I WAS a little disturbed last week when I opened a parcel, addressed to me, to find The Little Black Book of Kama Sutra.

“Maybe your husband is trying to spice up relations,” a neighbour suggested. I very much doubt it, I said, given that he only ever acknowledges that I’m beside him in bed if I accidentally nudge him in the ribs or roll on top of his hot water bottle.

And even if he did suddenly get the urge, he knows full well that I’d rather have a cup of tea and a biscuit. My G-spot is a cup of Good Strong Tetley.

So, who had splashed out £6 to introduce me to the pleasures of the Snake Trap, the Crab Embrace and the Elephant Posture?

It was a bit unnerving, flicking through the 190 pages, with positions ‘To Make the Missionary Blush’. The illustrations certainly made my youngest daughter and her friend collapse in fits of laughter. I opened the package in front of them, then found myself having to fervently deny having sent for it myself. I could image my daughter’s friend relaying details to her parents. I won’t be able to look them in the eye.

I probably protested too much, but there really is no way I would order that for myself. Its running theme sees the body as a temple; my own is more like a breaker’s yard. And you’d have to be some sort of super gymnast to get into some of those positions. If you ask me, the Kama Sutra is a fast track to A&E, especially if you’re over 50 and scarily unfit.

Although maybe I should be a little more adventurous in the bedroom – it might help me to get toned up. Last week I read about a woman aged 88 who does the splits, and I couldn’t help marvelling at a 79-year-old gran flinging herself about and being swung around by her dance partner on Britain’s Got Talent. They wouldn’t be baulking at these contortionist-friendly diagrams.

Having reached page 20-something – when the man balances on one leg while the woman does a forward roll with her hands tied behind her back, or something like that – I was coming to terms with the fact that my husband must have ordered it to liven up our marriage, when my eldest daughter came in shouting: “Has a book come in the post?”

Without my knowledge, she had ordered it from my Amazon account, for one of her friends. I wasn’t pleased. Even less so now, when I’m being bombarded with emails detailing books about sex, saying: “If you liked the Kama Sutra, you will love this...”