Well perhaps the best thing of all about the evening was that I found I could squeeze into my sparkly dress!  I’ve had that dress for longer than I’ve been a married/divorced woman.  It must be 25 years old.  It’s stretchy black lycra-stuff (probably from before lycra was invented) with tiger-stripes of sightly faded gold sequins. Mutton dressed as lamb but whatever.

And maybe the worst thing was that, as I was sitting down, I had a suspicion that the bottom bits of my Spanx were showing, as it’s too short.

Beautiful Nell asked each of the packed audience of six ladies and one man what they were reading at the moment (neither my potential date, nor the journalist-chap had shown).

“I’m a bit too busy to read at the moment,” replied two of the women.  Eh? I thought this was a Book Club!

“I’ve been recommended something called ‘You and Him’ or something,” said another.

Blimey! A book I’m familiar with!

“Perhaps you mean ‘Me Before You’ by Jojo Moyes I said, knowledgeably. “There’s a blockbuster film about it which you’ll have to be in the right mood to watch, because it will make you cry and cry.”

“I’m about to start Sapiens,” the fourth lady told us.

“Oh – the ironically titled ‘a brief history of humankind’ which is 900 pages long, and all the ladies on the beach in Spain were giving up on?” I responded.

No one laughed.

I was so grateful to my friend Karen, who, back in the day, was a deb who befriended Ex, when he was a ‘Deb’s Delight’ during his time at university in London, as she chatted away enthusiastically about the sort of literature that none of the rest of us will ever get anywhere near to.

Much as I enjoy the subject of ‘Moi’, in practice it was quite awkward not really being in a position to be able to engage with anyone attending about what interests them. There was not a great deal of reaction to anything I said, almost nobody had looked at my book, and I really don’t think they were there in order to find out more about what I have done.  It’s more of a social occasion – an excuse to  come out for a jolly evening, and possibly meet a bloke.

It was fun that the one chap there was most courteous to us all, and taller and weighed more than me.

All in all, an interesting, enjoyable and relaxing introduction to what it could be like if I were a proper author. Complete with exposed underwear.