Ladies What Lunch

I used to wonder who these "ladies that lunch" really are. Hanging around Stockton Heath drinking white wine while the rest of us are working, meeting up for a tray of sandwiches after their mid-morning swim at the Park Royal. And then I turned into one. What's next? The vicarage garden party?

I stood in front of the wardrobe wondering what to wear. It came down to a blue hemp skirt (impulse buy, will probably shrink in the wash) and the brown cotton trousers I'd been wearing last night. The latter won, which was unfortunate, because after I'd left the flat I noticed the stain on my right leg where I'd dropped a slice of olive-oil coated tomato the night before. I'll never be sophisticated, for all my Estee Lauder eye-shadow.

Despite her previous procrastinating about Coogee (that it's like Nottingham on a Saturday night), Lynda arranged to meet me at Baruza for lunch, a lovely Italian restaurant with a view of the Pacific and a cracking caesar salad.

"It's to die for" she remarked as she ordered it. "You won't eat for the rest of the day". She was right, it was good, though the penny dropped instantly that thin people stay thin by eating very little; I don't care how big the plate is, lettuce is lettuce is lettuce.

"I'll just have water" she said to the waitress, scotching all my hopes of a nice jug of Pimms and ruling out ice-cream or any other indulgences - there's a certain degree of peer pressure between ladies what lunch but I'd love to see what goes on in private.

It must be nice to be thin, to slide into a belted pair of jeans without having to heave them up across your thighs, (I'm yet to patent the denim shoe-horn, I think it'd catch on), but think of the fun these people are missing, living it up with lettuce and water like a dwarf lop-eared rabbit. It makes you want to scream "live a little! Go on, stick another bar on the gas fire!".

Sheesh.

Anyway, she's booked her flight home, so she doesn't have to worry about spending Christmas in Sydney. "The obese lady is still living in my house in the UK" she said. "I hope she's not wearing out my sofa".