I felt like a Queen for a day... then reality intruded big time!

Well, hasn’t life a way of taking you down (in your own view, at least) a completely unnecessary peg or two.

You return from an awards ceremony during which you and other journalists from different newspapers around the country are presented with beautifully crafted trophies and framed certificates.

You’ve all been congratulated, hugged, had your hands shaken, and listened delightedly to nice things being said about you.

Everyone enjoyed free drinks, was fed a splendid meal, received celebratory texts, met old friends, and was feted from here to Kingdom Come. And you, for one, had felt like one of those Queens for a Day.

You drive home, your trophy nestled in a fleece blanket in the back seat.

Once you get into the house, you arrange it with care on the mantelpiece.

You stand back and survey it with pride.

Then you start unpacking the car while your husband goes off to collect the dog.

“Now,” you think, “I’ll just unpack, put a wash on, get everything put away and get the dinner on.”

After that, because you’re still feeling like a Queen for a Day, you decide to treat yourself to a luxurious shower with that new Ayurveda Rejuvenating Salt Scrub with Almond Oil and Indian Rose plus matching shower gel, after which you’ll put on some, yes, matching body cream, from that as-yet-unopened gift set that you’ve been saving for a special occasion since Christmas.

Next, you will climb into your favourite garment of all time, a midnight-blue, head-to-toe, fleece-lined, hooded robe, slip into your backless sheepskin mules, and check how the dinner is doing.

Later, you might start watching Breaking Bad again, which, along with Dept Q, The Sopranos, Broadchurch, Shetland, Six Feet Under and the first series of the Lord Of The Rings is one of your all-time favourites.

So that’s what you do. You unpack the bags, start a wash, put away the holdalls, the unworn outfits, the good shoes, the make-up, and the jewellery.

This process all takes somewhat longer than expected. You seem to have packed quite a lot for this trip.

Eventually, though, it’s done and you’re ready. You collect your Salt Scrub and matching shower gel, pull open the shower door, and prepare to step in.

Except.

There are some very unattractive spots of black mould here and there in the grouting near the shower floor.

Gasp. Yeuch.

Where did this come from?

Cautiously, you lean in. You pull up the lid of the floor filter. Things here are not much better.

Ah now, this is completely unacceptable for a Queen for a Day.

Think back, you tell yourself.

Be honest, now.

Er, yeah.

The last time you did a fairly major clean - you know, the kind where you hoover, wash all the floors, dust window-sills and mantelpieces, scrub out the showers, sinks and loos, etcetera, and then get to feel smug for a few hours - was definitely less than a fortnight ago.

So how did this happen?

Ah, now you come to think of it, that particular day you were fed up of the housework by the time you got around to the shower.

The sun had just come out.

You wanted to sit in it for a while and read that best-selling novel you’d just bought, The Wedding People, by Alison Espach, in which a depressed college professor who has just gone through a divorce, arrives to stay in a top-notch hotel which happens to be hosting a posh wedding.

The college professor bumps into the bride and utterly terrifies her by confiding her plans to end it all that very night with an overdose of tuna-flavoured painkillers.

The reviews were excellent, so, well, you never did get on with cleaning out the shower.

Two questions now occur to you.

How did this stuff grow there so fast?

And would Queen Rania of Jordan step into that?

No idea.

And absolutely not.

You slam the containers of fancy salt scrub and shower gel back on the shelf, and stamp back down the stairs for the bleach spray and the strong stiff brush.

You scrub the bits of mould out of the grout and then, for good measure, brush down the shower walls and floor and scour out the floor filter.

By the time you’re finished, you’re feeling a bit less like a Queen for a Day, but the shower is spotless.

You shower with the posh body products, towel off, apply the body cream and dry your hair.

Finally, you’re ready. You slip into your comfy sheepskin mules and reach for the midnight-blue fleece-lined robe.

Just as you are about to pull it over your head, you notice dried-in food-stains down the front of it.

Recently, you recall, you ate a curry while wearing it.

And now your robe is wearing the curry.

Queen for a Day?

Not anymore.