50 Shades of Dorito

I am a member of what must be the world's best book group. It's very select, there are only 5 of us and we either meet in eachother's houses with plenty of wine, in a bar for cocktails (yes, there is one bar in Wiltshire / Dorset / Somerset that does cocktails) or go on little book group jaunts. I figured that our group might make an appearance in one of these posts so false names have been used to protect the not so innocent. In true juvenile fashion, they're porn star names, so first pet plus mother's maiden name. I can't hide myself because you know who I am but to give you an example, I am Sooty Satchwell.

So, last night was our monthly get together and a standard one goes something like this:

• Arrive
• Open wine
• Bring out Doritos because "Gaynor Raine"  says they're fat free
• Gossip
• Open next bottle of wine
• Finish Doritos
• Discuss said book for perhaps 3 minutes and make appropriate highbrow comments such as " but isn't that bloke such a ****" and "did any of us actually finish this book?"
• Move discussion on to where we might have our next jaunt.
• Open next bottle of wine and more Doritos
• Complain about husbands (Sorry Boy if you're reading this - I bet you complain about me when you play Squash)
• Open next bottle of wine 
• Discuss what we might wear to the cricket club ball
• Choose next month's book.
• Disperse 

The scene of much lounging around discussing Nietzsche and The X Factor

And so it goes on. But occasionally, and nowhere near often enough, we meet somewhere out of our little countryside enclave. Like Monaco.....That was last September and I don't think we discussed a book once during the whole long weekend. We lounged at the beach, drank enough Tatty and Mojitos to revert the UK to non-drought status and still complained about our husbands, but did it somewhere altogether sunnier and much more chic. This year we were planning to repeat but may have to rethink due to marital strife (Rhubarb Hadman's, not mine) which renders the weekend accommodation out of bounds due to the husband in question owning it. Unless Rhubarb can break us in. Any ideas gratefully received.

Moving onto the book of choice for this month. This is always a difficult task as Rhubarb found out last month when she, rather unexpectedly and equally bizarrely, chose Kate Adie's autobiography. After we'd all gone to great expense to order 5 copies, Rhubarb texted us with a plea to change to something slightly less "sh*t". Rather predictably this time we have jumped on the "mummy porn" bandwagon and have gone with "Softy Moore" 's choice of Fifty Shades of Grey. At least I should be able to finish this one in time for next month's gathering as, by all accounts, it takes about 4 minutes to read. It must be a popular read at the moment because "Snooky Dougarry" tells me that when she typed in "Sh" into the search box on Amazon, "Shades of Grey" came up immediately meaning Shakespeare has been knocked off his literary perch by a woman writing for 30-something mothers. I've downloaded it onto my Kindle because at least that way the other passengers on the 9.01 to London Waterloo will assume I'm reading Harry Potter or possibly even something very intellectually taxing. I used to be so anti-Kindle but its advantages are becoming apparent and you don't get Doritos caught between the pages either.