Mothers are always in the news. They are either grabbing the headlines for being too old (Cherie Blair) or for being too young (Sarah-Louise in Coronation Street ).

This week my own mother will be looking forward to that special occasion. I don't mean that Mother's Day fills her with glee but the fact that my brothers may realise the importance of the event and try to tidy their rooms. Sons with tidy bedrooms, that is something to get excited about.

I am not that interested in Mother's Day. Toddler is still too young to expect a present from - other than a bit of a broken Action Man's leg. Still, he wraps up these fragments in newspaper with such love that it does make you happy.

Maybe in a few years he will present me with a bunch of flowers and tell me that he appreciates all the little things I do for him - like the way I chase him round the house to get him into the bath or change out of his mucky fleece.

That is something to look forward to, I suppose, though it is frightening how quickly time is passing.

It takes longer to get ready in the morning once you've plastered yourself in enough make-up to disguise those wrinkles, but you come to realise that there are advantages too.

One of the better things about getting older is the fact that you tend to become more confident. This is why the glossy magazines you buy have pictures of old has-been models with no clothes on. They are confident that their saggy skin and wrinkles and age spots will be airbrushed out of the picture. The rest of us have to make do with heavy duty moisturiser and dim lighting.

But aside from this there are so many things I can do now that I couldn't do when I was younger. For example, it always irked me when my mother felt that she had the right to interfere in other people's business but now I too can go up to six-foot skinheads and ask them if they don't feel cold in just a T-shirt and Union Jack shorts!

I am also more tolerant - with the exception of cats! And when you are young you tend to moan a lot but now I find that I am more grateful and feel blessed. There is so much to be joyous about. For example, now that the clocks have gone forward there is more daylight. More daylight! This means that I can run around after Toddler in the garden as well as the house trying to get him to have a bath or change out of his mucky fleece.

And last but not least I am so happy to be alive in this part of history when boy bands dominate the charts. They bring so much joy with their little perky songs and their nifty dance routines.

Or maybe that's because I'm getting old. And senile!

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