YOU know you're getting old when you start putting together a scrapbook.

Or planting a herb garden. Or creating your own greetings cards.

These are just some of the activities I've tried my hand at in the last few months.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that you can tell the real age of a person by checking out their hobbies.

Even having what you'd term a “hobby” is a bit of a giveaway.

Sooner or later in every girl's life out goes the endless hunt for the perfect pair of jeans and in comes a more constructive type of hobby — cooking, appreciating fine wine, making things.

I wonder if men suffer from this condition; is that when they take up fishing and golf, perhaps?

Signals that you're on your way to old age include a compulsion to start tracing the family tree, a penchant for any kind of collectables (I'm sorry, but I'm including those Pandora bracelets), and a desire to take up any type of sewing, stitching, or crafting (I don't care how many times the papers tell us that Angelina, Elle, and Julie into it, knitting still, isn't cool).

But, do you know what? Once you bow out of the race and admit to yourself that you don't actually want to be in the pub every single night, you're actually better off.

Once you admit that you're happier walking your dogs or taking a night class in pottery than downing vodka and lemonades, you can only prosper if you ask me.

Getting older, I've decided, is not dissimilar to that time of life when you’re about 13, before you've discovered boys, alcohol and nightclubs.

It's like you get your free time back to start appreciating things you've ignored for years.

So I'm vowing to carry on with my hobbies. Next on the agenda are clothes-making and painting.

Don't worry though, I'm not about to start sitting at home on the sofa under a tartan blanket buying things from home shopping channels.

Even I have standards.