After working for 9 and a half hours on Monday, with only a half hour break, and coming home to make dinner for Steve and myself, I stood at the sink and ached. My back ached, my feet were sore, my head was pounding. I had a glimpse of what my mum had to go though when I was a kid. Working all day at school, on her feet, taxi the kids around in the car in the afternoon and then come home to cook dinner for everyone.

It's hard to think that I'm entering that phase of my life where things are starting to ache and fall apart. It's hard to get up some mornings and it doesn't take long to be tired and sore. I don't think there is anyway that I could have imagined this happening when I was a kid. I know Mum said to me, as she stood over the sink peeling the potatoes, "Paula, try to imagine what it's like to work all day and come home and have to make dinner!" but I couldn't. You just can't until you experience it. And now I have.

Strange. So much of life has to be experienced or we'll never get it.

So here's to getting older and feeling sore and achey, now I know what it's like.