It could have been knitting or su doku, but there’s a lack of adrenalin in knitting and su doku. I have a need for speed that can only be satisified by riding a600cc motorbike around a racetrack as fast as I can.

Riding motorbikes forces you to concentrate — after all, you could end up as minced meat underneath a lorry or in some idiot’s radiator grill as he turns in front of you without signalling or pulls out blindly from a side road.

When I’m riding my bike (a 1250 Suzuki Bandit) all that I think about is the sound of the engine, the road conditions, other drivers and the vanishing point on the road ahead when cornering. There is a meditative element to any journey, and the joy of handling a piece of machinery weighing 254kg is intoxicating.

In an effort to improve my riding abilities I visited Donington Park race track. I’d booked Graham, a senior instructor with Focused Events, for a track day on the basis that asking for help and listening to advice (and attempting to follow it) can only be a good thing if you want to improve your performance. It’s all about the most effective use of the motorbike’s capabilities within your own capabilities, to ride the best (and therefore fastest) line in 20-minute sessions at a rate of one session an hour for the whole day. The level of concentration required is phenomenal, especially for a beginner such as me; I’m happy in the novices group for the foreseeable future.

My wish to be more able physically to handle motorbikes means that I watch what I eat and go to the gym three times a week. I could argue that riding motorbikes is extremely good for my health — as long as I stay in one piece.

This is no mid-life crisis, unless lifelong passions can be so qualified: at 15 I heard my first motorbike and fell in love with the sound of the engine. I was a pillion passenger on motorbikes in my teens and twenties, and had enough motorbike mishaps to make the decision never to ride pillion again in any circumstances.

Thirteen years ago I was booked to take my motorbike test when I met my ex-husband. In favour of what was going to be my new life I cancelled my test and tried to convince myself that I could live without motorbikes. But I pined so badly that, when I received an unexpected tax rebate at the beginning of 2008, I bought myself a 125 Suzuki to learn on. I rode 3,500 miles on it in a matter of weeks.

I passed my test on a 500cc motorbike last year, having initially failed on the U-turn (twice) despite being able to do them in my sleep. As I gained confidence on the roads I realised that I’d really quite like to hang on to my licence, so I thought it a good idea to put my increasing desire for speed somewhere sensible. I reckoned that if I overcame my feelings of trepidation (abject terror is another way of describing it) and did one track day that I would satisfy my curiosity and never have to do it again.

Getting a motorbike to do what I want on the road is one thing. Making it perform at speed on a race track is another, and a real challenge. However, with really good instruction (and a lot of practice) there has been a definite improvement.

For me, track days are addictive in a matter-of-fact sort of way. I would like them to be factored into my life in the same way as eating or breathing.

If I could do a track day a week I would.