FOR some, it's heroin; for others, it's alcohol; for me, it's sherbet lemons.

As addictions go, it's not exactly life-threatening. Although I have been known to momentarily lose concentration hurtling along the A64 at 70mph while fiddling with the wrapper of a particularly sticky sweet. But it's not exactly life-affirming either, is it?

I mean, what sort of grown woman craves brightly coloured, sugar-encrusted fizz-bombs that rot your teeth and turn your tongue yellow?

It's all right for kids to enjoy rubbish sweets - it's a grand British tradition, perpetuated by late greats such as Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming - -but it's somehow demeaning if your age is in double digits.

As a child I thought nothing of waltzing into Mr Ali's sweet shop and demanding a 10p bag of his finest confectionery (usually a delirious mixture of black jacks, flying saucers, fruit salads and cola bottles). If I was feeling flush, I would ask him to throw in a sherbet fountain and hang the expense.

Now, however, I can't bring myself to enter one of our few remaining sweet shops for fear of pointing and ridicule, particularly when I only have 10p in my purse (unfortunately, not an uncommon occurrence) which would probably now buy me half a humbug and one suck of a Spangle.

I am reduced instead to buying packets of sweets from supermarkets and hiding them under the rest of my shopping, hoping that no one will notice the glossy packaging poking out from under my organic, hand-knitted, pre-chewed mung beans, or whatever other stupid thing I'm forcing my family to consume that week in the name of healthy eating.

Much as it pains me to admit it, I have even tried to fool the patently uninterested young girls on the tills that the sweets were not for me - heaven forbid - but were instead a treat for my beloved off-spring. "The kids just love these," I say, while waving a bag of strawberry bonbons over my head. "Can't stand them myself, of course, me being a grown-up and everything." Needless to say, the kids don't actually get so much as a sniff of them.

I have discovered, however, that it is not just me who indulges in this vice. There is a whole industry catering for old saddos who get the shakes if they don't have their daily fix of a sherbet dib-dab.

While doing some important work for the government (okay, I was messing about on the internet in my lunch hour), I found a host of websites dedicated to the pleasures of traditional British sweets. From AQuarterOf.co.uk and abagof.co.uk to sweetsunlimited.co.uk and barleysugar.com, all tooth-rotting life was here. To say I was excited at my discovery is an understatement. I was as chuffed as a teenage boy who has just found his first porn site.

There was even a confectionery top ten for me to drool over, with flying saucers holding on to the top spot despite stiff competition from black jacks in second and raspberry shrimps (never heard of them myself) in third.

But the best thing of all was the page marked "shopping basket". Not only were there glossy, pornographic pictures of Pontefract cakes and midget gems, there was also an online shop! No more skulking outside sweet shops with the dirty raincoat brigade; no more fibbing to bored checkout girls who are too busy tutting at my choice of magazine to care. Now I can shop with impunity.

My only problem now is where to hide the sweets so the kids can't find them.

(As we're being so open and honest with each other, I have a further confession to make. While writing this I have munched my way through four cola cubes, two lemon sherbets and a pineapple chunk).

Updated: 08:51 Monday, October 11, 2004