How full or how empty? Who is to know the answer?

Today my posting should be half full - my beloved Spurs got a great result 3-0 against Everton, putting us up to 13th place in the league.

It isn't though - I'm home alone, 'in disgrace' after refusing to support a family charity bash.

I always (perhaps mistakenly) thought that charity was a matter of one's own conscience, not a matter for public scrutiny. My beliefs as a vegetarian and as an animal rights sympathiser have always meant I have had a policy of not eating meat or fish, not using toiletries or cosmetics that were tested on animals and not donating money to charities that are for medical research (they all test). I have stuck rigidly by this 'rule' for more than 25 years now.

My sister has different views, although a vegetarian, she is happy to support charities that inflict (in my view) the most disgusting of tortures on animals that see, hear and feel pain. She even raises money for them.

Tonight she has hosted a ball for a charity that is a research charity and she asked me to buy a ticket. I refused, I thought she'd understand, apparently not - she kept on about it.

Eventually, through a series of misdemeanours and misunderstandings, it was agreed that I'd be an assistant to the photographer. Harmless enough? Far enough away to feel I'd not totally forgone my principles? Maybe if it had stayed there - that wasn't enough though - being there to take photos was regarded as condoning the event and I was asked to try to sell tickets to my friends. No way. That would have been a complete endorsement of the event - something I'd never do.

Everyone has something they are passionate about - I have charities that I support (quietly and without EVER asking my friends and relatives to agree) - I don't disapprove of the desire to do good and even if the 'good' isn't something I'd support I can still see why it's good. So why was a 'polite but firm' 'no - I'm sorry I can't support that' be enough?

Eventually, after a whole string of events, David only narrowly missed upsetting my parents and I have upset them by not going to the event. My sister was enraged at my refusal to wear a ball gown (as the photographer's assistant). I can't understand why it's such a big deal - I only ever agreed to be there in a work capacity.....I have never hidden my views on vivisection and surely it's such an emotive subject that one can't not care one way or the other.

Furthermore, the charity is one that researches a particular birth defect that is so rare that only one on several hundred thousand children suffer.

My sister has been very supportive of me since I split up with my husband and in all my recent troubles. I have been very grateful for her kindness and generosity - it was never a problem if I phoned her three times a day when I was on my own and lonely. She somehow seems to feel as though I would have behaved differently if it had been one of my friends but not so - the only difference would surely have been that they would have accepted my refusal to participate and not kept pushing until my position became impossible.

It's all beyond me - I don't want a life filled with animosity and rage even though somehow I seem to court it at the moment. All I want is to be allowed to make a stand about something I care about is that so wrong?