I just read about a woman writer in New York who wrote a play about an old lady writing a sex blog, and I thought, I can do that. I'm an old lady and though I have a fading memory and I'm an amateur, I know something about sex. (Where did these italics come from and how do I get rid of them?) First we'll start with something good for you, not that sex isn't good for you, but here's something you can use, if you're female and old like me.

Do sphinctre exercises. Wherever you are, sitting or standing or lying down, simply contract and tighten your sphinctre. (My Spelchek is trying to correct me, but I spell sphincter the way I spell theatre,Canadian spelling.) It's very good for anyone who may be starting to leak a bit. I'm not talking incontinence, just a little drip. It has everything to do with sex, you see. If you no longer have a significant other - male, that is - you have no one to practice on but you can do it yourself. And it's quite pleasant. And you don't have to undress for it. Or use an appliance.

omorrow I'll deal with champagne, taken orally or applied topically.

The hours between 4:30 and 7:30 a.m. are very crowded with too many things claiming my time and attention, and decisions. There must be an optimum waking time at which I can start to get everything done and set up the day. I wake without an alarm, too early if I have too much on my mind. But when is just right? Are there people, in fact, who need an alarm to rouse them to full alert? Well, then, that begs the questions: How long do you sleep? How much sleep do you need? Are you tired? Oh, yes, and do you have to get up at night to pee? (That was a word my mother hated me to use, preferring the euphemism. Pee and lousy, those were anathema.) And then the question arises: can you go back to sleep immediately after going to the bathroom (the preferred euphemism)? These days my personal best is five hours with no interruptions. If I can do that I often don't need a nap, though naps are delicious. So...back to the decisions. If I wake at five o'clock, as I did today, there's no time to think, Not true. There's no time to write. I think quite a lot and sort out the day, including my menu plan and various obligations, and I find myself comfortably in the pool at about four minutes to six. No decision involved there, no time to consider the options. Earlier than that, say, 4 a.m., a conscious decision must be made: to swim later -never a good decision, but carefully considered, more so some mornings than others; to blog or not to blog. And what about my diary? Already noted, it's separate from my blog, and I have to fit it in. You can see, it's a very crowded morning, and now it's eight o'clock. Oh dear.

Some mornings I lie abed. Not for long but it feels like it. I lie there and think about blogging. Yesterday, the one that evaporated, I wrote several blogs in my head but I didn't get up to put them down. Not entirely lost; I hope to have the pleasure of retrieval some time this week. Or maybe not.

What a mess. Yesterday I received a blog sent to me by the mother of the blogger. It was wonderful; articulate, erudite, illustrated with the bloggers's own photographs. Ai me. It's blogs like that that keep me incredibly humble, no to say envious. I do not envy; I admire. I will say one thing: that blog was too long.

So is this one.