How I fell in love after Snowdon

I have never been talented at dating. But now that I am out and about again, four years after having had a child, I'm a walking disaster area at the ripe old age of 38.

Bits of me are not quite what they used to be. My boobs have all the dignity of a pair of flip-flops. And, to my horror, I recently discovered when I was frantically waving at my son to cheer him on at his sports-day egg and spoon race that my upper underarms have started flapping. Very attractive. But, worse than that, my teeth are losing their grip. An age-old bridge has fallen out, leaving me with a yawning gap in the front of my mouth. The timing could not have been worse - it coincided with my first date with Martin, the new man in my life. My mother sweetly reassured me that nobody would notice. My hairdresser thought otherwise: "Quite frankly, Melanie, you ought to be going out with a paper bag over your head."

I met Martin in November last year through a mutual friend at a supper party in Streatham.

In order to save money on baby-sitting, I'd decided to take my son, Jasper, with me - the idea being that he would fall asleep in the taxi on the way so that I could pop him into my friend's bed until we were ready to go home.

Until then, I had barely been out in the evening because Jasper had been such an appalling sleeper that I was in a fog of sleep deprivation. Plus, until last Christmas, when I handed in my notice to spend more time with my son, I had been in a full-time job, working as a features editor for a weekly magazine. An evening out stole precious moments with my boy.

The traffic from Hammersmith, where I live, was so bad that night that the journey took long enough for the taxi driver to give me his telephone number and a bill for £50. Jasper, dear love, had stayed awake throughout until the last two seconds before we reached the door. So I arrived in a complete fluster. "No, no, don't worry about it at all," said my dinner companions when I had apologised for keeping them waiting an hour and a half. Martin had been placed next to me. He was fun to talk to and exceptionally nice. He gave me a lift home with my for-once comatose boy in my arms.

Four days later, Martin rang to ask me out for dinner but we were unable to hook up for another three weeks. It was then that I lost my tooth. My dentist insisted that I should replace it with an implant - in other words, weeks and weeks of still having a horrid gap in my mouth. Out of sympathy, the dentist constructed a denture for me which gave me a lisp when I talked (I hoped it would sound attractive).

It arrived just in time for my date. We arranged to meet at Fortnum and Mason, where Martin, who is a big cheese in the City, had been invited to spend an evening shopping. My plan was to arrive with denture intact and, when we moved on to Che in St James's for dinner afterwards, discreetly remove it to eat my supper.

However, I was so late that I was thoroughly discombobulated and instead of getting smoothly and elegantly out of the car that Martin had sent to pick me up, I trod firmly on his feet. We were sitting down to eat before I knew it. A few seconds after munching a slice of Parma ham my denture popped out of the side of my mouth. The humiliation was ghastly. I still blush at the memory.

Aside from coping with missing body parts, I'm finding out that dating as the single mother of a child is an art form. In the old days, I would have been able to drop everything at a moment's notice. But now a trip to Wimbledon or dinner at Daphne's involves hefty negotiations with not just one diary but four: mine, Jasper's (he has a more active social life than I do), Martin's and my baby-sitter's. I do not have full-time childcare any more and coping with my work as a freelance writer, nurturing my son and maintaining my new social life is one mammoth juggling act.

I have managed to book two baby-sitters for one evening twice, and on one occasion none at all. Jasper has until now enjoyed my undivided attention. A new person in my life has been an enormous threat to him and he has found it understandably confusing.

"Mama, do you have a daddy like Martin?" he asked in the car one Sunday evening when we were returning from a weekend spent at Martin's house in the country.

I asked whether he was asking a mummies and daddies question. "Yes," he responded. I explained that some mummies and daddies stay together, but others, like the parents of his friend Luke and his own mummy and daddy, break up.

"We have a new friend in our lives," I said. "And that is Martin."

Fortunately, Martin, who is a 51-year-old divorced father of three, is gifted with children. When he first came to my house, he arrived not only with a present for me but also one for Jasper. It is Jasper who has been slow to win over but he now adores Martin.

This goes with the territory. The child of my friend Charlotte, who is also a single mother, has been equally cautious about the new man in her life whom she met a few weeks after I was introduced to Martin. "Here comes the monster," Ludo screeched when Charlotte's "hot date" arrived for the first time at her door.

Jasper is particularly observant. "Charlotte?" he asked my friend after one sleepover at her home. "Why does Jack keep coming to the house?" he said in reference to her boyfriend. "Because he likes to see me and Ludo," she responded, to which Jasper retorted, quick as a wink: "I would much rather go to the zoo."

Going away for a romantic weekend has proved to be a problem. When Martin took me to Sydney for a week, Jasper felt my absence deeply, despite the fact he had a heavenly time in Dorset staying with my mother.

"Mama, you are going to die, aren't you," he queried softly, shortly after I got back. "Yes, but hopefully not for a very long time," I replied. "That's OK," he said, "because I have got Mini and Peppie (his names for my mother and stepfather) to look after me and Uncle Massimo and Auntie Louise."

Jasper had highlighted the one big fear I have, raising my child totally on my own: what will happen to him if something happens to me? At the ripe old age of four he had thought this through and come up with his own solution. For my part, I resolved never to travel so far away from my son again.

But aside from that, and my own hopelessness at the game, dating has been terrific fun and full of laughter. Martin has ignored my shortcomings and I now have a brand new tooth. My wardrobe has also been given a lift. Having rarely been out after my child was born, I possessed a motley collection of clothes consisting mainly of a few tired pairs of jeans, hardly appropriate for Covent Garden or an event at Spencer House.

A girlfriend solved that problem by whisking me off to Selfridges one morning and offering me the services of her store card. And my glamorous, fashionable and extremely loving sister Louise, who lives in Milan, has been generous in donating her designer clothes.

So far, Jasper hasn't abused my new outfits too much. Although he once managed to pee over me just as I was going out for the evening, and another time covered a Joseph outfit in honey hand prints as he was hugging me goodbye. And I have been lucky in that I have Charlotte on the dating game too. Most of our friends have been married for years and look at us as if we have grown two heads when we talk fluffily about our new relationships.

As for me, I am a happier and a less single, single mother than I was this time last year.