Life

We've all seen it: four girls in Manhattan, shoes to die for, cocktails, brunches, nudeness, rudeness, and copious amounts of men. But six years of glorious, glamorous Friday night entertainment is ending and I could almost weep. Sex and The City is hanging up its Prada dresses and putting away its many Manolo Blahniks.

With the respect and homage the occasion is due, my friends and I plan to see out the last episode with a party: dressed to kill, in true Sex And The City style, with cocktails and, given the emotion involved, plenty of handkerchiefs.

All right, my life does not even faintly resemble that of those well-shod, stick-thin, uber glamorous New Yorkers. True, like Carrie Bradshaw (as played by Sarah Jessica Parker), I write a bit, but I don't wistfully gaze out into the cool American night, fingers lightly gliding over my iMac, with tousled hair and pouting lips, wittily dissecting the psyche of the modern-day relationship. Instead, I try to meet passing deadlines as my four-year-old competes to replace my word documents on the computer with CBeebies, while simultaneously trying to prevent my one-year-old from flooding the bathroom.

Yes, Miranda Hobbes (as played by Cynthia Nixon) goes out to work, and so do I. But I think that wearing 10-centimetre heels, like her, would prevent me from driving to the surgery where I work as a GP. In any case, I'd almost certainly trip up in the waiting room.

Nor can I compete with the sexual exploits of Miss Samantha Jones (as played by Kim Cattrall). During the life of the series, the only thing I've managed to do as frequently is change my children's nappies.

And how on Earth could I identify with the glossy, prom-perfect Charlotte (played by Kristin Davis)? She never leaves her Park Avenue palace without looking manicured and marvellous; I try to leave my suburban Glasgow house in matching shoes, remembering my keys and where I am meant to be going.

For me, the joy of Sex has not been about identifying with the characters. I am not interested in deconstructing the series as an icon of post-feminist, pseudo-ironic, post-modern television. Sex And The City has simply provided a delicious opportunity for voyeurism into a different world. The shallow side of life - when you have a real one with sometimes unpleasant depths - is very appealing. In truth, I don't live and breathe shoes, and neither do my educated, articulate, intelligent friends, who include lawyers, teachers and psychiatrists.

None of us lives like Carrie, fitting spa treatments between personal shopping appointments and front-row seats at fashion shows - but the idea that we could, is deeply appealing. The "urban myth" encapsulated by the show is one that I cling to, especially when faced with an obscenity of ironing, two demanding children, a bad bank statement and a pile of unread British Medical Journals. Sex And The City gave my weekends a certain drama, and it made me wistful for the kind of life I never had.

And the sex. Detail is not possible in a family newspaper, but I now know what kind of men "modilizers" are, and realise that "changing lanes" may not necessarily relate to driving. Perhaps the series has left little to the imagination; no bodily function has been untouched, and there has been frank, liberal discussion of adult accessories. As a woman who competes nightly with nothing more exciting than the writings of Marcel Proust for her husband's attention - (and fails: the count is of seven volumes, both in translation and the original French, since honeymoon) - I am left feeling, frankly, jealous.

But it has been the shoes that have stimulated most discussion among my friends. Ah, the shoes, the shoes. Evolutionary and psychological subtexts on this matter could fill a shopping centre, but essentially, they have been high, glamorous and expensive. Good shoes sweeten life. Pretty toes detract from squishy postpartum stomachs, spots, Christmas excess, or lack of intimacy with a gym. You can show off your toe cleavage without fearing arrest for incitement, and you neither need to underwire or repent with 10 Hail Marys for your trouble. I might not be brave or slim enough to do a whole outfit straight off the runway, but I can wear the shoes without feeling that I have landed ungraciously on the wrong side of 30.

Without the show, how can the illusion that real women need so many shoes be continued? My radiologist friend, Alison, is concerned that without Carrie to compare herself with, her substantial shoe spending will start to look bad. And my psychiatrist friend Leonie, meantime, has consoled herself with the fact that her shoe collection was really rather good retail therapy. "Aha!" we thought to ourselves, "Carrie's sole employment consists of writing one short column per week, and yet she can afford Jimmy Choos in every colour. So why, oh why, can't I?"

One day, standing in Harvey Nichols, I found myself asking precisely this question, knowing, full well that at that moment I should instead be round the corner in the supermarket, buying toilet paper and bananas to mash up for the baby. Instead I was being seduced by a coquettish row of Prada sandals, and the alluring idea that if I had the shoes, I could also have the winning personality, perfectly made-up face, hot dates and drinks in fashionable restaurants.

Although sad to see it go, I accept that Sex And The City has to finish now, before it is too late. For, over the past few episodes, that ephemeral world has been subtly contaminated; infiltrated with the kind of compromise that might actually happen in real life, such as moving to gardened out-of-town apartments, or having to skip cocktails due to babysitter problems.

To make things worse, the girls have all settled down. I don't want to know about the lives of happy-ever-after blissful coupledom, thank you very much. That's what this married mother of two is meant to be having and I don't want to watch anyone else's better-organised, colour co-ordinated version. Even if you accept that mutual domestic satisfaction is a less mythical creation than four happy, rich, workshy, serially dating singletons, there is a problem. Smug home-making is boring. How on earth could they fashion episodes from the characters' dilemmas over whether to opt for carpet or laminate in the nursery, or cook pasta or rice for dinner?

The escapism of Sex And The City has been liberating. I would have had no desire whatsoever to watch four girls wearing crumpled suits and flat comfortable shoes whingeing about how they couldn't get a man. I have much preferred to watch episodes devoted to answering such questions as: is it better to fake it than to be alone? Or, are soulmates a reality or a torture device?

I am entirely willing to overlook the quibbles about how lifestyles were financed, homes were kept beautiful or time made to meet up several times a week, if only for the feeling that, when the girls sat down to brunch, I was right there, in the inner circle too.

And so, this Friday, happily mesmerised by the final episode, I will ignore the overflowing washing basket, dirty dishes and half constructed Lego space rockets lying around. Instead, I will strap on my shoes, pour myself a Manhattan and hope that Carrie and Mr Big (Chris Noth) really do get back together. I reckon that in ending here, the series has pulled it off. For Sex And The City will have managed to come and go from our screens while remaining entirely, fabulously, fictitious.

For it was always going to be impossible to ever truly emulate the Sex And The City girls, who would never dream of staying in to watch the final episode of their favourite show on telly. I might have the right shoes; unfortunately I don't have the right lifestyle to wear them in.

Should rumours that a film is in the offing prove true, however, I will eagerly await the DVD. You see, for six years I happily tottered in heels between kitchen and sofa, fixing cocktails in the Friday night commercial break, and I wouldn't dream of going to see the film without at least trying to dress the part. It's the Cinderella syndrome, except my version comes with nappies and felt-tip on the walls, but no prince or escape-route from cleaning and cooking. It is all but a fairy tale, for happy yet temporary re-enactment in one's own home only. There is, for example, no way that I could wear my favourite Jimmy Choos to the cinema without falling over at least once.

I loved Sex And The City for its escape to glamour and sophistication. I just hope the film, when I do eventually see it, contains no dull tales of wearily blissful domesticity. Now, where would be the Sex in that?

The last episode of Sex And The City is on Channel 4, Friday

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