My hypothesis was correct. I tried and tested the formula at the week-end. I met a good person … but I couldn’t go as far as to converse with her as I knew that she was just TOO good.

Yes, I could’ve been judging her a little (or maybe a lot) but her demeanour exuded perfection: blond-hair, happy smile, quick, sharp mannerisms, perceptive questions, colour co-ordinated clothes … she definitely wasn’t the type to be smoking in the lounge with Diana DiPaola. (Please see comment posted in last week’s blog). Or nicking a car (April, I am shocked).

This woman was definitely a blue-eyed girl who never out-grew ‘goodness’.

I also know a family, who positively have halos of eternal worthiness, shining forth upon the world. Why is this so? On a rather more jaundiced note, I am sure that they are simply longing to run wild and free, through rivers and across mud-strewn fields, even though they are fully-fledged grown-ups (with the halos still intact). Something is stopping them from being naughty.

But, having explored the vast array of naughtiness that is available to those under twenty – what is left for the rest of us? I am asking this in advance of my thirty-third birthday. Is life over now? No more time or rather, opportunity for being exceedingly wicked and more importantly, having lots of fun?

Well, I am determined to prove this notion infallible. I do think that being on the other side of the ‘g’ word, as a ‘supposed’ adult; one has to think a bit more laterally in exploring the word ‘fun’. I have a sneaky feeling that ‘fun’ is not encouraged. There’s a certain level of enjoyment which is acceptable, after which, it’s is certainly time to resume to daily living. The latter is a Serious Business. Not something that involves laughing aloud in jacuzzis or nicking alcoholic beverages from hotel rooms. (I have never done this).

Today heralds the beginning of Lent. (Resolutions, detoxing/retoxing, spiritual reenergizing seem to be happening simultaneously this year … Peter, my early morning shower friend has not only failed to make his New Year’s Resolutions (I extended his dead-line until February 1st) but also, admitted to me only yesterday, that he didn’t want to give up anything for Lent as he was having too much fun. I would hasten to admit that we experience the same chlorinated water and hence, the same showers. His wife would not be best pleased to hear contrary to the latter).

I have work to do, even though I am busy undertaking my New Year’s Resolutions with vengeance. It is actually proving to be quite interesting; for one of them, I am doing wider reading. Now, that is what I call impressive. However, for Lent, I feel that it is a time to be austere, to throw off bad habits and live life in a puritanical fashion, devoid of any kind of vices.

That leads me to my next question. What is a vice? According to my reliable source, the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, it is termed as ‘extreme moral corruption; depravity; evil; grossly immoral or degrading habits or conduct.’

Do you have a vice? If so, would you let me know? As I have homework, set by my future house-owners. Whilst they traverse the plains of India and Bhutan, I am house-sitting for them. In six weeks’, I have to find a vice that no-one else has ever had. That’s a tough call, by anyone’s standards.

I don’t have a visible vice …. But I am always, admittedly, on the look-out, for spicing up life (I am going down to the tattoo parlour this afternoon). I think that this is a very commendable attitude to adopt. And thus, in the most carefree way, it is possible to push the boundaries a little, to have fun ……. And maybe, just maybe over-rule the notion that life is a Very Serious Business.