I draw on my inner reserves. What can I say? It's all true. I should be in the same boat, yet I find life full of small joys. Putting my slippers on and washing my mascara off. Finding the kitchen sink plug hole bereft of rotting pasta and lettuce leaves, even after the children have been at home all day. Singing along to the 1812 Overture when driving around on visits.

And of course, paint. For me, one of the great pleasures of middle-aged life has turned out to be choosing paint. This is entirely unexpected, as reading The Sunday Times had led me to believe that the pleasures of middle age would consist of suburban orgies, recreational stimulants and ballroom dancing.

The pinnacle of paint choosing is the Farrow & Ball colour wheel, a set of cards showing their entire paint range. It can take many hours communing with the finite differences between 12 shades of cream before the choice is made, and this weekend was even more exciting than usual, as I was looking for a cupboard paint, and I had decided on grey rather than cream.

In the world of Farrow & Ball, though, you can't just have grey. There are dozens of greys. Grey, you see, comes in a myriad of shades and paint finishes, and all must be considered before the final choice.

Hours of simple pleasure pass by, mascara-less and slippered, eschewing suburban orgies and recreational stimulants, not even tempted to tango, immersed in colour and light - until I select lamp room grey.

Even greater pleasure when it arrives and I slap it on joyfully and unprofessionally, painting spiders, splinters and a trapped ballbearing into place too. And today, still picking paint bits out of my hair (I've not gone grey, I've gone lamp room grey) the greatest pleasure of all. Sitting gazing at what I've done.

Mrs Glum though, is full of the emptiness of life, so I try to explain finding pleasure through the medium of paint. She doesn't get it. Perhaps it's just me.

• Dr Selby is a GP from Suffolk. Email her at GPcolumnists@haymarket.com