Not only is my sister the kindest, sweetest, most caring, and intelligent woman you could wish to meet, she is also very beautiful, which is why I cannot understand why she considers herself to be ‘invisible’ – meaning that nobody looks at her anymore. The revelation came out during a long chat we had over the telephone a little earlier.

At present Mary is house-sitting for friends in Brisbane, which makes her comment even more incomprehensible since everyone knows that Aussie men are real macho men, or at least they used to be. Nowadays strange new laws have been introduced in an attempt to curb the Australian he-man’s urge to wolf-whistle (and make a normal girl’s day); happily, ute-men – the drivers of those half-car/half truck utility vehicles – and often, the male cohorts in the passenger seat, are about the only men left in Australia who are brave enough to flout the ridiculous law; however, even they may do so a tad more discreetly than they used to.

“Are you having fun?” I asked Mary.

“Well, I’ve lost over a stone and I’m nice and brown and healthy looking,” my sister replied.

“That’s good, but have you met any interesting people?” I delved.

“I had a lovely time with Lorelle and Kaylene up on the Sunshine Coast,” she said.

“I know that, but what about now that you’re back in Brisbane?”

“I’m afraid the cat will die inside the house if I stay out too long. I do go out though, just not very far. It’s so hot Sally!” Mary explained.

“So you haven’t met any people since you’ve been house-sitting?” I queried, amazed.

“When I was out shopping in Corinda yesterday I met a nice lady – older than me but not old – and she was all on her own after losing her husband and her son. She cried as she told me,” Mary’s voice quaked.

“So you’re telling me that you haven’t been chatted up since you’ve been away?”

“Nope. I think I’m invisible these days. It’s what happens when you’re middle-aged,” Mary answered.

“Rubbish,” I contended, “I don’t feel invisible so why should you?”

“You’re younger.”

“Yeah, eighteen months,” I said in disbelief, “And no hot-blooded Australian male has shown any interest in my gorgeous sister over there alone? I can’t believe it!”

“Honestly, it’s true – well, no-one apart from two ute-men,” she laughed.”

Tomorrow Mary plans to risk leaving the cat inside, with plenty of water and food (and kitty litter), and she’s going to go into the city to take in an art gallery, or museum, or swank along South Bank – anything to get out. She’s going to wear some cute new navy and white cut-off pants and white top (great against a good tan); she’s going to wear mascara and red lipstick – she will look like an Italian fimstar. She will not be invisible! (I hope that Geoff, her husband here in England, will not mind that I gave Mary a bit of a pep talk!)

What do you do? We all ask that of strangers when we meet socially – don’t we? Or, if the person is young we add the word “want” –  What do you want to do? My problem has never been in putting these questions to others but always in answering them sensibly.

Why only yesterday Chris and I were at Rosie’s dinner party for nineteen people (and very charming it was in the big barn which has a retro-chic, rather Bohemian-style, interior); some of the guests we had never met before, and amongst those was an artist whose reputation and work I was familiar with – the barn used to be his studio (now he works and lives primarily in Barcelona). He’s an attractive man – imagine a cross between Richard Burton, Tom Jones and Dylan Thomas (maybe he has some Welsh blood in him) – and you can tell he’s an artist by his hair, thick and slightly dishevelled, and the flair with which he carries off wearing a green scarf and woolly jumper. Somebody must have told Mike the artist what I do and, towards the end of the dinner party, he collared me.

“What do you paint?” he asked.

Now you might think that is a simple enough question, but considering that most people within a three-mile radius (the epicentre of my fame) know me or, at least, know of me, I was taken aback a little.

“I used to be a portraitist, mainly, but now I paint anything,” I said rather lamely and boringly.

Modesty prevented me from elaborating and awkwardness made me wish that Mike would talk about himself, or something else. We talked about Dawlish: our views on my hometown (and his for a time) were two sides of the same coin – my side was the shiny one.

Later on, whilst pondering over the peculiar conversation and my inability to talk with ease about one of the things I love to do nearly every day of my life, I recalled another conversation I had several years ago with the then retired head of the art department at my old college. We met quite by chance at an art exhibition.

“Hello Sally!” an aging gentleman beamed at me.

“Hello John!,” I began after the pause of recognition, “How amazing that you can remember me after all this time, especially as I dropped out in my first year!”

“How could I forget you? Do you remember your interview? We wanted to laugh…” he chuckled.

“No, it was so long ago. What on earth did I say?” I dreaded to think what he was about to tell me.

“Well, the other tutors and I were sat behind my table and you were sat on a chair in front of us. You were wearing a wearing a red, white and blue striped miniskirt.” (I remembered that nice miniskirt and nodded.) “And, when the others had finished asking their questions, I asked you, ‘What to you want to do in life?’ and you said….” John tried to hold back his laughter.

“What did I say? Become a famous painter?”

“You said, ‘I want to marry a millionaire’!”

How embarrassing! At my art college interview! Remembered forever, not as a great artist or writer, but as a comedy act! But it did sound like me. Please, let’s not talk art or what I do or want to do – what do you do?

Try as I did, it was impossible to keep to my diet over Christmas and the lost pounds found their way back home – oh dear! Luckily, Chris put on the same amount so we don’t notice the difference in each other (a bit like aging together). However, we can feel it and we’re starting afresh as of today. I’m not sure, but our decision to be good may have been inspired by an unexpected visitor we had yesterday morning…

With it being a Bank Holiday we took our time getting up and it was about ten o’clock when the doorbell rang; fortunately, I was showered and dressed but I hadn’t yet brushed my hair or put any make-up on (why is it that people always come when you look ugly?) and I was waiting for my porridge to heat up in the microwave. Chris went to the door.

“Darling,” Chris called as he came down the stairs, “you’ll never believe who it is!”

I started for the bathroom a little too late because our nimble guest, matching Chris’s steps, had reached the bottom of the stairs in no time.

“Nic,” I said, “you look great!”

He certainly looked dapper in a grey woollen three-piece suit and a trilby hat. I looked like a Highland cow that had been pulled through a hedge backwards (and a chubby one at that!) so I didn’t expect my old friend to return the compliment, which was just as well because he didn’t (it would have been fulsome!). We hadn’t seen Nic for about sixteen years. While Chris kindly distracted him with conversation I dashed to the bathroom. Moments later I returned with a Colgate smile, pink lips and slightly less dishevelled hair.

“You look dapper!” I said admiringly.

“I think it’s because I haven’t put on any…” Nic began.

“Weight,” I finished the sentence with him.

“Would you believe that I’m the same weight I was at twenty?” he asked.

I nodded and smiled my surprise. There wasn’t much I could add, seeing that he was twenty-four when we had first met and I couldn’t remember if at that time he had been fatter or thinner than now.

After Nic had gone – over an hour later –  I was pondering on the visit when I burst out laughing.

“What are you giggling at?” Chris was curious.

“You know there was almost an awkward silence when Nic said he was the same weight as he was at twenty?”

“Yes….”

“Well, it’s just come to me. I should have told him that I, too, am the same weight that I was at twenty… when I was nine months pregnant!”

And, just in case you don’t know what Highland cattle look like…..