how the other half lives

My father had 3 sisters - one married very well, one married a successful but extremely Bohemian Jewish author (that was a bit shocking, back at the time) and one eloped with a ne'er-do-well. This weekend I went to the birthday lunch of the oldest cousin born of the very good marriage, in Oxford.

There were 80 guests, all her branch of the family, or friends. My table had a Supreme Court judge, the birthday girl's brother (a retired QC), a retired Tory MP, and a semi-retired surgeon. They all have wives who paint, run book-clubs, support the arts and have raised brilliant children. There was a spare man, for me, but as the judge chatted me up throughout the lunch I never got to talk to him. (Have you ever tried to stop a judge talking? Conversation hogs of NOTE.) I'm guessing, though, that he was very eligible.

I think I was the only office-worker in the place, but my blushes were spared, my cousin introduced me to the others at the table as a writer.

Funny thing, if I had married the first man I was engaged to, he would have fitted in perfectly. My current fella would have been considered 'quayte a character' and maybe even 'a jolly good sport'. Nearly all the ones in between - phew. Not at all the thing.

Drove back to where I was spending the night thinking okay, now I know why my daughter wasn't invited. Not because numbers were tight. My own daughter wouldn't have fitted in. Wow.

Am I sorry my life turned off the track I was born into? I have no idea. I don't think I would have made a professional man a very good wife, but then I didn't make a very good wife anyway. It was odd wondering what it would have been like, though. And whether I should have shut the judge up and flirted discreetly with the single man provided for me. Just to see.

There's a sort of a point to this blog. Have you lived the life you were expected to live, or have you gone completely off-piste? And - looking back - do you have regrets about decisions you made?

I don't. Well, except about letting the judge flirt so much with me. Okay I would have had to get up and walk away but I don't think his wife will follow up on my books for her bookclub now.