DAYDREAMS

So a commoner has married a prince and with that unlikely union has realised the dreams of generations of little girls. When I was a child, I was constantly being told that only princesses could marry princes but it didn't stop me having the odd daydream about being whisked down the aisle in a fairy tale dress by my prince charming to a waiting horse-drawn carriage. I wonder if Kate Middleton had the same childlike fantasy.

Anyway, looking at the pictures of the happy couple in the Sunday papers got me thinking about what we wish for and life's harsh reality. I never aimed particularly highly with my dreams. I didn't have the wherewithal to be a scientist who could discover something vital or an inventor of a household object. I had no particular talent that would set me apart on the sports' field or the stage and life wouldn't allow me to marry a prince. But now, as I beetle along in my day to day existence I do wonder at the normality of life.

I, like billions of others, get up, trundle my way through the quotidian chores, relax a bit and then go to bed. I try to do my best, to make sure that the bit that I do is done properly but if an alien sucked up my house in a giant vacuum cleaner no one, bar my immediate friends and family, would notice. I think it's fair to say that I'm not really making a difference to the world order.

Then I got to wondering whether this was a disappointment. I suppose I have the advantage of never actually wanting to be a household name so there has been no catastrophic fall into reality for me. Over the years I have toyed with the idea of what vast wealth might do to my life but I have always been too pragmatic to harbour any more fanciful dreams. The difference is that decades ago life was all ahead of me and something remarkable might have been just around the corner. Now I can take a pretty good stab at where I'm going. It's not disappointing as such but I have caught myself voicing the age old cliché 'Is this it?'

Of course, I am not complaining. My life is good, great in fact. And whilst it might feel a bit like everyone else's, of course it isn't because its mine. But I think I now know that I will never marry a prince or be invited on to 'Desert Island Discs' to share my life story with the nation. I'm just an ordinary woman living an ordinary life and trying to get the most out of every day of it. Something more exciting might have been nice but if it's not meant to be then I can happily settle for what I've got. And  who knows? The unusual bit might be lurking just around the next bend.