‘Well, for years you two have been comparing hot flushes and fanning each other, but you never told me the good things about the menopause. I feel, well, liberated! It’s given me licence to behave badly. After decades of mollifying overwrought teens about their pimple breakouts and broken hearts, or pacifying Harry over car dents or shopping bills or whatever, my family will just have to tiptoe around me for a change. The expression “The change will do me good” has never seemed so apt. Yes, I feel guilty that I’m not behaving as a selfless mother should, but maybe I’m feeling guilty because deep-down I’m not feeling that guilty at all!’

I hadn’t meant to say so much, but I was on my fourth glass of champagne and feelings were bubbling out of me. I was more bubbly than the jacuzzi in which we were poaching.

‘Our smashed-avocado-on-toast-munching brunching-snowflake kids are right about one thing, though. We need to live our best lives. Which is why I want to lie in the arms of the man I love and banter in bon mots and down daiquiris, post-coitus, all through Christmas.’

My sisters gave me a pitying stare that said loud and clear that they now suspected our mother must have drunk during her pregnancy with me.

‘Come on!’ I crashed my plastic flute up against their glasses. ‘Be happy for me. It’s our last night at sea and it’s smile o’clock!’

I beamed, basking in the moonlight, before downing my champagne in one jubilant gulp.

‘Oh, and by the way, he’s missing half of one leg.’

24

Planning is a vital part of any trip. Just ask Scott of the Antarctic.

Maybe I was waiting in the wrong place? I had gone out on deck before dawn to watch the ship gliding through the heads of Sydney Harbour, snaking towards the city lights then sliding majestically into port, to dock in the shadow of the Coathanger.

I’d jumped the queue to disembark early, collected my suitcase then taken up my post at the designated spot. Excitement effervesced in me. I didn’t recognise myself – before this cruise the most spontaneous thing I’d ever done was to buy a vacuum cleaner on the spur of the moment, because it was on special, then pay for a taxi to lug it home.

My eyes raked the crowd streaming off the ship. I was searching for his mop of tousled hair, inquiring chocolate eyes and those cheekbones a girl could shave her legs on.