While out walking the dogs, I suddenly felt quite odd. Shaky, and hot, and a little bit dizzy. I had to sit down on a stile.

Other Half was concerned: ‘Are you alright? Do you want me to call an ambulance?’

Me: ‘Not unless it’s manned by two handsome young men.

OH: ‘I can put in a request.’

You can see it now, can’t you? Imagine OH ringing the ambulance service.

OH: ‘I need an ambulance for my wife - she’s come over all funny on our dog walk!’

Ambulance service: ‘What are her symptoms?’

OH: ‘She’s feeling very hot, and she’s shaky. Oh, and she says could she have two handsome young men in the ambulance?’

Ambulance service: ‘How old is she?

*OH answers*

Ambulance service: ‘So … she’s the wrong side of fifty, she’s suddenly feeling very hot and she wants two handsome young men?’ Background laughter. ‘Just leave her to sit quietly for ten minutes. She’ll be fine. Oh, and it might be worth having a word with her doctor about HRT.’

I didn’t get the ambulance. Pity. I still think the two young men would have helped.

‘You’ve abandoned me!’

The frantic wail wafted to my ears from the office. I was puzzled, because I was still sitting exactly where I’d been when Other Half had walked out of the lounge not two minutes earlier. I waited, and after a momet, his footsteps approached.

‘You’ve abandoned me!’ came again the plaintive cry. ‘I’m heartbroken!!!’

What on earth was the man talking about?

Turned out he was talking about dolls.

I had been sitting between him and Fred and now I’d been taken off to another location with Fred, leaving Other Half alone. Well, I hadn’t … the Doll me had. And Fred isn’t really here (sadly), just the Doll Fred. Confused? Let me explain.

A very good Depp friend of mine, who goes by the name of Heathrow for reasons I won’t go into here, took it into her head one day to make little caricature dolls of her friends, based on some cartoony drawings which another friend had done. They are really quite enchanting, and somehow, despite being cartoony, they really do seem to look like us. She is very talented.

So, then she made some caricature dolls of Johnny Depp characters for her most favoured friends, of whom I am honoured to be one. Normally, Me Doll sits next to Fred Abberline Doll on my desk, but we had spent a week with OH Doll - for he had been honoured with one too. Anyway, I was asked to take some photos so I’d moved them all around, and that’s what caused OH to have a little mini-meltdown.

Oh, sod it. Go read the story of the dolls over here - Yellow Swordfish tells it so much better than I do! But don’t get excited - Heathrow doesn’t take orders.

Planning our upcoming holiday which includes a stay in Las Vegas -

Me: Do you wanna see a show?

OH: Maybe.

Me: We could go and see Bette Midler.

OH: I’d rather not …

Me: Oh, look - The Chippendales are on!

*Pause*

OH: Bette Midler sounds good!

You may have heard of this little gym machine.

The iGallop purports to provide you with a horse-riding experience in the comfort of your own home, and the suggestion is that if you ride it diligently for fifteen minutes a day, it will whittle away inches from your waist while you read or watch TV, having insane amounts of fun at the same time.

Being a fundamentally lazy person who hates the gym and needs to whittle inches - and who used to thoroughly enjoy horse-riding in her younger days - I decided to look into getting one. There’s not a great deal of hard information out there on the internet about it, although there are many different versions available from different manufacturers ranging from the iJoy Ride (also available in the UK) to this one from Panasonic which looks much more like a saddle, and including the giggle-inducing horse scooter (yes, this a bona fide exercise machine, but this one’s for children, folks).

The trouble is that these things don’t seem to be taken too seriously by a lot of people, and if you watch some of the videos available on You Tube, you can see why. Not to put too fine a point on it, some of the ladies seem to be having a little too much fun, and the guys can’t keep a straight face either. However, all joking aside, as a core exerciser, the manufacturers claim they help to work the abdominals, and like a lot of women, I do seem to have a problem with acquiring anything approaching a flat stomach. I’ve been having trouble with back pain, too, so I asked my chiropractor if she thought it might be useful, and she said yes, if used daily, she thought that it would.

So, at the beginning of the year Other Half very kindly bought me an iGallop, whereupon I promptly put my back out riding in his new Audi (don’t ask), and the thing sat in the spare bedroom until February, when Kim the Chiro gave me the all-clear to begin trying it out. As befits a woman with a passing interest in science, I first measured my waist - 34 inches - and on the 21st February, I began a daily routine of 15 minutes on the iGallop before my morning shower.

It is now 20th April, and this morning I measured my waist again. During the last two months I have been keeping an eye on my diet, but I have lost no weight, and yet this morning I am happy to say that my waist now measures 33 inches! Yay! Result!!

The iGallop IS fun. But no, there is no way on earth I could read while bouncing around like that. However, there is one more invaluable benefit to report - since that day in February, my posture has improved out of all recognition, and I think for that reason alone it’s worth the cost and the house room.

Go on. You know you want one!