I have an older sister and she is one of those people. You know the ones. She is one of the beautiful people. That's not to say I am ugly. I am quite pretty, except when I am standing next to her. I tend to fade into the background then. I am quite used to hearing people say things like 'your sister got the looks in your family' and 'Christ, your sister is gorgeous.' Usually people of course went on to over compensate with things like 'you are pretty too' or 'you have the better personality.'

When I was in my teens, I have to admit, I dreaded bringing guys home. One look at my sister and they would turn to jelly. She hardly paid them any attention. She was usually older than them and usually preoccupied with some drop-dead gorgeous guy. My sister never dated someone for his personality and she never dated ugly. She always went for the best looking guy in the room. I always found that I could never hold a conversation with her boyfriends, they rarely had anything much to say.

When she got married, I was relieved. It was a lot easier to introduce my married older sister, though guys still did the whole eye popping thing when they saw her. She was very content being a wife and very quickly a mother, and even after six pregnancies and a tragedy, she still is one of the most beautiful people I know.

By the time I met Mac and He and I became friends, my sister had five children at home under the age of 10. She didn't have a social life and lived through mine. I would drop by her house at 6am on my way home from a night out and know that she would be awake with one or another of the children and we would have coffee and I would tell her where I had been and what I had done and who I had seen. She noticed that I started to talk about this Mac guy. I would apparently talk about Him a lot.

I told her He was a gorgeous but arrogant Welsh rugby player. A real cocky, sure of Himself type man that was a good friend to have. She wanted to know more. I told her that there wasn't much more to tell but I was sure that if she came out with me one night, we would bump into Him somewhere in our travels. She decided that she needed to know about this man her little sister was obviously infatuated with. She was sceptical about Him. (My track record with men was not wonderful.) Even though Mac and I were not even close to dating, she wanted to know what it was that had me so enthralled.

So we went on a girl's night out. I figured that there was a good chance that Mac wouldn't be at any of the places that we went too and I would have been happy with that. I didn't want Him to meet her. I knew that Mac's perception of me would change. I would become 'that good-looking girl's sister' again.

So of course Mac showed up at the first place we were at. I was ordering drinks at the bar when I heard Him say hello to me. I think I about jumped out of my skin. We bantered back and forwards a bit and I avoided going back to the table as long as I could, I knew He would follow me back there. In the end, He asked where I was sitting and I told Him that I was with my sister and I saw an evil gleam in His eye. He wanted to meet her. I took Him to our table.

He was awful. Truly awful. He teased her and flirted with her and had her completely tongue-tied. She wasn't sure if she should blush or preen or wet herself. She could hardly breathe. Then He did the one thing that was sure to keep her attention, He ignored her. He moved on to talk to someone else and paid her no more attention at all. She never took her eyes off Him. I hated her for that. Mac on the other hand had truly moved on. He told me later that He liked her well enough, she just wasn't as much fun to be around as I was. I seriously could have kissed Him. The way she looked didn't matter to Him.

Things are comfortable between my sister and Mac now. I think for just that night, Mac was the wicked boy that would slide His tongue in your mouth while kissing you under the mistletoe and leave you weak kneed as He walked back to His girlfriend, the 'bad' boy that makes even the most staid of women shiver.

It was funny when almost 18 months later I told her that Mac and I were seeing each other. She blushed and said 'Is that the Welsh rugby player?' I smiled and told her it was. 'It will be hard work, keeping him interested,' she said.

She was wrong.

It has never been hard work at all.