I am well up for trying anything that helps keep the decrepitude of old age at bay a bit longer. Like most baby boomers, I see it as my solemn duty to keep fit, walk, get my 5 a day and try to keep the old grey cells active.

"Use it or lose it" so they say. However, a new fad has come along, and I refuse to get caught up in it.

I'm talking about sex. Or, to use the fashionable term, libido.

It's not that I haven't had a libido. I was an early adopter in that department. A local ska band, The Specials, had a hit with "Too Much Too Young". That was me. I had a libido alright and it got me into a fair few pickles I can tell you.

When it died, I did think I ought to do something about getting another one, but then I though Nah, there's too much to catch up with on Netflix. As well as the effects of age, the anti-depressant I have taken for years is another factor. It is apparently one of the reasons why some people won't try medication. I just don't get the logic, surely nothing can be a bigger passion-killer than depression?

Lately, you can't pick up a paper or magazine without reading an article by some old dear, who says sex has never been better. Who are you kidding love? We all know the editor asked you to knock out a few thousand words to that effect, but in a few months you'll be writing about the joys of celibacy.

Apparently, as an older woman, I should be begging my doctor for testosterone patches. Even if I could feel romantic sporting a beard and a face full of acne, what would I do with this libido?

My other half and I have been together for so long we are more like brother and sister. There have been phases in the past when we have made half-hearted attempts to liven things up a bit. "Romantic" European city breaks for instance. The problem was we were always more keen to find good places to eat.

"Tell your partner what gives you pleasure" is another piece of advice. I do this all the time. Just this morning I said to him "It would really please me if you cleaned the windows".

I am trying to imagine how I might break the news to him that a bit of "How's yer father" was back on the menu. Not when he comes in tired and stressed from work. The first thing he has on his mind is to open up the dishwasher, tutting at my lack of system. Maybe at the weekend, when he's in his shed examining bits of wood. The image that comes to mind is that of a rabbit caught in the headlights.

I don't want to get a lover either, thank you very much. It always involves taking your clothes off, or at least some of them, and I can't be doing with it.

For those of us who suffer from depression and anxiety, the pressure to keep sexually active is just one more thing to fail at. The holy grail for me at such times is a good nights' sleep, preferably alone. A kindly word, a hug, can express love more effectively than any amount of sex, at this point in my life.

It is quite enlightening when your hormones go away. You realise how much of your reaction to the opposite sex has just been mother nature urging you to procreate. I enjoy the company of men so much more now that I am not assessing them, and they are not assessing me. Of course, I'll still keep taking the vitamins and slapping on the creams, but when it comes to libido, I think Mother Nature knows best.

Valerie.

A Moodscope member.