Nothing more than feelings......

The sun is shining when I get out of bed this makes me feel happy.

I leave the house and head for the bus stop. The bus takes longer than the tube but is a much nicer commute: upstairs, at the front if I'm lucky. But I remember I have run out of money on my Oyster card. This makes me angry because I have to go to the tube to put money on it but I also feel relieved I didn't find out when boarding the bus.

The Victoria line is in turmoil. This makes me want to cry.

The journey makes me very hot.

And tiered because I have to respond to an email from the office pig. Responding to emails, I have learnt, is part of being in an office. This is all new to me, it made me feel anxious. It has kept me awake in the early hours all weekend. Feeling anxious.

My travelling companion arrives as I do. This makes me feel very happy. In the office I think I'm having a hot flush. My travelling companion goes into melt down because she's so hot. She is 33. I realise it's not a hot flush. It's just a hot day in a small room. This makes me feel better.

I compose an exquisite email. This makes me feel much better. But still quite hot.

My head phones finally part company from their wires. This makes me feel annoyed. I cannot cocoon myself with Lauren Lavern on 6 Music. This makes me throw the broken headphones on the floor and say:

"It's all gone wrong", quite loudly.

This makes my 22 year old camera boy and work colleague laugh. At me I think, not with me.

This makes me go to the bathroom and cry.

While in the bathroom I notice a spot on my chin. I haven't had a zit since I was 16. Now I have zits. Again. This makes me feel depressed.

I call my friend who has been on holiday in Ibiza and is now back.

"You're back," I say, "was it great?"

"Yes," she says, "It was great so I'm going back, for a week. Or two. Today."

This makes me feel envious. My friend married a rich man. Her second husband had serious money. Then she got a lovely boyfriend. Then she got breast cancer. Then she got better. But how much better? Who knows. I can't feel envious.

This makes me think about my friend who died recently from breast cancer, she's gone. This makes me feel shocked. Again.

I can't find my sunglasses. This makes me feel anoyed. I wonder if I put them on this morning. This makes me feel confused. I never leave home without them, especially if the sun is shining. This makes me feel panicked. They're Prada. Second hand Prada but Prada none the less. I can't stop thinking about my sun glasses. This makes me feel distressed.

I have to go scout a location in Camden. On the tube platform someone steps on my fit-flopped toe. I feel so angry I want to push him on to the tracks. The location has closed down. I feel like I want to scream.

I visit a friend who lives around the corner from where Amy Winehouse lived. I decide to walk past and pay my respects. People are sitting on the pavement in the sunshine. There are lots of flowers. Lots of empty bottles. Cans. Drawings. Cards. I feel weired. In my head I realise I am singing, 'I don't wanna go to rehab....' I feel sad. I hope Amy feels better.

At home my son greets me with a torrent of demands for money and reasons why he needs to go to Sheffield to work in a theatre he can't remember on a show he doesn't know because his friend is. I feel confused. I tell him to talk to his father. He does. He gets angry. He goes out. I feel like a bad mother. He comes back and says he's not going to Sheffield. I feel exhausted.

This is how it feels to be fifty.

Top tip: If you can, go see Beyond the Moulin Rouge: Toulouse Lautrec and Jane Avril at the Courtauld Gallery in London....spell binding...it will raise your spirits as high as a can-can-kick.

Young at Heart takes a trip........

I haven't actually had a hot flush yet but I'm told it's only a matter of time. I used to say it as a joke a few years back but as the reality got ever closer I stopped. The other day I thought I might be having one but a glance across the office at my 26 year old colleague, stripped to her bra and vest.....honestly, you have to be 26 to work this look......fanning herself violently, revealed the heating had got stuck on Bahrain. So, the removal of just one layer of cashmere quickly put an end to it. But, I have experienced getting more than a little hot under the pajama collar at night. This is apparently called 'night sweats'.....nice......and works well with the nocturnal anxiety attacks also (unknown to me) a symptom of 'the change'. Really, going to bed has taken a Hitchcockian turn for the worse. And, it's a bit like taking drugs. Why? Well, the thing is, the tingle of heat that sweeps through you from the tip of toes to top of head, reminds me, if memory serves, of 'coming up', as we called the first tingle of a drug-spiked evening of frivolity, back in the halcyon days of my misspent youth, so long ago now that even the psychedelic hallucinations were in black & white. So, just for a moment, I'm back on the grassy knoll of Knebworth, arms aloft, watching a tree turn into a helter skelter, while singing along to 'White Punks On Dope'. And then I'm back; kicking off the duvet while the wardrobe turns into a monster, spilling forth all the worries of my world, to terrorise my dreams and rattle my ever loosening grip on reality. Still..... just for a moment.....

But.....in lieu of the renewed use of mind-altering drugs, this week I drank Martinis. When I lived in New York a night out always seemed to involve drinking cocktails: Manhattans, Cosmopolitans, a Dirty Martini, and every barman new how to make them. Properly. Many's the night the three olives found floating in my drink actually constituted dinner. And drinking Martinis on an empty stomach in the fabulous Rainbow Room, atop the Rockefeller Centre, still ranks as one of the best evenings I ever spent with my parents. Anyway, I had reservations for Yotam Ottolenghi's soft opening of his new restaurant, Nopi......means north of Piccadilly, what can I say...... This meant 50% off everything. Yes, absolutely everything. Even the drinks. So this meant we couldn't get a table till 9.45pm but frankly, for the chance to eat Ottolenghi's food at half price I'd have sat down to diner at midnight. My friend, whose friendship I forged when we both lived in New York, decided we should meet at Dean Street Townhouse because a) we needed to pace ourselves therefore drink proper drinks ..... slowly, and b) they saucer-up an endless supply of quality nuts and delicious olives so we wouldn't go hungry. The plan worked and we arrived at Nopi in a relatively good condition. The restaurant is a long and narrow room of white, brick-work tiles, like a New York bathroom, with gold accessories, like a Bahrain shopping mall. The bathrooms are worth the trip alone, mirrored from floor to ceiling on every surface, for a moment it was touch and go as to whether I would ever actually find the door out. And the food. Designed to be shared...possibly one of my favourite ways to eat, no chance of plate envy.....we feasted on scallops with chili jam, grilled mackerel, juicy beef brickets and sweat Ossobuco on creamy polenta, braised winter greens, crunchy brussel sprouts, oyster mushrooms and quail eggs, vanilla ricotta, blackcurrants and my new favourite pudding, bite-size sultana financiers with brandy cream. We drank a bottle of 'how much?' and two glasses 'no really' dessert wine, because it was ALL half price and we could. And just as soon as I've saved up, I'm definitely going back.....

Top tip: Re-instate the Martini hour and fill every room with a rainbow.