stroked my hair, recited his own poetry and had inquired if everything was to my satisfaction.

The truth - which was that I'd tried to walk the short distance from the North Terminal to the hotel, but had found myself trekking through bogs and bracken when the pathway petered out and had ended up clambering through a hole in the fence - seemed much less real after this.

Which version do you prefer? Me too. But don't tell my husband.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Next week I'll be describing the fun we had sorting out the cupboard under the sink.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.