I was talking to some people the other day about lifestyles. Most people's idea of lifestyle seemed to be the café society-type, where we flit from a café latte meeting in town to one at the beach.

Apparently, living the life is about eating out and globe trotting.

The other people in the conversation told me, sympathetically, that I would get a lifestyle again in a few years when my children are older, or sooner if I would just allow myself to date. Man equals lifestyle too, apparently.

It really made me think. Being confronted with nonsense will do that. I decided that I have a great lifestyle and it is very much the one I chose for myself. It didn't just befall me.

My lifestyle is based around being the mother of three children. We do everything together and for now at least I do not pine for a man, John Travolta fantasies notwithstanding. We eat out together — we are part way through our plan to eat a different type of food for every letter of the alphabet. We travel together and love to plan our next adventure while we're still on the current one.

Everything I want to do with my life, I am doing. With my kids. It's great.

I certainly don't need the sympathy of onlookers thinking I need their idea of a lifestyle, which in their minds always seems to include a man. I think my moving beyond divorce lifestyle is so great there would be millions of women around the world who would love to walk a mile in my shoes.