Are you free tonight?

Most of the time my life is an episode of that soap "Doctors' but with a lot less sex. Appointments for this, tablets for that...you get the picture. Let's face it, when you've been married for a while, sex is one of those things you do along with everything else: picking the kids up, making the dinner, mowing the lawn and so on. Far be it from me to suggest that it becomes a matter of routine. I can see you, shaking your head, pretending it doesn't apply to you, but I'm sure it does.

At my reading group we recently read The Slap, and the one thing we all agreed on was that the amount of sex the characters had in the novel was far too much. 'Totally unrealistic' was the chorus of the reading group. So, it's not just me then.

So, what do we do when we get to the routine stage? We apply our imagination. Games, roll play, dressing up. A bit of fun so that for a few moments we can pretend that we are young and sprightly, adventurous and carefree. You've seen those films where the characters decide to meet in a hotel, pretending that they've never met. We watched a film recently in which the characters, who were all single executives, joined a group where you dialled a number and simply said 'Are you free tonight?' and a meeting would be arranged for no-strings-attached-casual-sex.

So, in light of this 'humdrum lets have some fun'  and put some spark back into our sex life attitude, I decide to send my husband a text saying simply 'Are you free tonight?' But, instead of a sexy and enthusisatic response, I get a quizzical phonecall 'What are you on about - you know I'm not out tonight!'

Well, there was no harm in trying.