Opinion  

I ask to see, and Juliet removes her scarf. It becomes clear that only two explanations are likely. One is that Castle Hedingham is beset by aged and edentate vampires. The other is that Juliet has a boyfriend.

I put this to her as delicately as can, and she looks defiant. 'I'm using zineryt,' she says.

It seems a complete non sequitur unless you ever tasted spot cream. Believe me, you'd have to be really hungry to finish a whole portion.

Poor Romeo can't kiss Juliet's face when it's smeared it with toxic substances. They have decided he must be allergic, and anyway she wants to go on the pill.

As the consultation meanders on through the field of Gillick and rivers of Fraser, I recall the night I slept in my car near Carlisle. I was too tired to keep driving, so pulled the trusty Landrover off the M6 and into a lorry-lined layby where, convinced that the dark silent trucks were full of psychopathic sex offenders I decided to clean my teeth in the dark before sleep, thus not revealing that I was not a six foot navvy with a tattoo of Marilyn Monroe on my bottom. Never reveal you're a woman travelling alone. My mum told me that.

Unfortunately the darkness failed to reveal that Colgate was not the only tube in my bag. When I put the brush into my mouth it was immediately apparent I'd used my daughter's panoxyl.

With a shriek I flung open the car door, thus illuminating the scene perfectly to all the waiting rapists as I leapt forth spitting. The layby held its collective breath and waited. Nobody moved. I suspect lorry drivers are warned about women like me - they pull into laybys looking demure, but if you reveal that you're a bloke on his own in a truck they morph into that girl in The Exorcist.

Never reveal you're a man alone in your cab. Their mums told them that.

Juliet is looking at me expectantly. 'What shall I tell my mum about the bruises?' she asks, as I write a prescription for panoxyl and microgynon.

Tell her, I say, we can stop that happening. And I've prescribed you some cream for your neck. Use plenty.

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