This Time Next Year

When her decree absolute arrives in the post with her 50th birthday cards Alison Turner wonders if middle age life can get any worse. When the highlights of the last year include being told off by the plumber for 'putting feminine items of hygiene down the lavatory', and her husband leaving her for a 28-year-old 'bimbo', it's easy to understand why Alison exclaims in her diary, 'I do not want another year like that. I must get a new plumber.' But if the romantic aspect of Alison's life leaves a lot to be desired (including sex, which is something the rest of her family appear to be enjoying) the everyday aspect is full of incident. In a year of well-intentioned ineptitude, as Alison records in her diary, she is thrown out of a pub for the first time in her life, begins to diet eight times (at least), finds out twelve unappealing things about dogs and discovers that first impressions can sometimes be misleading.