Blood sweat and tea

First, Shelley Von Strunckel in the Sunday Times seemed very sure I was going to fail my A levels, and embark on a long life as a professional beachcomber, reciting William Blake while I walked along the sand as a tribute to my former life as an academic.

"Aquarius: While you're losing one dream, you're being cornered into pursuing something deeply unappealing" she trilled, a sentiment I should have known not to believe had I been thinking rationally because she's promised me three tall, handsome strangers in the past five months.

But believe I did, and wrong she was.

Also liars, though far more noble ones, are the nurses who took my blood when I went to donate it last Monday.

I don't know what it is that makes me buy their age-old spiel (perhaps I think the happy buzz of altruism will act as some kind of local anaesthetic), but when they say I'll just feel a small scratch, I expect to just feel a small scratch.

Suffice to say (in the words of a verbal reasoning exercise circa year eight) small scratch is to actual experience what Michael Fish's high winds were to the hurricane of '87.

After the shrieking and sobbing (me) and laughing and name-calling (nurses) have subsided, I am then left with the awkward task of making conversation through my pain.

Averting my eyes from the pint of red stuff being sucked into a plastic bag disturbingly similar to a Capri-Sun packet, we cover all the appropriate nurse/patient topics'¦ uni, holidays, the weather and such, during which I pour all my energy into suppressing the natural urge to quote Tony Hancock.

At least half a dozen perfect moments for quipping "a pint? That's nearly an armful!" arise and are quashed, and I am proud to have postponed turning into my father for at least another afternoon.

Meanwhile, my friend Lizbob '” real name protected for legal purposes '” reclines on the bed next to mine being notably more laid-back (ah, sweet pun) about the process.

This is hardly surprising, as because it is her second time as a donor she has just been awarded a complimentary key ring, and everyone knows the powerful numbing effect that freebies can have on the circulatory system.

I've been known to feel faint for days after pocketing a sample sachet of moisturiser.

However, this attitude also seems true of Lizbob's blood, which takes an idle seven minutes to exit her elbow while mine is a speedy three.

This is the only race I've ever won, and I feel suitably smug.

"Are there any questions you would like to ask?" says Nice Irish Nurse as she yanks out the needle.

I rack my brains for an enquiry that will make me seem intelligent, generous, witty or any of the above.

Unfortunately, no such question exists and so instead I ask: "Those people on the advert with the celebrities'¦the ones that gave blood and saved the lives of the relatives of people from Corrie'¦. surely they aren't the ACTUAL blood donors, are they?"

Nice Irish Nurse assures me that they are indeed actors, and I settle back for my 10-minute lie down satisfied that one of my Big Life Questions has been answered.

Another of my Big Life Questions: "Whatever happened to those Tuc biscuits with the cheese in the middle?", is answered later when we reach the refreshments table.

Clearly, the NHS has been stockpiling them to entice potential blood donors, a wise move. While I do a celebratory jig around the orange squash dispenser, Lizbob is decidedly less impressed.

"I feel a bit faint," she says, and promptly keels over.

Instantly an army of clucking nurses descend like compassionate vultures, fanning, prodding and temperature-taking in a slightly-too-cheerful manner that suggests they might have been taking bets on which of us would pass out first.

Also amusing is that they seem to think I am genuinely worried '” they keep patting my arm and cooing: "She's going to be fine, she's going to be fine".

I, however, am precoccupied with trying to remove the cheesy filling from the Tuc biscuit sandwich in one go as I could in my youth, and have barely noticed that my pal is now horizontal on a stretcher.

Eventually, when Lizbob has been deemed sufficiently sturdy to sit upright and eat shortcake again, and I have worked my way through a year's back copies of Woman's Weekly, we leave, pumped full of orange squash and an armful of blood lighter.

But we are now officially Good People '” we have stickers that say so.

Yes, I've learnt a valuable lesson of late: both nurses and astrologers lie.

But nurses have good cause, and even better biscuits.

Now THAT'S what they should put on the advert.